A few months ago, Eric Woodruff let me know he was getting married and talked with me about shooting photos for his wedding. I was pretty excited to do so, I used to work with Eric back in the day when I was at The Canyons Resort as the photo/web/video guy there for a few years. He’s one of the nicest guy’s I know so I knew it would be fun, getting to meet, shoot, and party with a bunch of good new people. Just like the last wedding I shot, everyone danced a lot and late into the night, including the parents. Another thing I was pretty stoked about was that Eric and Kary wanted more candid photos, instead of setup portraits. These are usually a lot more fun, especially with a fun crowd that we had there and working when it’s fun is always a bonus!
Things had come a long way up at Red Pine Lodge at mid-mountain where weddings are usually held and the setting looked really great for Eric and Kary’s big day. Being up in the mountains for a wedding in the Summer heat of Utah was also especially nice with the scenery as well as the escape from the Salt Lake City valley heat!
I had the pleasure of shooting Jack and Lauren’s wedding on Flathead Lake in Polson, Montana. In the case you haven’t been to Flathead Lake in Montana, put it on your list of places to go in the Summer, it’s very much worth the trip. The wedding was lakeside at a family house and really couldn’t have gone by any better. It was probably the most fun I’ve had shooting a wedding. It never hurts to be there shooting a friend’s wedding. It makes things fun for sure.
As promised, part 2 of the 4th of July post is here. If you didn’t see the original 4th of July post, check it out here. I did a quickie time lapse of the bottle rocket launcher on the barge being built with a quick video clip Justin Hansen took with his new Nikon D5000 of the 1 minute firing of the 22,000 bottle rockets. I’ve been called “a big 3rd grader” before. I guess this qualifies.
The next installment of the teaser season brings “Every Day is a Saturday” by Poor Boyz Productions. PBP is one of the three film crews that I regularly work with, one that I spent about 3 weeks this Spring shooting with at Mt. Hood Ski Bowl and at Mt. Bachelor, both in the Oregon Cascade Mountains. We shot a lot of pretty sick features this Spring, some of which is shit that you just thought went down in video games. Check out the teaser below.
Every year I can remember except for one I spent in Park City and the Summer I spent in New Zealand, my 4th of July has been spent back home in Seattle at the Harris’s house. I started going there in pre-school, it was the perfect spot for a 4th of July party. Private beach location on the Puget Sound so anything goes with fireworks and views of 3 fireworks shows, Tacoma, Vashon Island and Three Tree Point. Add in good old friends I get to see every year and it’s something I knew I always had plans for. As we all grew up, the fireworks evolved. We all started with small, “safe and sane” fireworks you can buy at all the fireworks stands with my brother Stan and Sam’s older brother Ty going for the bigger and better fireworks (both of them are in the military now as it turns out). Undoubtedly the influence of our older brothers made myself and Sam get creative with our own fireworks, eventually creating things to destroy our entire collection of GI Joe toys in one day.
We’ve all grown up a bit. They 4th at the Harris’s has reverted back to how it started for the most part. Kids running around and playing, some shooting fireworks. Instead of my friends and I, it has become the children of my friends running around. It’s a pretty cool thing to see, pretty much watching what my childhood was like right in front of my face. The same place, the same day, add in a lot of new faces. It’s a fun day.
Everything has evolved and although we have grown up, we still blow shit up. Now we have more resources to buy more shit to blow up. Here’s where things haven’t reverted back to where the 4th of July at the Harris’s started out. Enter Dan Randall to the situation. Dan started coming to the 4th when we were in college and has been bringing more and more to the beach every year to blow up. A little background, Dan enjoys all things that blow up. From throwing little firecrackers one by one, to his time in the US Army as a demolitions specialist, blowing up more shit than you can imagine. As you would guess, Dan loves the 4th. The past 2 years he’s brought a large bottle rocket launcher that does 10,000 bottle rockets in a few minutes. This year he stepped it up a bit, making a small barge to float the launcher out to sea a bit to keep things at a bit of a distance and make things a bit safer. We’ve had to dodge stray bottle rockets in the past few years so a bit of distance should help things out a bit. Doug Earle also came in to help out with this monstrosity adding in a remote start capability to the barge making things a bit safer and more enjoyable for everyone.
This year the massive 22,000 bottle rocket launcher went off exactly as planned. The barge floated, the remote igniter worked, all the bottle rockets went off, nobody had to duck for cover and it was just pretty damn cool. Photos are below, video of the bottle rocket launcher to come as soon as I get it.
Cheers to Dan and Doug and of course the Harris’s for making another great 4th.
I got in touch with Winnie Forbes (now, Winnie Brinker) about doing a wedding with her as her 2nd shooter last summer for Cobey and Sarah’s wedding. As it turns out it was at Blessed Sacrament Church in Seattle, Washington where I had shot a wedding the previous year so she was stoked, already knew the location, etc. Winnie brought me on to roll with the guys and shoot with them while she took care of the girls. Yah, the guys are easy so I was stoked. It was a super laid back group so it was pretty easy and to make matters even better, Casey from Mindcastle Studios was there doing the video so for a lot of things, he directed what he was doing and I just rolled with it and shot what was going on with that which was really cool. Casey had some good ideas and was super good work with and Danielle.
It was a great day shooting and it was fun to be on the other side of things, not being the main shooter. Sometimes not having 100% of the responsibility is pretty nice! As it turns out, things were good, and more than just a fun easy day of being the 2nd shooter. Photo District News Magazine (PDN) selected one of my photos from this wedding in their Top Knots wedding photography contest a few months ago! Check out the blog post here:
It’s teaser season for the upcoming ski moves and the second installment so far this summer is for “Refresh” by Level 1 Productions. Level 1 is one of the film crews I work pretty closely with throughout the Winter seasons. I’ve been able to go on trips with them to Montreal, Quebec City (for a feature in SBC Skier Magazine for this upcoming Winter), Grand Rapids, Copper Mountain, Mammoth Mountain and of course a lot of work at home here in Salt Lake City, Utah. It was a really good year and definitely working with Level 1. Check out the teaser below. I’ll be updating the blog soon with some photos that didn’t make the cut with the magazines for the upcoming season but that I was still really stoked on.
Jossi and Byron Wells are two of the most talented skiers in the Southern Hemisphere. Jossi has been winning or on the podium in most of the freeskiing contests out there and Byron had his first X-Games appearance this year in the Superpipe. The Wells family house in Wanaka, New Zealand is a breeding ground for New Zealand ski talent and it won’t be too long before the younger brothers Beau and Jack start showing up on the radar of the freeskiing world as well. I’ve known the family for 4 years now and have been fortunate enough to work with them now for the same amount of time.
Check out Jossi and Byron at Cardrona Resort outside of Wanaka, New Zealand in this first episode of a 8 part series this Winter season (in the Southern Hemisphere) so keep an eye out for many more of these to come this Summer (for us in the Northern Hemisphere).
Every year I can remember except for one I spent in Park City and the Summer I spent in New Zealand, my 4th of July has been spent back home in Seattle at the Harris’s house. I started going there in pre-school, it was the perfect spot for a 4th of July party. Private beach location on the Puget Sound so anything goes with fireworks and views of 3 fireworks shows, Tacoma, Vashon Island and Three Tree Point. Add in good old friends I get to see every year and it’s something I knew I always had plans for. As we all grew up, the fireworks evolved. We all started with small, “safe and sane” fireworks you can buy at all the fireworks stands with my brother 
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