I’m going to get this out of the way.

I’ve been a bad blogger, most of this year. It’s been a strange year, work wise, and I haven’t had a lot of time to update this. But I need to make it more of a priority. Right now I’m doing a number of jobs, from working at a ski shop in Boulder, to substitute teaching at a private school and shooting Google Business Photos, all while climbing and shooting outdoors regularly. I’ve been busy.

Happy Fall everyone.

A Photo in Trail Runner Magazine – Finally!

I found out through Facebook that I had a photo published in Trail Runner Magazine. Not only was it published, but it’s a two page spread with a write up about the photo on page 5 of the magazine! I had submitted the photo to them way back in February. They had told me it would be published in the next couple of issues, but nothing had happened for months and I forgot about it.

So, finally, here it is:

Trail Runner Magazines can be found in running specific stores and some Barnes and Nobles if you’re interested in locating a copy.

Abby & Chance Wedding

I think this has been the longest interval between posts since I’ve started this blog…life has been bit crazy, but I haven’t forgotten about you. I’ve been shooting a lot and getting out into some great climbing areas. There’s a lot I wish I could share with you, but some companies have asked me not to yet.

Last month I had the pleasure of shooting a friend from high school’s wedding. Abby & Chance were great to work with. I never knew that Lafayette, IN was so nice! I have to say I was impressed.

Here are a few selections from this wedding.

The People of Bonnaroo

Last week I made the journey across the country to the town of Manchester, Tennesse. Once a year it’s population explodes, a population of, well, interesting people. Every year the Bonnaroo music festival brings in some amazing musical acts like Radiohead and the Avett Brothers, and some 80,000 fans withstand the heat of humidity for four days to enjoy the spectacle.

I had never really considered going before, but when a friend was going to volunteer, it sounded like a swell idea. Free ticket. A little bit of manual labor. (long story, but didn’t really work but still got free ticket.)

The festival has a rule that no one can bring in professional photography equipment into “Centeroo,” where the bands play. So I decided that I wanted to do a portrait series of all the people around me in the campgrounds. I got a few no’s, but people were generally up for it.

I used a white reflector for a background and my speedlite with the Lumiquest LTp softbox for my light source. It worked out beautifully (though the softbox is starting to sag a bit. I need a way to keep it upright on my flash so it doesn’t look so sad.)

Enjoy.

More Photos Inside the Post! —>

Greg really didn’t know what was going on.

Railroad Ryan. Or Captain Jack according to Anna Lea.

Mike. Mike is awesome. And knows how to camp at festivals.

Alvaro

Washington Test Shoot

One more post today. I had a lot to catch up on.

While out in Washington I wanted to work on more of my running, lifestyle and backpacking/hiking portfolio in an environment that I don’t really see in Colorado (or Indiana for that matter).

Alicia met me near Deception pass, one of my favorite spots in the area. We climbed up Goose Rock Trail on the Whidbey side of the pass, and found some great locations to shoot. I love the dense forests of Western Washington as well as the foggy weather.

The forests were quite dark, and the sun was not helping much, so I used my to supplement. Not having an assistant made working with the strobes difficult, but we made due.

Many More Photos Inside —>

I tried a new technique to capture my runner in motion by running along side them, which gives me the added benefit of always having them at the right distance and I can motion blur the background while keeping the runner mostly in focus.

On top of Goose Rock, there was much more light, so I no longer needed to use my strobes. But it rained on us even more.

Alicia with her beautiful dog, Alba.

Alba, Say Hi.
It was extremely difficult to capture this shot. Alba would not stay still for an instant.

I had a great time with Alicia and Alba. I got the photos I was looking for and rounded out my trip. I also put my equipment through a lot of rain. Hope the radio slaves are fine.

Mt Erie, Washington

When I was in 8th grade I came out to stay with my uncle on Whidbey island in Washington State. While I was visiting I connected with a childhood friend from Indiana that had moved out to the island a couple of years before. He wanted to climb the south face of Mt. Erie. At that point I really didn’t have much climbing experience other than trees. But I had a blast.

I decided I wanted to climb it again while out for the Penn Cove Water Festival.

The photo below shows my approximate route up the south face of the 1,200 ft mountain. The route I took was at most 5.6, but it was raining on me the whole time. Fun.

Photo taken from wikipedia.

At the top I met a Russian couple that offered to give me a ride back to my car. I’ve been on Mt. Erie multiple times, but never really stopped to look at the beautiful rain forest on the slopes of the mountain. I had a bit of time before a test shoot with a model on the island, so I drove back up and stopped to appreciate it.

I love fog. And mossy rain forests.

Penn Cove Water Festival

Last weekend I shot the Tribal Canoe Races for the Penn Cove Water Festival on Whidbey Island in Washington. I always love getting to visit my family on Whidbey Island, it’s such a beautiful place. More from Washington next.

