Adam and McKenna are engaged? Didn’t see that one coming. Actually—that’s a lie. From the minute these two met, they’ve had one of those relationships that seem to be hotter than first season of Gossip Girl. After months of disgustingly cute Facebook PDA-ing, Adam proposed to make things official in March of this year. If these two look familiar, it’s because they are. This isn’t their first go-round on the Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000 (see Movember). Adam, a fellow blogger himself, also has endeared himself to this photographer because he actually leaves comments on my posts! For these reasons and many more, I was delighted to make a few photos of these two.

(Note: click photos for larger versions)

The first setup of the day was at Gasworks Park. I had an idea to feature Adam and McKenna in various poses on their backs, but make it look like they were standing up straight. My trusty assistant, Gus helped me setup a Bowens Gemini strobe with a 7′ Octodome (on a truly badass stand). I climbed up a ladder with my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 24-70 f/2.8 lens to photograph Adam and McKenna laying on the hill.

Gus even suggested the corny-as-hell idea of having Adam and McKenna spell out an A & M.

For setup #2, we walked up the hill and placed most of the park, Lake Union and the City of Seattle in the background. We made a few quick tweaks to the Octodome, and we were off and shooting.

With the day dwindling, our light was falling off fast. I wanted to squeeze in one more location before the sunset on Seattle for that Sunday. Adam, McKenna, Gus and I took off for the little park halfway up the hill behind Golden Gardens. After using some of Seattle’s lakes, skyline and greenery as the background, I wanted to feature some its forests.

The way I’ve heard the story is this… Adam was supposed to propose to McKenna in Europe. Adam was scheduled to meet up with McKenna in Paris after skiing the Haute Route with a few buddies in April. The ever impatient Adam decided to jump the gun right before the trip; and hauled McKenna up 4,000 vertical feet to pop the question on top of Mt. Si. Since then, they’ve been recreating what their proposal might have looked had Adam selected a different venue. The above is a rendition of two people getting engaged during an Andy Aupperlee Explosion 5000 photoshoot. Aww.

Newly engaged couple OR Seattle’s latest Nightly News duo?

Of course none of this would have been possible with my trusty assistant, Gus. He’s a huge help with setting up the lighting, being a stand-in and suggesting ideas. He even does all the crappy stuff like carry 50 lbs of sand bags and run back to the car when I forget stuff—all without complaining. Thanks Gus!

To catch more of Adam & McKenna (including bonus PDA), check out my Flickr set or watch the slideshow below.

Nick Kartje asked me if I would photograph him and his brother Pete. They wanted to make some prints to give to their parents as a Christmas present. Since I happen to think this is an excellent idea, I was more than happy to help out with the shooting portion of their gift. In true Explosion 5000 fashion, I hauled out a truckload of lighting equipment and recruited a trusty assistant (Gus) to capture the Brothers Kartje.

Our first stop was Golden Gardens on the west side of Seattle. The temperature was barely in the 40s which allowed the Kartje boys to show off their full range as Midwest natives. To give you an idea of how chilly it was, my assistant Gus (from Minnesota himself) had a Patagonia shell fully zipped with the hood up and was wearing gloves. Lauren, Nick’s girlfriend, also hunkered down and braved the elements for the shoot. Since we were rolling with quite a bit of gear, it was nice to have a few extra sets of hands to haul stuff to and from the Explorer.

I originally scouted this location a few weeks back. I went out with my tripod, a light stand, and shoot through umbrella. Using the timer on my camera, I took several self portraits in between wind gusts. Unfortunately, the umbrella did not hold up after being blown over a couple of times. And while the results of this self-styled photo shoot will never see the light of day, the scouting experience helped me prepare for shooting Nick & Pete.

The key to making these photographs were my assistants. Gus was in charge of a Bowens 500 watt second monolight connected to a large Photoflex softbox. Also slung over his shoulder was a Bowens Travel-Pak battery to power the flash. Even though we mounted everything on stands, the howling wind would have blown my fancy equipment into the Puget Sound if Gus hadn’t held on tightly. I shot with my Nikon D300 and Nikkor 80-200mm f/2.8 lens. The advantage of shooting portraits with telephoto lenses is that it allows you to capture a narrower band of the background. In this case, the mountains actually look like mountains instead of a distant horizon. The downside to shooting at longer focal lengths is the distance it creates between you, your subjects and your lights. PocketWizards can allow you to sync things at these distances, but adjustments can be harder to make. Being the great friend that he is, Gus is a terrific listener. When I called out, “turn the power up to 4!” Gus dutifully responded and adjusted the light.

