Start of Studio 204

And so it begins!

I've been looking on and off for the last two months for a space suitable for photographers to collaborate and create. I finally found one. With a few of my good buddies in Flagstaff, we're making it happen.

We're calling it Studio 204.

What's in a name? We're suite 204 and it's a studio. Original, I know. At least this way people have no excuse for forgetting where we are...

Shooting in the space starts ASAP and I am officially booking studio clients for the first time in my photographic career. If you've got any desire to be photographed, I can work with your budget and I'd like the excuse to break in the studio and DO WORK!

Drop me an email : booking@vaultphotos.com and we'll make it happen.

Thanks to Dano and Preston for helping to make it happen!

Portrait: Molly

After a lovely happy hour at Altitudes downtown, miss Molly and I wandered off to Lake Mary for a quick portrait session.

Nutnfancy, just a really laid back session with two photographers. 

For the last couple weeks I've been looking into opening up my own studio in downtown Flagstaff, subsidized by my day-job. Increasingly I find that shooting "professionally" burns me out on photography, but shooting when I'm inspired, whenever the mood strikes, that's what gets my juices going and keeps me in love with taking pictures.

Don't get me wrong - I'll still take your money and provide you with beautiful pictures - but I'm not going to focus on photo full time, especially when I enjoy my current job so much!

Get shooting!

Instagram...

In the process of moving from my old phone (LG Optimus S) to my new iPhone4s, I downloaded all the images of the Optimus to my computer.

Here are all the Instagram pictures I took on the old phone - contact sheet style.

Now that I'm on the iPhone, the technology at my disposal for cell phone photography has dramatically improved. I look forward to more instagram, hipstamatic, and other awesome apps.

Cheers!

Portrait: Willie

I shot these a week or two ago with Willie at the local Coffee House. Midafternoon (2pm) made for beautiful light and a relatively uncrowded space to work in.

I surely won't win any awards for these photographs, but I went into the session knowing what I wanted and I came out 120 frames later with something close. 

It felt good to shoot a portrait again after focusing so heavily on cars for the last 5 months. Not only a portrait, but a natural light portrait. No extra gear, just me and Willie and the camera and some great window light.

Until next time...

Productivity

Sometimes I post things that are completely unrelated to photography.

This is one of those things.




Scott Hanselman on productivity. As a plus: nerd humor.

Zoe Keating

random cellphone photo...

So you know how Rodrigo y Gabriela sound like an entire room full of guitars, and it's just the two of them?

Zoe Keating sounds like a concert hall of nothing but cello, but she's only one woman making some very powerful music.



I discovered her through Chase Jarvis Live, which, if you know me, is something I can rant and rave about all day. I'll spare you that lecture, and simply insist you listen to "Escape Artist" above. Get yer good headphones or turn up the speakers. Worth it.

BTW, that link is to the Grado Labs SR60 headphones. Arguably the best headphones you can get for under $100.

Portraits from today coming soon, hopefully along with images from my recent roll of 35mm slide film.

Birthday: 22

I was recently told by one of my loyal readers that I have been neglecting my blog.
True.

I have also been neglecting my photography.
Shame.

So, I give you a random assortment of photographs and such from recently.

The Flagstaff Extreme Adventure Course is awesome. They are set to open to the public on Friday May 4th, but they spent the last two weeks doing free soft openings to select groups of people. Namely, they put the word out on Facebook. As soon as I saw an opportunity to try the ($42) course for free, I jumped on it! For good measure, I dragged Amanda and Ryan along with me, cuz it's my birthday and I do what I want!

After a brief introduction/safety/training session, we were set loose on the course for about three hours.
Step 1: climb rope ladders to obtain altitude.
Step 2: enjoy awesome obstacle course up to 65' above ground.

to show scale...

yours truly

Final step: kiss the ground and hug your friends! You survived!

After our epic tree-hugging adventure, we held a small get-together at the house to celebrate the fact that I somehow managed to make it to 22. There was drinking involved.

people hanging out and enjoying themselves...

the next morning