A great opportunity to learn

Many of you probably already know that I do a lot of speaking and teaching for photography around the country and I get a lot of inquires from photographers asking about when and where the next place I will be speaking at. Next week I will be teaching in Des Moines at the Iowa Workshop along with some of my very good friends. It is going to be an amazing opportunity to learn from some of the top photographers in the country. Travis Gugelman from Idaho will be there to help with studio management and pricing, Lori Nordstrom from here in Iowa will be there teaching about marketing and children. Mike Redinger from Idaho and Kevin Jordan from North Carolina will be doing lighting demonstrations. I will be also showing some lighting demonstrations and going over some photoshop techniques. It's going to be a great time with lots of live models and opportunities to learn and just hang out and make new friends. Hope to see you there!

Track Team Posters

Here are my two newest creations for the track teams.  For the girls I wanted to create something that could show off a bunch of them running, jumping and throwing.  I decided to try something with the sole of a shoe and make it look similar to a track seen from above.  I think the graphic turned out pretty strong and it turned out to be a fun concept.

For the guys track I have been wanting to try my hand at creating some tornados. The road was an image I had taken last year right after a storm and I simply warped and transformed the clouds into a funnel shape. Then replicated the tornado to create a few different ones in the background. Adding some extra mist and debris using some photoshop brushes really helped make the tornados more realistic though. The hardest part about the whole poster was taking the portraits. I had to have the guys run at me very quickly and trigger the shutter at exact moment when they reached the pre-appointed spot. Not only did I have to time it perfectly but the guys had to look good at that exact moment when they were running full speed at me which was probably even harder than timing the shutter.

Beautiful Bella Sala Wedding

Colleen and John's wedding was at the beautiful Bella Sala in Tiffin, IA. Colleen's dress is from XOXO Bridal. They were very down to earth, fun couple. All the bridesmaids wore Converse and all the guys wore Vans, which added a unique and fun detail to their wedding. Colleen wanted a mix of beautiful scenery and cool alleyways so we started out in downtown Iowa City where we were able to capture some interesting urban portraits using old loading docks, back alleyways and old doorways. Then we headed back to Bella Sala for a different look. The waterfall and trees made for a great background. Everything we did with Colleen and John turned out awesome and there are now a bunch of their portraits hanging on display in Bella Sala. Even their engagement portraits were stunning. In fact one of their engagement portraits is hanging in my studio and received the highest possible score in print competition this year at the Iowa Professional Photographers Convention - a perfect 100!

This was their award winning engagement porttrait (it's also hanging in my studio as a 30x40 canvas gallery wrap)