The Tanager Blog

Not the usual post, I’ll admit, but I figure all of my blog readers needed to know about the unfortunate mustache I sported for 72 hours earlier this month.

I wish I could say I did it for charity, but the truth is I was Ron Burgundy for Halloween, and this hideous thing was so ridiculous I had to sport it for a few days at work.

It’s gone now. Gone. Forever. Almost.

(Click on images for a larger view)

Things just got a lot more interesting with Tanager Photography. On Wednesday, our new camera arrived: the Canon 5D Mark II, an upper echelon camera with an incredible 21.1 megapixel full-frame sensor and HD video capabilities. Paired with the Canon 40D we’ve been shooting with, we now have even more expanded coverage for weddings, portraits, events and of course, our travels.

So its been an interesting week beyond just the new camera. What’s Halloween in Colorado without 14 inches of new snow … in the city? We carved a pumpkin last night (OK … Hailey carved a pumpkin last night), and I plopped it on the porch to photograph it (above). I was blown away at how the 5D balanced the inner glow of the pumpkin, the moonlit sky, the street light, and the streaking traffic on Holly St.

Hailey is knitting a baby blanket for our child, which made for an interesting test subject. Same with lighting a match. On day one of the blizzard, Hailey baked some beer bread, which I promptly photographed fresh from the over. I feel like I’m just scratching the surface on this camera’s capabilities.

So here’s the big deal with the Canon 5D for me. The camera shoots at high ISO settings with little trouble. ISO basically means how sensitive the sensor is to light. The higher the number, the more sensitive, the better the camera does in lower light (like churches, indoors, dusk, etc.). Many cameras (40D included) do OK through 400 ISO. At 800 ISO, you are pushing it and asking for a bit of post-production work to have less grainy, less noisy images. I pushed the ISO to 3200 on some of these images, and experienced very little grain or noise in the image.

I’m sure I’ll be posting a lot of new stuff in the coming weeks. Hailey and I might even do a maternity shoot together. We’ll try to avoid cliches, but we certainly have a lack of baby bump images. Stay tuned.

Adam Huggins (below) is one of my best friends. We’ve known each other since our freshman year in college, and we really shouldn’t be friends anymore. Nothing personal. It’s just that freshman year was the only time in our lives that we lived near each other. He transferred to Wake Forest, and has lived in Birmingham, Richmond and now Nashville. Friendships normally don’t survive that, even in the era of Facebook. For God’s sakes: we were 18 the one time we hung out consistently.

I’m not bragging or trying to suggest that our friendship is made of brawn and steel. It is what it is. But somehow it’s stayed relevant and significant for both of us over the years (of course, a 72-hour trip to Hawaii to see U2 in 2006 — his idea, not mine — helped keep the glory days going).

So Adam is finally getting on with his life: he just finished his nine grueling years of med school and residency and is now a doctor — which means I expect to fly on his private jet to Ketchum, Idaho in the near future — and he met a wonderful girl, Tess, and married her in mid-August. Hailey and I flew up to Boise and drove to Ketchum for a spectacular four-day weekend to be a part of the festivities. Adam asked that I be one of his groomsman.

So as a wedding gift, we offered to photograph the rehearsal dinner, and these are some of those pictures. Adam was alright with it (he was hoping we’d get him a set of bamboo table runners from Crate + Barrel) as long as we enjoyed the evening at the same time.

First off, Ketchum is a gorgeous little town. It’s a special place for Tess, having lived there after college, and the way they did this wedding was perfect. They rented a big house for multiple families to stay in for the week, and then the backyard doubled as the ceremony and reception venue.

After we went through our ceremonial paces, everyone piled into a school bus for a one-hour ride north to the Galena Lodge for the rehearsal dinner. In the early evening light we passed through Hemingway’s country in all its glory — braided rivers, dense willows, robust pines and rolling mountains. Classic Idaho.

The Galena Lodge is a magnificent property. They ran carriage rides to the nearby ghost town on the hour, and the catering was pretty damn good.

Here are some images from the evening.

Adam’s Dad is also a doctor, and he gave a very moving toast to his son just before dinner. On a personal note, getting to know Adam’s family better was the highlight of the trip for me. Such a warm, kind, compassionate and generous group of people.

So as us groomsmen were standing around waiting for the ceremony to begin the next day, Adam brings up that he has an extra ticket to the U2 show, opening night, in Chicago, in early September. His friend Neil has to take a rain check and “it’s yours if you want it.”

“Thanks man,” I say. “Let me see what’s going on and crunch some numbers and see if I can make it work.”

This being Adam, yours if you want it quickly morphed into you’re coming, it’s been decided for you.

At the end of the night as we were saying our goodbyes and wishing the newlyweds the best, Adam shook my hand and said “I’ll see you in Chicago.” That’s Adam.

<<More on the Chicago trip in another post, but you can view video I shot of “I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For” on my Flickr page.>>

Well, I’m back. Been a long while since I’ve blogged, in part because of how busy things have been at work, plus, my Canon 40D needed to go into the shop, so I’ve been on a bit of a shooting haitus. And I’m not talking about a three-day stint at Metro Camera Service in Englewood for a sensor cleaning. I had to ship it to Canon’s Main Service Branch in California to have the shutter mechanism fixed. So, all is better now, as these test shots of cabernet grapes and backyard carrots indicate. However, the situation pushed me off the fence on acquiring a new camera, and so, this Wednesday, according to UPS, I’ll be getting a Canon 5D Mark II as my main ax. The 40D, loyal soldier from trips to Italy and Mexico, will still serve me, but as the backup and as Hailey’s camera, too.

