On-Location Shoot Featuring Steve

I want to start off shouting THANK YOU to all those who visited my blog yesterday.
I got about four-times as much traffic than usual, which highly excites me!
I do sincerely appreciate the time you’ve all spent looking at my blog and leaving feedback, and knowing that people care drives me to continue to produce more great work.

Despite what I said last night about Steve’s photos not being done, well, scratch that!
They are finished and ready to be seen by the world
But first, here’s the back-story and a reflection about the shoot:

Last Friday I woke up with a sudden determination to do a shoot [probably stemmed from my "I really suck" speech a few days prior...ha].
Not quite knowing what to do to scratch that itch, Kyle (hereby dubbed “Assistant”) suggested asking a friend of ours, Steve, to be my model.
The good thing about knowing the people that I do is that they are very spontaneous (and laid-back) – we asked, he was down, and off we went!

Finally settling on a location proved to be quite troublesome.
Since I hadn’t quite lost hope for a shoot at the Rio Grande, we headed there first.
We had everything unloaded, walked up to the door, grabbed the handle…and it wouldn’t open!
We tried every door until we realized that the sign on the first door said “Monday-Thursday…”
Great!
Then, off to the overplayed Exchange Place.
Steve couldn’t find a place to change, not to mention it was way too cold out, so…
We decided to revisit the University of Utah’s upper campus [shot here once before without a model - check back >>>Eye Candy on Upper Campus<<<].

In that one research building with the awesome staircase there is a break area on each floor; they all have the same business-casual theme going on but the layouts and furniture are all different.
We thought this would work really well, especially because Steve was told to bring a shirt-and-tie.
The photos turned out to be very corporate, which was completely unintended – but on the other hand, is awesome because now I just have that much more variety in my portfolio!

In lots of the photos below, you will see that we were strictly working in front of the setting sun.
If you are ever faced with a situation where the sun has to be directly behind your subject, what do you do?
You expose for the highlights and use a fill-in flash (well, depending on the mood you are going for – and I know, I’ve been talking about flash way too much lately but what can I say!).
Back in my naive day, I had been told by instructor/photographer Kerry Jones that these types of photos are probably the hardest to get – well since then, I’ve been trying to master it.
I’m far from being a master at it, but I do feel like I did a fairly good job at using this technique (for now).

Lastly, I would like to thank Steve and Assistant for their participation: for without you guys I would not be posting today.
I hope everyone enjoys these favorites-of-mine as much as I do:

(Top-photo - 104/365, taken Jan. 8, 2011)

(105/365) Villain or Superhero?

(106/365)

(107/365)

(108/365)

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