Jumping for Joy Down Under
Happy Holidays everyone!
I’m writing this note from the West Coast of New Zealand, where I’m traveling at the moment in pursuit of beautiful light, great imagery, and an endless summer. It’s been a fun trip so far, and I’m excited to see what’ll happen next. Before I start the busy 2010 wedding season, I’m headed to Australia, Tasmania and Tonga, three places I’ve never been but have always dreamed of visiting.
2009 has been a wild, wild ride. It’s taken me across continents and oceans, and I’ve photographed almost everything imaginable: climbing in France; coral reefs off the coast of Venezuela; landscapes in New Zealand; and weddings in the Virgin Islands, the Bahamas, California wine country, and as far away as Norway. Back in September I added up the days my car had sat at the Denver International Airport parking lot, and was startled to discover the total: nearly 18 weeks. That means I was shooting out of state for about half of the first 9 months of the year. In October I shot weddings in Colorado and California, and climbing in both Zion National Park and Yosemite, and in November I flew to New Zealand. Despite being on the road, I’ve kept busy with new bookings and album designs — and as a cool side note, JenLos’ book, from their Virgin Islands wedding, was picked by Kambara USA as a sample album that the company will bring to trade shows around the country.
It’s been humbling to win awards from the WPJA, it’s been fun to see my shots for Sigma Photo show up in magazine advertisements around the world, and it’s been exciting to grow my studio with the addition of associate photographers (in two different states) and a production manager. Expect to see profiles of Bernd and Chris in upcoming blog posts — we are currently booking them weddings in both California and Colorado, and they do an absolutely rocking job. Both of them have seen it all: Bernd shot a wedding in Vail this year with a reception so bumping that the smoke alarms went off and the Fire Department came, while Chris just recently shot an elopement in Rocky Mountain National Park in the middle of a whiteout. Party on! You’ll love these guys.
I’ve had more fun behind the lens in 2009 than in any other year of my life. It’s been awesome to see the resurgence of break dancing, and I’ve been downright impressed with the all-star partying I’ve encountered at this year’s receptions. Resisting the urge to boogie has been a challenge, especially after watching people bust out award-winning worms, aerial stalls, head spins, and every other dance move invented in the last 40 years. I have realized that I need to learn to break dance. Can someone teach me? It’s also been cool to reconnect with past clients, learn about their lives, and even see their new babies. I love this job.
I’ll try to get a best-of-2009 post up soon, and maybe I’ll put up a few shots of my winter adventure so far. Meanwhile, here’s a shot of me jumping for joy somewhere in countryside in New Zealand, courtesy of Rannveig Aamodt.
Last but not least, please excuse me if I don’t respond to emails immediately. There’s a day or two lag time here, as cell reception is spotty.
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This doesn’t look like thinset to me…
So… aside from building out our basement into a studio, we’ve got other big plans. Redoing the entire floor, redoing two bathrooms, redoing a kitchen. When we move we’ll have renovated almost every room in the house, as well as every window and the roof. What?!
Aaaaaanyway, Alicia went to the local home center the other day to pick up some thinset, which we needed for the tiling job in one of the bathrooms. She came back with this:
Doesn’t look like thinset to me. It was “on loan” for a day and it went back to its family after a few hours. But we were both a bit smitten, so… who knows what’s next!
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The Mouth
Back in Cali kickin it with the crew. Miss it here. Good times, great friends. Toots got his first chance to visit one of our favorite places on earth, the stunning mountaintop boulder field at Lizard’s Mouth, home to the best moderate sandstone bouldering anywhere. And actually thanks to our buddy Bernd, a bunch of new hard lines have gone up in the last year.
Here we are on one of them, an unnamed route overlooking the ocean. We spent sunset here taking pictures.
If you want to know how it’s done, I used a really fast prime lens at f/1.4 coupled with a single flash bouncing off a gold reflector disk. Reflector was pointing up from ground level, flash was triggered via a PocketWizard. Very low ISO (100) allowed me to get the dark blue sky at 125th of a second. It also let me have a very noiseless image. I passed off the camera later on and Bernd grabbed it to take the last two shots, one of Steve and one of me.
Quite possibly the highlight of the day was seeing Alicia’s parents’ chihuahua Rosie wearing Bernd’s kid’s diaper. Finn, Bernd and Hjortis’ little infant, was nice and warm and had a spare diaper. Rosie was freezing and had nothing. So… What happens when you have a spare diaper and a freezing chihuahua? Diaper Dog. It’s was the only solution.
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Window Ninja 101
Sorry, more dorky house maintenance stuff. I’ll try to keep it to a minimum!
A few days ago we had 20 windows in our living room, which was annoying. And then we started putting them in, and things got even more annoying. I’m surprised I can type right now given the times I’ve turned my thumb into ground beef with the hammer. Yeeouch. 10 down and 10 to go.
The guy who sold us our house didn’t tell us about the leaky roof and the leaky windows, so as we installed the windows we also had to reframe a bunch of them because the leaks had rotted the wood away. I have absolutely zero idea what I’m doing but at least I’ve got some mad style points. Dig the hat?
Once we ripped the old windows out, we built new window frames.
… And then we stood back and observed our handy work. The guy who looks like he knows what he’s doing is our buddy Alex.
