The Sundance Experiance

Being that I was at Sundance taking portraits for my sister I couldn't pass up the chance to take some shots of the beautiful area. Below you'll see some of my favorites.

MacKay Family Portrait

Saturday I met my sister Sara and her family up at Sundance to take some portraits, I thought they turned out nice. How could they not? It was gorgeous up there!

Mike, Oliver, & Sara.

Sara & Mike, what a handsome couple!

Precious moment between Mother and Son.

Father & Son

Night Moon

This is another shot that I took while in AZ, I shot it in RAW and I couldn't process it until I got my editing software. I thought it turned out nice.

A Couple of Panoramas

While I was in AZ I took this panorama of our friend's (The Hedges) back yard. I recently got some photo editing software and I was finally able to stitch together an acceptable finished product. For this one I shot it in landscape, in the future I'm going to shoot in portrait.

Hedges' Backyard

I shot this one of my parent's backyard today! Now that I can piece them together I can't wait to start shooting panoramas more often!

The Uintas

This weekend my wife and I took my parents up to the Uinta Mountains for a little day trip. We met my sister and her family up at Camp Steiner an I definitely wanted to take my camera and get some nice mountain shots.

My dad has been wanting to take a ride up the Mirror Lake Highway for a long time and we happend to take the drive in the beautiful fall colors.

The next 2 photographs are from my dad's favorite place in the world, Camp Steiner

The Provo River Falls

I wish that I would have been able to shoot the falls at dawn or dusk but when you're the driver and people want to get home you have to shoot in the light you're given.

This shot was taken at the same falls looking down stream, I purposely framed the river out of the shot to cut out people who were hanging out on the banks. I just wanted to capture the beautiful view of the pines.

Diede Portraits

I shot these individual portraits of my nephews and niece last Sunday, the same day I took the family shot. I shot the boys before church at about 12:30 pm. The light was horrible so I used the shade of the trees to my advantage, all the while avoiding sun spots like the plague. For Austin and Nathan I actually had my sister stand to the side of them and shade them with a patio seat cushion.

Austin Tyler

Nathan John

Mitchell Scott

Maya McKenna

This shot of Maya was taken at the same time as the family portrait that I posted below. As I stated before, Maya is so camera shy that we couldn't even get her to sit by herself! We bribed her with gum, we tried to get her to "show" us some flowers, I tried to have her take a picture of me and I would take a picture of her, all to no avail. Finally my sister told me to shoot her on her dad's lap while I took the group shot and that's where I came up with this. I edited Mark's shirt to look like clouds as a background. It worked and now my sister Catherine has 4 new pictures ready to frame.

Some more Flowers

I know, I know, you must think that I'm obsessed with taking pics of yellow flowers! Well, in this case, you just have to take interesting shots when they present themselves and it just so happens that yellow flowers are presenting themselves quite nicely this time of year. I really love all three of these shots, they were taken at dusk, in low light with a tripod at f8.

I think I love this one more the the yellow flower I shot in AZ! I love the light in the background. Aperture priority mode and f8 worked beautifully here!

Family Portraits

Recently I've been asked by family and friends to take some family portraits and I've been happy to oblige! For all of my portraits you'll notice that they're taken outside. Since I don't have a studio, this is what I have to do to get good light. Ideally I'd like to shoot in the early morning or evening when the light is best but let's be honest, I take them at the time when the family (specifically the kids) and ready. Below are the final products.

The Diedes

My sister Catherine asked me to shoot their family this past Sunday.

Top, left to right: Austin, Catherine, & Mark. Bottom, Nathan Mitchell, & Maya.

I shot this one at about 5:00 pm, not the best light but it was overcast. Maya is so cute and she is really camera shy, luckily she posed beautifully for this group shot. Ideally I would have wanted Nathan on the other side of Mark, but being that Maya got right in there and smiled I decided that it wasn't worth the shuffle.

The Hedges
Matt, Shaylin, Emmalyn, & Jayna.

Matt and Jayna are our good friends in AZ. They live in Maricopa and while we were down there visiting last month we stayed at their house for a couple of days. They allowed me to pay them for room and board by me taking some portraits for them. Actually, they said that they were compensating me for the pictures by Jayna giving me a free haircut and Matt taking me out to lunch. Thanks for the self esteem boost guys! This one was shot inside of a dilapidated farm shed. Eventhough we went out at about 2 pm we still got great light in the shade of the building.

The Beckmans
Tessa, Jessica, Halle, & BJ.

This was actually the first family portrait that I have ever taken. BJ and Jessica are some of our best friends and they asked me to take it after they blessed Tessa in July and I thought it turned out wonderful and I wanted to show it off. We shot this at about noon, since we were on the east side of their neighbors house, the shade gave us perfect light.