So, just to update things, I thought I’d get these pics of our bumper crop online. Hailey faithfully tended to a veggie garden this year, and along with cherry tomatoes, rosemary, oregano and jalapenos, we had great success with carrots from seed. On Saturday, we pulled 50 out of the ground, and only stopped because we didn’t want them wilting in our fridge. Best to keep the last 50 or so in the ground and harvest them for Thanksgiving. And yes, we recommend washing them before cooking them. Less gritty that way.

In late August, we hosted Hailey’s brother and sister-in-law, Jason and Ali, for a few nights. They live in Richmond, Virginia, and they visit roughly once a year now that Hailey’s parents live in Boulder. You know me and my pet portrait projects — while they were here, I asked them to pose for some photos in front of the white backdrop. Something playful and childish … like blowing bubbles. Why? Because we’re working on a series of white seamless portraits for the nursery.

That’s right: Hailey and I are having a baby. March 4 is the due date, and we’re determined to have the little one surrounded by our loved ones every night.

Uncle Jason and Aunt Ali are naturally playful (heck, we even bought the bubbles at the grocery store on the way home from putt-putt golf).

The bubble gun came with a blue hippopotamus-type creature who exclaims “bubbles make me silly!” when you squeeze its stomach. This provided a good ten minutes worth of laughs from Jason.

Right now Hailey is beginning to show and the baby is making a few moves of its own. In 10 days, we find out if it is a boy or a girl. It gets more and more real with each passing day. I’ll do my best to make sure this doesn’t become a baby blog, but rest assured, this will be one of the most photographed kids in history.

We’ll be seeing Jason and Ali again for Christmas in Richmond, along with Hailey’s parents, her grandmother and her aunt and family. Should be an extra joyous occasion this year.

And here is the final set from Jacqie and Ken’s wedding. You can see parts 1 and 2 here. We did portraits at the church and then moved to their reception at The Ridge at Castle Pines North. Beautiful spot.

Congratulations to both of them. It was an honor to photograph their wedding … here’s to many happy years to come.

(Click on each image for a larger view)

Jacqie and Ken were married on August 12 in Castle Rock. Here is part 2, with images from the ceremony and immediately after.

At my wedding, my brother’s words to me before walking down the aisle were “on occasions like this, there’s no difference between the sacred and the profane.” Things don’t go perfectly, and that’s part of the fun. I love the spontaneity of shooting a wedding, and the pictures above capture one of those moments. During the ceremony, a bridesmaid’s hair clip got caught in the maid of honor’s veil. It brought a few chuckles in the front pew, and a round of smiles from Jacqie and Ken.

I’ll have more portraits and images from the reception later this week.

Jacqie and Ken got married on August 12th in Castle Rock, and Hailey and I were honored to be their photographers. You may remember their engagement setting at Confluence Park back in March. At that time, it was clear these two were meant for each other. Both were easy going, funny, and full of laughs, and amazingly enough, that’s exactly how they were on their wedding day, too.

Here are images from before the ceremony. I’ll devote posts in the coming days to the service, portraits and reception.

As with all of my posts, you can view a larger version by clicking on each image … especially handy for the huge bridesmaid collage I have below.

Ah, summer. You roll in all seductive and lazy in early June and spoil us with rain, greenery, bursts of sunlight and the desire to barbecue everything in sight. You treat us well, and then seemingly overnight you abandon us to the moodiness of fall. We didn’t know what we had until we lost you.

Summer’s end is certainly weighing heavily on me these days. Not that I can’t handle the cold — it’s that I can’t handle the torrid pace of life. September: it’s next week. My God.

It’s been a snap-happy time for me and my shutter release. There was the trip to Steamboat Springs for the Balloon Rodeo, the remarkable reunion of the Reitzugs, a portrait session with Michaelanne Dehner, and three weddings (only one of which I’ve had time to post just yet). In the midst of it all, I managed to go backpacking zero times. I’m fairly certain I won’t even get a chance next summer either, but “woah is me.” I live in Colorado, one of the world’s most beautiful places, and I’m healthy and so is Hailey, and the future: oh, it couldn’t be brighter.

So, without more rambling, here are summer’s loose ends of photographs — little spare bits that didn’t quite fit into the story line of any blog posts, whether past or future. At the top, glacier lilies near Buffalo Pass. In early July, I went hiking with Tim Lamberton (below right) and bagged my 21st wilderness area — the midway point to bagging all of them in Colorado.

At left is me at my favorite place in Colorado — Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve. We stopped there en route to New Mexico for the family reunion. My cousin Nick, his wife Guilia and their adorable son Lorenzo (below) paid us a visit for a few days before hand, and since they were coming from Rome, well, how could you not see the Great Sand Dunes? We had to go, and Lorenzo had to fulfill his playing-in-the-muck quotient for this trip to America.

Once in New Mexico, we did countless things — among them the ambitious white seamless project, but we also did a half-day bug hunt with the fourth generation. That’s my nephew Isaiah (below right), pointing at the grasshoppers. The Nuggets jersey? His favorite piece of clothing. He doesn’t know who the Denver Nuggets are, let alone the first thing about basketball. He loves it because his favorite food is chicken nuggets. I love that boy.

And finally, a few golf shots from our recent trip to Idaho for Adam Huggins’ wedding. That’s Adam (below left), teeing up on the eighth at Sun Valley’s amazing golf course.

The views from the course — like this one from the second tee — were astounding. I love Idaho. Plan to go back when we have kids.

And as for golf course photography … yeah, I could definitely get into that.

Thanks for letting me have an indulgent and aimless blog post. Coming up: more from Adam and Tess’ wedding, a trash the dress shoot with Jodi and John, and a whole slew of great shots from Jacqie and Ken’s wedding.