Cinco de Mustache

A little catching up. This last month has been a bit different. I’ve been working some moving jobs: moving students out of CU and moving families into large houses. Last week I traveled to Whidbey Island in the Puget Sound in Washington State to photograph a Native American canoe race. While there I was able to connect with a model on Whidbey and did a test shoot.

But before all this was Cinco De Mustache, an annual tradition among my friends here in Boulder.

Watches – impromptu product photography

Sometimes I get it in my head that I need to take a photo of something, but even if I only NEED a simple photo of it I tend to go all out.

I have had this Wenger watch and had yet to take a photo of it. I also bought a new watch from Flud recently and wanted to showcase it.

I don’t do a lot of product photography, but I like to keep myself practiced in a lot of different genres. This was a perfect opportunity to do a lot with a little. I set up a quick studio on my bed using black posterboard, my neoprene laptop case, and the black pillow the Wenger watch came with.

For my light I went as simple as possible: one light source. I used my new (and loved) LumiQuest Softbox LTp on my Canon 580exII. It gives me the softbox look for my speedlite and enlarges the light source by over 40x. But one light source wasn’t giving me quite the effect I wanted. So with my camera on a tripod and my flash connected to my camera by a cable (easiest set up) I made multiple exposures, moving the flash all around the watch.

The above image includes about 7 different exposures, all combined in Photoshop to create the look that I was after.

In this image of the Flud watch I got away with about 3 exposures.

And this one I used 6.

It’s been a while since I’ve done product photography, but I’m glad it’s something I can do relatively easily with not a lot of gadgets. Again, I did all of these shots with one flash.

I highly recommend this addition your lighting equipment. It gives you much higher quality of light for only about $50. And it folds down flat and fits into the laptop portion of your camera bag (I can carry this and my 5in1 reflector kit inside the laptop compartment).

Running in Doudy Draw

When I moved to Boulder I knew very few people in the area, but I knew my friends, Lee and Emily from my trip to Patagonia, lived in nearby Golden. I’ve only been able to meet up with the a couple of times, but I’d mentioned to Lee about doing a trail running shoot soon. We finally found a date that worked.

A few miles outside of Boulder a system of trails run between highway 93 and the first range of mountains. They are great for running and mountain biking, and to just get out of the city for a few.

One of these areas is called Doudy Draw, and Lee picked it for our location. With Lee, Emily, and my assistant Scott we head up into the draw. I decided to pull out all of my tricks for this shoot. I brought out my studio strobes (Scott is a beast and carried them to all the locations) just in case I might use them. Glad I did.

I had been envisioning this shot for a while, a small runner running down the apex of a hill with a small tree against the horizon.

The sun kept playing peekaboo with us, but we were able to get the shots I was looking for.

And with the pop of the shutter, before I’d even looked at the screen I knew this shot was exactly what I wanted from the shoot. The studio strobe lit his face, the sun peaking from behind his back, Lee in full stride. And I figured out how to trick my studio strobe into firing faster than the 1/200th sync speed using my Pixel King ETTL wireless radio slaves. Again, I hope to do a full review on those soon.

The sun went behind some clouds but gave off some great diffused light, providing this photo with beautiful ambient lighting.

I love playing with flash and slash lighting whenever I can.

I’ll have some more updates soon. Take care.

Practice Shoot

Once again it has been a while. A lot has been happening this past month, which has been great. I had been talking with a company about doing a shoot soon. The creative directors really wanted me for the shoot, but since I had not worked for the company before and did not have many big name clients the marketing director was not yet sold. They gave me the brief for the shoot and asked me to do a practice round. I asked my friend, Leigh, to find a friend and a dog, and we did a quick shoot around downtown Boulder. The company wanted lifestyle images, so I wanted to work without any lighting. My friend and assistant Scott (we work well as a team, as well, we are easier to call. “Hey Scotts!”) helped me out with the shoot operating the reflector.

Clouds came and covered the usually sunny Boulder, but gave us a really nice diffused and directional light. I really prefer to shoot into the light, especially for lifestyle shots. It took my models a bit to get comfortable, but they did a great job.

The photos were good enough to prove to the marketing director that I would be able to do the shoot.

I did the shoot last weekend and it went fantastic. I will post photos when they allow me to.

Wall of the 90’s

Went for a climb on Friday at Wall of the 90’s in Clear Creek Canyon with Matt Lloyd and Jose Rodriguez. It’s a great area with lots of options.

Jose climbing “Wet Dream” (5.12a)

Matt catching a knee bar on “Wet Dream”

Stone Cold Modern in Clear Creek Canyon

After a late Friday night I get a call waking me up well before my planned wake up time for a relaxing, lazy Saturday. “Hey, lets go climbing! Meet me in 45 minutes.” I have a choice to make: rollover and finish out that lazy Saturday or give in to my buddy’s adventure. Matt has taken me climbing all around Colorado, and I love getting this personal tour of the state. I’ll go for adventure almost every time.