Next stop on the Kartje tour was Gasworks Park. If Golden Gardens shows off the natural beauty of Seattle, Gasworks highlights the marriage of this terrain with a thriving urban setting. The fun thing about Gasworks is there are always other Seattleites enjoying the park. On this Sunday afternoon I was careful not to include the “Frisbee team” practicing next to us. I’m only assuming they were a team because of the strange outfits and Rocky-esque music they played from a boom box during their “practice.”

Before packing up for the 806, we made one last stop at Kerry Park. The light and temperature were falling fast, so we only made a few frames. I was able to convince Lauren to get in front of the lens for several shots with Nick—seemed only fair since she’d been a trooper and helped out all day! After wrapping at Kerry Park, the whole team met over at my place for dinner. Nick picked up steak, potatoes and veggies. Once were sufficiently fed and warmed up, we looked at the days shoot on our 46″ LCD. With the whole gang in the living room, we picked “winners” and narrowed down which shots Nick would eventually have printed.

A big thank you to Nick and Pete for asking me to help with their brotherly portraits. They were fun to shoot and up for pretty much everything. Also a big thank you to Gus and Lauren for assisting—half of my gear would be floating in Shilshole Bay if it weren’t for them. To view more pictures, check out my set on Flickr or watch the slideshow below.

Chase Jarvis is the man. Not only is he one of the most highly regarded commercial photographers in the world, he lives in Seattle and is a pretty friendly chap. On Monday night he hosted a photo session that I was lucky enough to secure an invitation to. About thirty of us met up at his studio and walked over to Inner Space, an indoor skate park in Seattle. Chase and his crew had rented the park for the night, hired models (read ‘skateboarders ready to shred’) and outfitted the space with six Broncolor lighting setups. After doing a quick demo where Chase shot a Nikon D3 tethered into a MacBook Pro and 30” Cinema Display, he turned us loose with PocketWizards, 3200 w/s packs, and all the kick flips and mute grabs we could shoot. Having gotten my start in photography 10 years ago by shooting aggressive inline skating, I was stoked to ‘get back to my roots.’

I worked primarily with Bobby who lives in Capitol Hill. Bobby is 20 years old and has been skating for half his life. He’d never done a shoot like this before, but you’d never know it—dude was totally a professional. In addition to killing it in the park for nearly 2 hours, Bobby indulged me by posing for several portraits outside. I grabbed this shot with my Tokina 11-16mm f/2.8 lens and one of Chase’s Broncolor Mobil packs outfitted with a beauty dish.

Shooting with the Broncolor Scoro A4S pack was easily the photographic highlight of the night. I was able to throw my D300 into cH and let it rip at a full 6 frames per second while still getting a full flash pop with every exposure. Siiiiiiick.

After the photo sesh Chase invited us all back to his studio to tap a keg and hang out. Not only was it a great opportunity to pick Chase’s brain on everything from iPhones to music, I got to chill with his really cool staff and chat with a bunch of talented Seattle photogs. I even got to try the Chase Jarvis Inc. signature cocktail, Possum Hunt—which can only be made with a particular vodka sold exclusively in New Zealand.

A big thank you to Chase, Scott, Mikal, Dartanyon and Kate for setting up and hosting this event. It was some of the most fun I’ve had with a camera. Also, thanks to the folks at Inner Space and all the skaters who tore it up while being blinded by strobes.

More photos on Flickr.

On a Saturday night in early May Jon, Ryan and I walked down 45th Street to Musashi’s for sushi. This place is ALWAYS packed; I brought along the D300 to keep me occupied while we waited for a table. If you have not been to Musashi’s, you’re missing out on inexpensive and excellent Japanese food. Musashi’s is just another part of the equation that makes Wallingford the best Seattle neighborhood. That might be slightly biased since I do live in the aforementioned ‘hood. I live near 45th street on Bagley and enjoy being able to walk to anything (grocery store, bars, breakfast places, movie theater, pizza, bank, StarbucksTullysEspressoStandTeaRoom, hardware, left-wing propaganda bumper sticker store—you know, all the Seattle-ite essentials).

