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Garrett

Had the opportunity to take some awesome autumn Senior photos of Garrett. Even though a lot of color is past already we managed to find some really great places for color. This is such a beautiful time to shoot photos outside! A totally different beauty than summertime, but the colors are just as refreshing and rich!

Learned a ton from Garrett and he was one of the easiest guys to get along with! He has had quite the adventures at new schools as his family has moved quite frequently throughout his childhood. I'm just glad that he decided to settle in Evergreen for his senior year and that I had the opportunity to meet him!

Enjoy some of our shoot!

Playing with Light

After some pouty lips and a few seconds of puppy-dog eyes, I was able to convince Eric to let me practice using remote flashes while he and his pal Todd played some ball. I had a blast trying to work the settings, as using remote flashes is new to me. I am going to invest in PocketWizards as soon as my next paycheck rolls in though! I have been reading up on the Strobist blog lately and I'm really excited to start using flash the way it should be! Enjoy these photos.... Just as I was getting my settings correct, the management came into the gym and said we had to stop using flash because it was "blinding" those who were working out on the floor above. - Photographers never get the respect they deserve. There are always obstacles.

The Roots of America and myself.

The Washington and Jefferson memorials.

This past week I traveled to Washington DC on a whim. My good friends Amie and Albert are spending a few weeks there while Albert is training for his new job and then they will move on to Germany for a year and a half.
I jumped on this opportunity to visit the Nation's capitol and spend some time with my close friends before they continue their adventure overseas.
DC was an amazing place, though I struggled with my photography. The buildings are so gorgeous and stunning, I felt that photographs could hardly do them justice, and even when I thought I could take a worthy photo hundreds of tourists stood in my photographs. So though my photos are limited, I only took photos that were worth taking.
Tourist destinations are so corny to me. Mt. Vernon was gorgeous, but set up for photos. Since my training in photography is all about catching moments I have a difficult time pushing my shutter button when a moment is laid out for you. And in the majority of the situations, my photo would be hard to tell apart from the millions of other photos taken of that same room. That is not my job.
I am a photographer. My passion is to show you everyday life in a way you never thought possible. So though I may get crazy looks from the point-and-shoot tourists for lying on the sidewalk hopefully my photos are better than any normal tourist shot.

Photo courtesy of I Am Alive Photos.


The Iwo Jima memorial. The most disturbing thing about this memorial is that every new war is inscribed onto the base of the sculpture. And it is a very large base with only two lines taken up. only two.


One of the thousands of graves at the Arlington Cemetery.

The Pacific Theater at the World War II memorial. This photo was taken in memory of my grandfather, the thousands of other grandfathers and those who never became grandfathers during WWII.

Alyssa

Had another shoot this afternoon with one cool chick! Alyssa is so much fun to work with, she is totally comfortable in front of the camera. I only had to ask her to pose a certain way a few times. I have an array of gorgeous photos that are well on their way to being produced, but here are just a few to get an idea....

Thanks Alyssa for the fun shoot! Ghettos are totally awesome to shoot in!

16 week count down

This is it. The most important day of the year. No, not your birthday. Not your anniversary. Not even Christmas. It is the first Sunday of the National Football League. A full 12 hours of nothing but guys giving their all to tally up higher numbers than the team they are fighting. This day has been counted down ever since the last second of play during Superbowl in early February.
This day marks something for me to.
As that last second ticked down to :00 I had a pulse of energy surge through my body. The excitement of a full five months of Sundays, free to do whatever I wanted with my boyfriend was almost too impossible to imagine. And of course it was. The yearning to see a football game began directly after March Madness, the football magazine reading began at the beginning of July, and the long awaited fantasy football draft finally arrived mid-August.
Since then, it has been nothing than good ol' fashion football drama. Which players are making a scene, which teams are going to suck, and what coach will be fired first?

I love my boyfriend. I support him and all his interests. But as I emerged from my morning shower and heard the excited mumble of several voices sliding under my bedroom door, I began my own countdown clock again. For most, its is the beginning of a great season full of wings, burgers and dogs. For me, it is one day closer to having a full time boyfriend again. One week down, 15 to go.

Katy and Kelly

Katy and Kelly were so much fun to work with together. Of course being sisters they worked together naturally well. I love their photos together! They are both beautiful girls and were so easy to shoot with.

Kelly

Kelly was so sweet during our shoot. She balanced on rocks, logs and went for a stroll in a very chilly creek! She is so beautiful in her photos, I am so glad that I was the one who got to photograph her! Enjoy!

Katy

Katy was a sport during our shoot! She was great and we had a blast working up around the Pine area. Katy definitely got a kick out of our river shoot, while I stood up to my knees in the river to get her feet dangling in! Katy has great eyes! They are so beautiful and go great with her wonderful smile! Thanks for the great time Katy!

Portrait of a friendship

Boone and Matt had their shoot together, and the two have been friends since the first grade. It was only fitting that these two had these photos together!




Boone and Matt had their shoot together, and the two have been friends since the first grade. It was only fitting that these two had these photos together!

Boone

Now here is a guy that knows how to ham it up in front of the camera. Boone made sure his shoot was one to remember! Lets just say Boone is not afraid to be himself.