Alicia, who took these pictures, is psyched to do all the trim work on the inside of the house. That’s a good thing too because I don’t have the patience to do all the little details, and she does. So I’ll keep tearing 8 foot holes in the walls and she’ll make it look nice afterward. Cool deal.
We also installed a new patio door in the basement, which required us to replace a sagging, 7-foot header. We had to jack up the house with a couple of huge posts and go to town. Here’s me and Jim and the gaping hole in the wall…
More later!
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Home sweet home
Straying from the wedding and portrait theme lately, but hey, I think this stuff is cool. 
Our home!
First, something with big paws and big claws visited us the other night — we think it was a bear trying to get into the hot tub for a soak. Notice the claw marks on the cover.
Then there’s our new stereo cabinet, which I think is spiffy. I’ve never been good at making stuff with my hands, so I’m kinda proud of this. We pulled a bunch of cedar off the walls in the basement, but we didn’t want to throw it out. So I made a coffee table out of it. The table was supposed to be square, but it turned into a really ugly trapezoid (lots of character at least). I figured I’d have to redeem myself so I made this thing. Cool, huh?
Then there’s our new drywall project. Check out the before, middle and after pictures. We couldn’t deal with the water-stained roofing shingles in our living room.
And last is my super cool birthday present!! We watched Shaolin Soccer the other day on a huge projector and got a little too into it. If you haven’t seen it, rent it. Best movie EVER! It’s about a bunch of Kung Foo masters who start a soccer team and try to win the Chinese national championship. So good. So good.
So then I got a Shaolin Climbing Team shirt (that’s what the front says) and here’s the back of it…
And I also got a Big Baby shirt (see the previous post). I screamed and cried like a baby climbing the Big Baby, so it’s only fitting. I think the diaper is full…
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Toots almost gets owned by a deer!
So we’re trying to clean up a guest bedroom on a windy, cold Saturday when we hear Toots throwing a hysterical fit outside. He’s ADD to begin with, so when he gets fixated on something, well, beware. This time he couldn’t take his eyes off of a huge deer on the other side of our fence — and the deer appeared to be taunting him. I grabbed my little point and shoot and started recording a movie. I wish I was fluent in Dog and Deer.
Toots: Get out! My yard! My yaaarrrd!! My my my yard! Mine! Mine!
Deer: Dude, step off.
Toots: Get out get out get out get out get out get out. Get out! Get out get out get out!
Deer: I’m 20 times your size. Do you know who you’re talking to?
Toots: Get out get out get out get out get out get out!! Get out!!!! Mine mine mine!!
Or something. Anyway, this is how it ended. If there wasn’t a fence in the way, Toots could have been worked. Or he would have ran into the house with the deer chasing him, in which case we’d have had quite the scuffle in our living room. Click on the thumbnail below to watch the mayhem.
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Tooters!
A while back I mentioned that we’d gotten a Basenji with a gas problem that we named Toots.
Here he is! Not the greatest pic, but enquiring minds want to know. We don’t know where his nipped ear came from. The furrowed brow is a typical Basenji thing. By the way, Basenji literally translates to ‘bush thing.’
Today Alicia was with him at the dog park while I was getting paint, and a crazy storm came in. I looked out the store window and hightailed it to the park to find Alicia soaked to the skin and Toots shivering like mad. So of course we had to go get him a parka. With a hood. I think he likes it. We’re such suckers.
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Toots and a house
Alicia and I have been kicking around the idea of getting a dog for a while, so we cruised down to the Denver Humane Society and looked around. We almost came home with a neurotic, bug-eyed Boston Terrier named Rader, but instead we brought home a mellower pup who’s part Basenji. The Basenjis — which translate to ‘bush things’ — must be part feline, because they walk, run, play and groom themselves like cats. Pretty cool. We named him Toots because we were listening to a Toots and the Maytals song on the way home (a John Denver cover, actually, but no matter) that went, “Take me home to the place where I belong.” Then, as if to seal the deal, the dog started farting. Or ‘tooting,’ if you will. So Toots became his name.
Then when we got back to Estes we drove to our first house! We closed right before we went to the Humane Society! So we’re now in the process of moving, which is becoming an epic, but we’re super excited. The home is perched up on the side of Prospect Mountain overlooking part of the Estes Valley, and it’s got a great hot tub on the porch for those cool winter evenings. Our home inspection missed some problems with the place, which became way too apparent once it started raining really hard (which it hasn’t done in months). Basically the roof leaks. So do some windows. So if anyone out there knows much about composite roofing and window reframing, give me a shout. This week we’re going to be doing home repair 24/7.
Anyway, as Toots wandered around the house, it became apparent that he hasn’t had much of a chance to get out much. In fact, we think he’s afraid of heights; the other day he freaked, jumped off the staircase and headplanted in the middle of the living room. Not good for a trail and crag dog, but he’s an athletic little dude who will probably learn to deal pretty quickly.
I wish I had pictures, but right now I don’t. Stay tuned!
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Dog washing
There’s something so hilarious about washing a neurotic lapdog, so I figured I’d post a few images of Alicia giving Armstrong (no relation to Lance) a bath. He goes from a fuzzy ball of joy to an irritable skeleton as soon as his fur gets wet. Here he is..
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