The truck above seems to be permanently parked on Woodlawn Ave right off 45th. I had a margarita at the Chile Pepper last Friday and noted that this old beater is still there—completely unmoved. Perhaps the owner recently rented An Inconvenient Truth and after becoming burdend with guilt decided to bury the keys. Who knows.

Nikon D300. Nikon 18-200mm VR lens @ 18mm.
Manual Exposure. 1/60 sec @ f/3.5. ISO 200.

This is just one of many Volkswagen Beatles crawling around Wallingford. There are also plenty of classic VW buses (including a yellow one with a black Charlie Brown stripe painted on it). This Vee Dub is parked across the street from the truck and could quite possibly be bolted to the street. If you’re visiting Seattle and for some reason have a desire to see these old clunkers in person, don’t worry, both of them will probably be resting peacefully on the pavement pictured here.

Nikon D300. Nikon 18-200mm VR lens @ 24mm.
Program Exposure. 1/60 sec @ f/3.8. ISO 200.

This is the front facade of a store that sells books for kids. I naturally had to check it out (it’s also right next to Musashi’s). I decided I would buy a copy of Where The Wild Things Are if they had it. Unfortunately, four or five yuppie parents beat me to the punch and bought out the store’s entire inventory earlier in the afternoon. Damn.

PhotoShop note: This weekend I learned how to use the “Unsharp Mask” feature. I have only used it a few times, but it is clearly essential for digital photography—the difference it delivers is astounding. The three pictures above are the first posted to this blog that have been sharpened; going forward I plan to sharpen every image I shoot to some degree. Send me a message or a comment if you are interested in the settings I use.

Last Sunday Jon Caldwell and I ventured out to make some pictures. Jon had spent the weekend touring Dana (his girlfriend from Chicago) around all the picturesque places in Seattle and had plenty of ideas for places to shoot. For sunset we decided to hit Golden Gardens Park in Ballard. We set up on the beach and pointed our cameras west at Shilshoe Bay and the Olympic Mountains.

For sunsets and sunrises I use a technique I heard about from my dad. First, I point the camera straight up and get a meter reading. Usually I set the camera to Program Exposure mode and just take a picture. I pull up the EXIF data on the LCD, read the shutter speed and aperture setting the camera came up with, and then plug those values into the camera using the Manual Exposure mode. Chances are these settings will not be perfect, but it’s a good starting point. Once I’ve got the manual settings loaded, I start taking pictures of the horizon. Constantly checking the LCD in between shots helps me adjust shutter speed and aperture to get just the right balance. When I use a tripod I typically leave the ISO at 200. If I’m shooting handheld and there is not much light I’ll crank ISO to get a shorter exposure time.

For the shots at Golden Gardens I used my Nikon D300 with the 18-200mm VR lens on a Manfrotto tripod and head. I could have easily shot hand held, but I also used a Cokin ND Graduated 120 filter. I think it’s easier to adjust the Cokin system when everything is stabilized on a tripod. I have not had too many opportunities to experiment with the ND graduated filter, but I like what it does for situations with a wide range of light like sunsets.

Shortly after sunset we packed up and drove a few hundred yards down the road to Ray’s Boathouse. I wasn’t originally planning to stop there, but they have a great neon sign and I couldn’t resist pulling over. I set the camera to Program Exposure with auto ISO, jumped out of the Explorer, grabbed a few shots, and took off.

By the time we arrived at Gas Works Park the sky was dark. Jon and I setup tripods and experimented with long shutter speeds. Gas Works is great for night photography. Point the camera at an old, rusty piece of machinery and leave the shutter open for 20 or 30 seconds. Review image on LCD. Tinker with camera adjustments. Repeat.

Below is a view of The George Washington Bridge from a hill in Gas Works Park. This shot is a 20 second exposure. I tried a few different white balance settings and did not like what I was getting. I finally got decent result after custom white balancing the D3oo using an ExpoDisc.