Matt

I had a blast shooting with Matt! He is such a fun and easy going guy and that made my job all the more easy. Matt warmed up to the camera in no time (as you will see) and here is the product of our shoot! Enjoy! Thanks for the great time Matt!

School is back in session!

I have been so busy lately! It is actually really exciting and I am LOVING it! I have been shooting senior portraits for the last week and a half. This shoot of Antony's actually was shot at the beginning of July. Props to him for being the only high schooner who did not procrastinate! I've done 6 shoots in the last week and a half. More photos to come! Enjoy!

Sam and Christine's Wedding

I shot a wedding at the beginning of the month. Just finshed editing all of their photos. Sam and Christine had their wedding at the Westin Hotel on the 16th Street Mall in Downtown Denver. The wedding was beautiful, with a great luncheon after the 12:30 ceremony.
I shot the wedding with Amie, who was my roommate in college and we both made it through the photo J program at Metro. You can visit her blog here. This is our second wedding together and we have another one coming up on the 6th of September.

Congratulations Sam and Christine!

Got to spend a few hours with two Birthday Boys this afternoon.
I have been taking family photos for Blake, Shane, Barbara and John for the
last 5 years. Its amazing how big the boys are getting, but the frosting fingers
is a tradition that will ALWAYS be something we do! Blake (blue) got quite a good
size glob on his finger.
Happy birthday boys! 6 years old!

Beauty in the unusual

I went to a concert last night at The Larimer Lounge in downtown. My roommate's band, Biscuitland was opening for one of Kelly Clarkson's opening bands on her new tour. So Biscuitland has jumped forward in the music world now having become the opening band for the opening band! It was a fun night being with friends and of course seeing my roommate throw his guitar to the ground after the final song - later realizing he broke part of it. O well, the life of a rock star I suppose.

Eric and I pulled up on a side street, next to an area of unkept veggitation. This warped sunflower was one of the tallest of all the weeds, standing proud of it's unique beauty - stretching so all could see it. Our race is so judgmental of the differences each individual has.

If you do not look like me, you are different - and that is bad. Instead of looking at the unknown with curiosity, we look at it with harsh glares afraid and unwelcoming. But it is us who are missing opportunities. Missing the chance to learn new things, experience new things and add to our own knowledge of the world we exist in. Our minds are so negative. We have been bred to think and feel with the glass half empty. I encourage all of you to reprogram your nature. Look at the world with fresh eyes. If you look beyond what you want to see, you will find the whole world is full of deformities - and that is what makes it so beautiful, so unusual.

A moment in time.

This was taken in the "big" small town of Luverne, Alabama that Eric and I drove through during our journey to the Beach.
So many of the towns that we drove through - some that were made up of 3-4 mobile homes- were almost frozen in time.
Faded signs, painted on old general store walls, such as this sign, were just a piece of the era we drove into. So many of the towns still had old fashion gas pumps, soda machienes and good ol' fashion southern hospitality.
The only structures in the majority of the towns that had been build in the last 10 years are the churches.
The chapels are so beautiful down there, no doubt the buildings of pride for the towns.
Yet they all seemed so deserted, even at 1 in the afternoon on a Sunday.

Everything in the south has the overgrown feeling. A lush feeling of being alive, yet dead at the same time. The forests are wild, uncharted and barely controllable. Everything is so green, buildings covered in moss. Yet there is the abandoned, dead feeling - trees now living in a small house that has long been deserted by its owners. A roof, no longer protecting from the elements, collapsed by tree limbs, stretching for the sun.

I love the feeling I get from being in the South. So many of my childhood memories come from this wild, sleepy area.

Frustrating

Technology. It drives me crazy.
I am visiting family in Birmingham and I just love the
slow paced, stepping back in time feel.
old shacks over grown, 1960s signs still aglow in the evenings.
The old Taco Bell sign that has long since been replaced in Denver.

Yet, I cannot post anything because the pins in my card reader have bent. So there is no getting the photos off until I reach home. I am so bummed! and frustrated!

Summer Nights

One thing that I have been noticing since I "retired" from the position of Photo Editor, is the beauty in photos that may not tell stories.
Its refreshing to just take photos, instead of having to get the photo and tell the story. Though all photos tell a story, whether it is a sky, clearing from an afternoon rainstorm or a simple blade of grass. All photographs capture a moment that will never occur again. The ability to freeze a moment, happy or sad, has always been what I love most about photography. A simple summer evening where a group of old friends gather on a mediocre football field play till there is barely any light to see the ball. Summer is a time that I always hold dear to me, where everyone lightens up and just enjoys the moment they are experiencing.

I got to spend a nice afternoon at the Denver Botanic Gardens, and I was able to shoot a bit, which I have not done in over a week. I have been working at Stems quite frequently and I have not been shooting, which has been rather depressing. So today Eric and I took his visiting Grandparents to stroll among the blooms and the scents that entrance you into a whole different place. Who would ever think that the Gardens are located a few minutes from the hustle and bustle of Cherry Creek!
We were also blessed with perfect weather, slightly overcast with the sun peeking in and out every so often. The rain began to fall as we were pulling out of the parking lot, which will continue to make the vegetation thrive. Everything was so beautiful and colorful!