Matt wants to climb on a project in Clear Creek Canyon at a crag called “Sex Cave”. It’s a severely overhung roof made of gneiss that has three main routes in the 5.13 range. “One of them is just your style; you’ll love it.” Sure, why not. The hardest thing I’ve ever climbed outside is 5.12b, and hardest thing I’ve sent is 5.11c. But I think I’ve found my new project.

Matt and I climbed “Head Like a Hole”, and Matt climbed “Stone Cold Modern” in our short session. While belaying Matt and seeing the how the light hit him as he finished the route I knew I had to come back and photograph here. So we scheduled the shoot.

I have tried a few times to light climbing out here in Colorado with Speedlites, but I’ve found it to be practically impossible without an assistant. It just takes far too long to control all the light, move stands, and get things ready, all while the climber is “patiently” waiting to climb. If I can get the lights set up, much of the time the Speedlites just aren’t powerful enough to overpower the sun and make a difference.

It was nice to have time to plan ahead. I get an assistant. I bring my powerful studio strobes (White Lightning and Alien Bees). I pre-plan how the shoot will go in my head. I’m excited to do a lot more shoots like this.

See More Photos. Click Here

Jamie working the link up of “Stone Cold Modern” and “Head like a Hole”

Matt working “Stone Cold Modern”

Jamie taking a whip on “Stone Cold Head”

My assistant packing up my lights in my Pelican Case.

Bouldering at Carter Lake

Last week I met up with Tiffany Hensley and went to Carter Lake, which is about 30 minutes from Boulder. Matt Lloyd and his girlfriend met us there on the 70º bluebird day. Carter lake is a reservoir with sandstone boulders on the southeast shore that by some is not considered a great destination. But the sandstone boulders offer some great climbing, and we had the entire playground to ourselves, which is always nice. I brought my new Pixel King wireless radio slaves to play with, and I will give a full review of them soon.

Tiffany Hensley working the traverse start of the warm up problem.

Tiffany relaxing at the top of “Doughboy”, a boulder that just a few years ago eroded out of it’s base, slid down hill and stood on end.

Matt standing on top of Doughboy

Matt working the easier problem on the north face of Doughboy Bolder.

Back to Ouray, Colorado

Last weekend I ventured back to Ouray, Colorado with Matt Lloyd and Sam Benedict. We drove through white out conditions to climb in white out conditions. We got to Ouray Thursday afternoon after a seven hour car ride (prolonged because of bad weather) and got a couple of good pitches before dark.

Click here to see more photos from Ouray

After a long night’s rest we get set to spend the day in the Ouray Ice Park, a box canyon with artificially irrigated ice flows fed by water pipes that run along the top of the canyon. The free park is maintained by volunteers and has some of the best ice climbing in an extremely small amount of space. Many times ice climbing requires intense, multi hour approaches just to get to one or two ice flows. Having an almost endless amount of ice within ten minutes from the parking lot is quite incredible.

Matt pushes through despite very extreme conditions.

The weather Thursday and Friday was pretty extreme. Friday, with the high winds and blowing snow, was one of the first days I actually admitted I was cold. Then came Saturday, an absolutely beautiful blue bird day. In the canyon the heat radiated from the sun and bounced off all of the light colored surfaces making it almost t-shirt weather, even though it was only 33º on top of the canyon.

This is why belaying can be dangerous.

Sam playing on the inside of an ice curtain

Vail: Some More Ice

The last two fridays I have spent in Vail, Colorado. Strangely enough, I’ve been there three times so far this year, and I haven’t skied yet. But the ice climbing has been great!

Two weeks ago we went back to the Rigid Designator amphitheater. Such a beautiful location.

Rigid Designator

“Rigid Designator” WI 4-5

Click here to see more ice climbing photos!

Matt climbing the beautiful “Rigid Designator” WI 4-5

In ice climbing, even belaying is dangerous. I kicked off a chunk of ice that hit my belayer.

Matt working hard on the mixed route “Titties and Beer” M7

The descent is always the best part. You glissade down the mountain, as Matt demonstrates:

This last Friday we went to a new area called the Firehouse. The approach is much shorter than Rigid Designator and it doesn’t seem to get as much attention. There were only two other people there, a guide and his client.

Matt leading “Lowe Gravity” WI 4. The column to his left made a terrifying cracking noise after he had placed a screw in it for protection. He changed course and moved up to the right.

I lead my first ice climb here, a WI 3+ called “The East of the West”. I’m psyched! Unfortunately, there are no photographs as proof.

Matt working on “Eastern Expansion” WI 4+ M6+