This blog has moved to Tumblr

Check it out!

Wind tunnel testing

Every second counts, so Pearl Izumi brought their pro Tri Team to San Diego last week for some testing and calibration in the wind tunnel.  This is a pretty funky place, circa 1945 decor, but the fan still works!

Cameron Dye into the wind.

Kaitlin Snow on the monitor.

Jesse Thomas

Tim deBoom.

California: Part two

We've been back in California for a few months now, enjoying a beautiful winter, and loving working more on the coast.  I'm still working in Colorado a bunch and anywhere else the projects take me.  Here are a few images from some recent shoots on the Central Coast.

Still Crazy After All These Years

It's always a lot of fun to be working with the great athletes and entertainers at the Harlem Globetrotters, together with long-time friend Dan Price at Adrenalin (Denver).   The Globetrotters are currently trotting to a global capitol near you!  Including Wichita Falls, Texas and Pocatello, Idaho this week.  Take the family!

I still claim to be 6'1".

Dan Price enjoying a moment of Zen before the Adrenalin kicks in

Colorado Avalanche portraits

Native Eyewear Catalog

For their 2011 catalog, Native Eyewear brings a nice mix of black & white environmental portraits together with their product images. They chose to tell this year's story through profiles of some of Boulder's visionaries in a variety of fields, everything from bikes to beer. The catalog was produced by the talented team at Motive in Denver.

I really enjoyed spending some time on this project, meeting some great people and capturing a bit of the real person behind the persona.

Christian Griffith: Verve Climbing
Timmy O'Neill: timmyoneill.com
Lennard Zinn: Zinn Cycles
Adam Avery: Avery Brewing

Project: Billings, Montana

Last fall we spent some time working with AD Creative Group to create a series of images for the Billings, Montana Convention and Visitor's Bureau. The series of ads will be used in print, outdoor, and on the web throughout 2011. Here's a peek at some of the layouts, and a few production shots as well.

It's always great to see the images once they are dropped into their final form with all of the design elements in place. AD has done some really nice design, letting the images carry the message and tying things together with complimentary graphic and type elements.

AD's Creative Director, Andy Yates came to me with some ideas for the project and we began a collaboration that yielded some great results. We would need to create nine scenes over a five-day shoot, showcasing various elements of Billings, everything from family activities, dining, hiking to passing through town on a Harley. We created a rough schedule for the shots and then adjusted on the fly as the week went on to make the most of good weather while we had it. Our planning and flexibility, along with the great local resources pulled together by AD's President, Eric Finstad who's help was invaluable.

Thanks to everyone involved!

Billings, Montana: production photos

Never underestimate the power of man and his mini-van.

More fun with the Globetrotters

We're just back from New York, after once again working with the Harlem Globetrotters for their 2011 promotional images. Always a lot of fun, and a lot of work. I think if I do this for one more year, I become an honorary member of the Washington Generals.

One-A-Day project rolls past 100 days.

A few days back I posted my one-hundredth image in my One-A-Day project on Tumblr. I really didn't start out with any specific goal for how long I might like to keep this up, but for now we roll along. For the most part, I'm pretty happy with where the project has taken me, and hope to keep it up for a while. I've found myself in some interesting places while out trolling for subject matter, driven a lot of miles, and I've learned a few things about myself along the way. I have an apparent affinity for goats, squirrels and shopping carts and I'm a sucker for dramatic clouds.

A few times, the project has been quite a pain in the ass. Wrapping up a busy day and realizing that I don't have anything I want to post. Often, this has sent me out chasing the fading light and hoping to be inspired, but really having no idea of what I'm looking for. More often than not, I've met an interesting person or experimented with some old-school long exposures to bring out the magic of the evening. Not every result has been great, but most have been pretty satisfying. A few times I've pulled frames from a job I've been working on, but for the most part, I've created something wholly different, and often as an antidote for selling my soul.

One of the reasons I started the project was to connect with more people on a daily basis. For the most part, I've done this, but I still have plenty of days where I love the solitude of being all alone in a wide open space pulling together all of the elements to create something unique.

Thanks to everyone who has offered their encouragement along the way. It's nice to know that the work is being seen.

Here are a few of my favorites, along with some notes.

"Bring your daughter downtown.. don't forget the tutus". Thanks Barb and Bailey.

"how about you get back up on that ladder like you were a minute ago".

I spent a long time roaming around an abandoned house as the sun went down and made few decent pictures, but loved the magic of the rain on the windshield as I was about to leave. Tip: keep a flashlight in the glovebox.

One of many visits to a Wal-Mart parking lot. This time with the Magic Box.

Back to the same abandoned house, this time with a willing friend in tow.

My piano, Morgan's dog Paxton.

My own take on one of Boulder's most photographed spots at Chautauqua.

Woody & Joan, my neighbors, delivering geraniums to all of the mothers on my street prior to Mother's Day.
Kind of funny how much effort and equipment went into this capture of a squirrel on my back fence. I think I got it out of system, now I just wish the little bastards would stop eating my peaches.

It was a little satisfying to drive by this same spot the next day and see that all of the "weeds" had been mowed.

Fun project for Starz On Demand

I had an interesting project recently for Starz, creating images for Starz On Demand video spots, currently running on the network. Working over three shoot days, we produced a set of images from five scenes that were cut with movie clips, and edited into the final 30 and 60 second spots. The idea, was to convey images of people living their lives without concern over when their favorite movies or shows are airing, with on-demand, they are in control.

Working closely with the in-house creative team at Starz, we broke down each scene into a series of stills, so that different parts of the still frame could be animated and move independently against the background clips. Starz art director, David Kammerzell did a beautiful job editing the spots and adding the star power with the movie clips.

Each of the five scenes presented it's own set of challenges, most of them the usual technical sort, but the skateboarding shot presented the most unique challenges. We shot at the crowded Denver skatepark on a beautiful, warm spring day. Our biggest obstacle was dealing with the hostile local skaters who didn't like giving up any park time to our skater Kody Wright. After each pass in front of the camera, Kody had to head back into the crowd of pissed-off skaters to start his next run-up before launch. No punches were thrown, but a few members of crew had some pretty heated exchanges with Denver's finest street rats.

My favorite image is the office scene where we combined three light sources (strobe, tungsten and L.E.D.) to create the late-night office environment.