Another Giveaway!

Some day I will actually make use of this blog. For now we are going to start by trying to win an awesome lens! If you go to this link:

http://cravemyphotography.com/blog/lens-giveaway-2/

You can enter to win a lens and some other cool prizes. Check it out.

Dream Coming True

This last week I was asked to do a photoshoot and get paid for it! It isn't much pay but it is the beginning.

Bryan Thacker is the buy who played Chauvelin in the Scarlet Pimpernel with me. We have actually become pretty good friends. He went to school for cinematography and been doing some freelance stuff. So far he has done commercials for some local business and even for the University of Utah. Recently he has been working on starting a full time business and marketing his services. As a part of this process he ordered some business cards and wanted some pictures to put up on his facebook page and website.

For some reason he asked me to take the pictures for him.

I was flattered when he asked me. He had seen some of my stuff on Facebook and apparently thought I was good enough to hire to take pictures for him. I was pretty nervous though. As a perfectionist I really feel bad getting paid for sub-par work, and with my inexperience I wasn't sure I could create great photos. I definitely was not going to pass up this opportunity though. It was a great chance to push myself and also get a little money for it. The deadline was a little stressful too. He gave me the cards to take pictures of on Tuesday and wanted the pictures done by Wednesday night!

I spent some time looking up good techniques for product photography, examples of business card photos, and some Do-It-Yourself lighting setups. I spent a few hours on the computer and then a couple of hours more searching around the house for material and experimenting with different setups. Finally I found something that gave me pretty good results and was able to really play with creativity and composition. As a side note I don't think I would have been able to do this without the flash. Thanks for letting me have the flash for this long Dad! (I will try and get it back to you when I see you guys next.)

Here are some examples of the pictures I took:

I was actually pretty proud of the way they turned out. Especially since I had to figure out how to work around all the limitations in my skill, equipment, and time. Bryan was actually really impressed as well and told me they were better than he was expecting. He actually asked if he could use me in the future for other projects. YES!! Of course.

So there it is, my first paid gig as a photographer.

My First Video

I have finally gone and done it. Here is my first little movie I have written, filmed, and edited. I hope for it to be the first of many.



I had the concept of using a Glidecam to stabilize my soda so it wouldn't go flat on the bumpy forest roads. Then about a week later I heard about a contest through B&H Photo/Video. The idea was to use high tech piece of equipment in a low tech way. Well I already had an idea so I decided to enter! Problem was the submission deadline was in three days but I was unavailable the last day so I had two days to film and edit. I ended up filming Friday night and Saturday morning then editing Saturday afternoon.

I had a big problem when it came down to editing... my computer is super SLOW! This means it cannot handle any of the editing software, not even Windows Movie Maker (I also do not have the budget to buy the programs anyway). So my wife and I headed to my universities campus to use their computers. However this was between semester breaks so the media lab was shut down and so were most of the other computer labs. We ended up searching for a computer for about a half an hour. I had about given up hope but we finally found a computer that had Adobe Premiere on it.

I sat down to get cranking and the computer did not have an SD card reader! I didn't have anything else available to me but my laptop (I guess it came in handy for something). I had to transfer my clips from the SD card to a flash drive (432 MB) using my laptop then from the flash drive to the computer I was using. I had to go through this process four times and each batch took about 20 minutes because of the extremely slow write speed. At this time I was getting uncomfortably close to when we had to leave for our evening plans.

I have been watching tutorials on Lynda.com on how to use Premiere Pro. That is all the experience I had to work with. My inexperience really slowed me down which means I wasn't able to do everything to the video I wanted to. I basically only had time to throw together a story and try and at least get good cuts and sequencing between clips. Oh, finding music took forever as well. I was able to put it together and submit it before I had to leave for the weekend and before the submission deadline.

The next day I went to go see my entry in the contest and found out they had extended the deadline over a week! So I stressed about getting everything together in time when I actually had another week. I think the total time spent on the video was about 8 hours. Oh well... at least I can say I finally did it and learned a lot.

Here is to learning and growing and following dreams!

Let the Journey Begin!

Last week was a milestone in my world of video/photography. My wife and I finally decided to buy a camera. I have been searching for a couple of years off and on without ever really thinking I would actually buy a camera. It is a rather depressing practice to keep teasing yourself with something you yearn for but never believe you will actually acquire. Well it payed off!

After much deliberation we committed to actually buying a camera. A couple of days after that decision I found an ad on KSL for a Canon 60D with an 18-200mm F/3.5-5.6 kit lens for a really great price. The man who was selling it bought it last July and didn't really use it during the Summer, plus he took really great care of it so it was in like new condition. WOOHOO!

I chose the 60D because it has all the features I need/want, allowing me room to grow while staying within my budget limit. Since my interest in photography started while I was working as a videographer for BYU broadcasting my main interests lie in video. This camera has full HD video with a variable angle LCD and ability to connect external microphones. Some features of the more expensive cameras would be nice but I don't need them to learn and improve. It is a very solid beginner camera.

Now that I have a camera of my own I have no excuse for not practicing and improving or following through on different ideas I have had. The purpose of this blog is to document my adventure with the camera. We will see exactly what I decide to do with it but I envision posts on specific lessons I learn, skills I am refining, projects I am working on, or even a 365. Every post I put will have a picture, I can guarantee that. Now let's see where this goes shall we?

I used my camera for real the second time at my wife's graduation. I wanted to post a picture of  my wife but I need her permission first. ;) So this very neutral picture will suffice for now. These are the chairs set up for the graduates to sit on for commencement.