Unnecesarry Farce at Stage Coach Theater

 I recently had the opportunity to photograph the cast Unnecessary Farce at Stage Coach Theater.  This was a fun little self aware farce that also made a bit of commentary on the genre.  It was also hilarious with a brilliant cast and crew.  Before the matinee performance we took a couple of hours to shoot a lot of the key moments of the play.  Due to all the costume changes, we actually shot the show backwards, starting at the end of the play and working towards the beginning.  While I took over three hundred pictures, multiple shots of the same thing so that I would have choices when editing.  In the end I delivered 79 to them.  It was a very fun shoot.

Self Portrait 52

 I've started a new project for 2012 and I'm calling it the Self Portrait 52 Project.  This is hardly a new idea and some people do 365 projects.  I've been reading some articles here lately about how doing self portrait projects can be a good was to sharpen your game and creativity.  Thinking of new and interesting ideas each week should be the fun challenge of this project.  Some time later in the year I'll do an update on how it's going.

We're Going To A Party-Party

I was recently commissioned to photograph the birthday party of the president of Jacksons Foodstores.  It was held at this country club outside of town and a huge crowd showed up.  There was fabulous food and an open bar.  It was a grand party and the crowd swelled out of the ballroom and into the restaurant.  For me it was a lot like shooting a wedding reception.  I kept my eye out trying to get a picture of everyone, making note of people I've already shot.  It's a bit of a trick remembering faces of people you've just met but I've had years of practice.  The other goal of my job was stalking the guest of honor trying to capture as many pictures possible of her having fun while being unobtrusive.  Another challenge was that the lighting was fairly low.  I prefered to use natural light so as not to annoy the guests with my constant flashing.  I used my flash gun for some shots but for the rest of the time, I kept my ISO cranked up pretty high and then spent a lot of time on the post processing to make the shots look as natural as possible.  A great time was had by all, including the photographer.

White Water Park Construction

They are building a white water park on the Boise river along the Green Belt.  

It's going to be pretty cool with lots of water features that people can play around with their kayaks.  It's really interesting to see it take shape and it looks like there will be lots of space around the edges for people to stand around and watch the action.  I wanted to do a photo walk here since it's not every day that we get to see the bottom of the Boise River.  I also made good use of my long zoom lens so that I wouldn't have to enter the work site to get some interesting shots.  And as an added bonus I got a nice moon shot.  It came as a bit of a surprise since I didn't use the tripod and took the shot free hand.  You never know what will happen unless you try.