As many of you know, my family and I purchased a house a couple of months ago and if that wasn’t enough we decided to completely remodel it. We are neck deep in the middle of this remodel and I haven’t been able to post anything to my blog because we think it’s fun (not really) to stay up until 2:00 AM working on the house. Needless to say we hope to be wrapped up with this mess sometime in the next month or two but I will try and get some new posts up as soon as I can keep my head above water. If nothing else, I will throw a few of our remodel photos up to show the progress.
If any of you like to paint or know how to lay tile and want to help out let me know!
Every year WPPI hosts a convention/trade show in Las Vegas. This convention attracts over 11,000 wedding and portrait photographers from around the world for loads of fun and lots of learning. For the past couple of years I have organized photo shoots for photographers to participate in. This year I am super excited to announce that I am organizing or helping to organize a number of shoots.
The first shoot to be announced is exciting for many reasons but for starters ALL of the profits are going to be donated to The Portrait House. Other reasons include but are not limited to… a super cool location, 5 shooting areas, multiple models…
If you are interested in participating in this shoot you’d better act fast because space is limited and I’m sure it’s going to sell out quick!
All you American Idol fans out there will want to check out this post. Earlier this month I had the privilege of photographing Megan Joy from season 8 of American Idol. If you watched the show at all, you know that Megan has an amazing voice… I didn’t ask her to sing during her session but maybe I will next time!
Since it was cold outside Megan and her son met me at my studio in Salt Lake for a quick photo shoot. Here are some images from their session… leave some comment love and let me know what you think.
Megan, thanks for giving me the opportunity to capture these moments of you and your AWESOME son!
January 4, 2010 - 11:51 pmamanda - yes! i totally love her! that is so awesome and these pictures are stunning!
January 3, 2010 - 2:41 pmRhett Olson - Beautiful.
I like all of them, but I think the last is my favorite. The emotion in face and the soft lighting is great.
December 31, 2009 - 9:12 amAmanda Mendenhall - Oh I love Megan!! She was awesome!! I love all of these!! Her kids eyes are to die for!!! As always amazing!! I am sure it was easy considering who you were shooting!!
Thank you all for your love and support over the past year. I am so blessed to be surrounded by so many amazing people! My family and I thank each one of you for your loyalty and support, it’s great having clients or shall I say friends like you!
There are going to be a lot of great things happening at innovative photography in the coming months and throughout 2010. I am making some changes and adding some new products that I hope you will like so please visit the blog often for the latest news and chances to win FREE stuff.
I pray that God blesses each of you and your families with many wonderful blessings this coming year. Have a merry christmas and a slammin new year!!!
I’m trying to get caught up on posting past shoots so here are some images I shot during a stock shoot I did at a local airport this past fall.
My friend and fellow photographer Brooke Kinsey from Blush Photography helped me out on this shoot and I even made her jump in for a couple of quick shots. Thanks for helping out and being such a good sport Brooke!
Here is a shot with most of the crew from the shoot. Thanks everyone for bringing your A game!
December 24, 2009 - 1:27 ambrooke kinsey - omg I hate you. I didnt get a professional make up job :) you are a rockstar and am so happy we are friends so some of rockstar-ness can rub off on me.
If you are one of my facebook friends or are a fan of the innovative photography page on facebook then you may have noticed the contest I announced when I launched the new blog which was basically if you were one of the first 20 people to leave me a comment on the new blog (under any post) you were automatically entered to win one of five $10 amazon.com gift cards. Well it’s time to announce the winners.
Matt Hardy
Nikki Harris
Leah Simmers
Amanda Mendenhall
Tiffany Rushforth
If you are one of the winners watch your inbox, you should be receiving your gift card via email sometime in the next couple of days. If you didn’t win, keep checking back for more chances.
This time of year I start thinking about and planning the epic trips and adventures for the following year. I’m not sure yet where next year will take me but I was going through some old images recently and found this snap of me on a backpacking trip from a few years back. I’m one of those crazy photographers who can’t go on a 12 mile backpacking trip without carrying 30lbs. in camera gear. It always sounds like a good idea when I’m in the planning stage so that I can capture those amazing images as the sun sets across the back country. It never fails however that I ALWAYS end up regretting the extra weight in my pack from my much needed (yeah right) camera equipment. I did this when I climbed to the top of Mt. Timpanogos (18 miles round trip gaining over 4800 ft in elevation in the first 9 miles), my pack in the image below is overloaded with unnecessary camera gear and I did this when I drug my two eldest kids (ages 5 & 7) on a 7 mile round trip over nighter in the beautiful high Uinta’s this past summer… what a blast that was! I have the most AMAZING kids in the world!
I thought it would be fun to see if anyone could guess where this photo was taken. The first person to leave a comment at the bottom of this post with the correct answer will win a $10 amazon.com gift card. Be sure to leave your email address so that I can send it to you.
So you may have noticed my new blog and I have to give a lot of credit to my new friends over at prophotoblogs.com. If you are a wedding photographer or a portrait photographer and you’ve been putting off upgrading your old, outdated blog then you NEED to get this template! The admin pages of the ProPhoto 2 template allow you to quickly and easily customize almost everything about your blog. If you are not the most technical human on the planet there is even has a “hand held” option that includes the guys at prophotoblogs.com walking you through the install of WordPress and your new blog template!
The icing on the yummy ProPhotoBlogs cake is this discount code ~
RYACHR544
They hooked me up with this code and suggested I share it with my friends. This code will save you $10 when you purchase the template so feel free to pass it along to everyone you know!
Thank you Jared and Matt for such a RAD template!
Take a look at this video if you want to learn more about this AWESOME template!!!!
Ayden decided he wanted his hair cut like his dads. I tried to talk him out of it but he had already made up his mind. We had a lot of fun with it as you’ll see in the second to last image.
I tried to talk him into keeping his hair like this.
What else are you going to do with 6 inches of hair? This one was Becca’s idea and we were cracking ourselves up! I like Ayden’s the most.
It was one year ago today that I received the worst phone call of my life. I was sitting at home with the kids while Becca was out with her girlfriends and I answered the phone. It was my little brother’s voice on the other end of the line. I could tell he was pretty upset about something and then the words came… “Dad’s dead”. These words hit me like a truck and turned my world upside down. As those words echoed through my head I just sat there completely and utterly helpless. I felt like the life had been sucked out of my body. As I held the phone to my ear with all of the energy I could summon I could hear my mothers frantic, devastated voice in the background on the other end. She kept asking the paramedics if he was going to be OK as they did their best to put the life back into my fathers limp body. Needless to say, their best efforts were not enough.
My father was a rock in my life. I could always call him for advice and I still find myself going to pick up the phone when I have questions that I would have called him about in the past. I miss the simple things about my father like the fuzz on his head that would tickle my nose as I kissed him on the forehead to tell him goodbye. I regret not spending more time with him towards the end, I am ashamed that I let life get in the way.
I blogged about my fathers passing two days after his death and it was the basis for the talk I gave at his funeral service. I am so grateful for the time I had with him, I only wish I would have been around more.
Here are a few images that made me smile.
That’s me in the middle with the mullet
December 6, 2009 - 11:12 pmSteph Riedel - Beautiful photos and great memories !!
I just lost my mom a week ago tomorrow.....grief is such a strange and weird thing. I had 3 days while she was in the hospital to talk to her and she responsed in ways that I consider blessings !!
Life got in the way for me also and I feel sad for that.....but I'm going to live with purpose and try and be there for my dad now.....
thanks for posting
by ryan
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