And now for something completely different. After shoots #1 (simple, elegant) and #2 (girl next door), Mikey wanted to go a little more edgy and mysterious for the last shoot. It was a great opportunity to assemble the ABR800 ringflash I got back in February and turn it up to 11.

This set against the light blue wall are my favorites. The vibrant electric color works amazingly well with Michaelanne’s megawatt voice.

As is sometimes the case, the best shots happen when you are running out of time. We’d reserved the Eliot Street Collective from 5:30 to 8:30pm, and this whole last shoot happened in about 20 minutes.

Thanks to Michaelanne for her creativity, her collaboration and willingness to try so many different things during this shoot. It was a helluva lotta fun.

If anyone out there on the Front Range/Denver needs head shots, give me a call.

And if you need a singer in the Front Range/Denver area, I know someone who can shatter glass.

(Click on the images for a larger view)

Here’s more from the photo shoot with Michaelanne Dehner. With the second set we first aimed for a girl-next-door look that morphed into a more playful, energetic shoot in front of the white backdrop.

I’ll post the third and final shoot in the coming days.

Michaelanne Dehner does it all: she rides show horses, she runs marathons, she climbs mountains, she acts and she can sing. And I don’t mean that she can harmonize with a song on the radio — she can sing. She can wail. She can sing in front of 50,000 baseball fans. Here’s a video of her performing the national anthem before a Colorado Rockies game at Coors Field. I was there, and it was the most rousing rendition of it I’ve ever heard.

This summer she’ll be singing the national anthem at Invesco Field at Mile High before a Denver Outlaws game. So, a few weeks ago, we met to shoot a series of headshots so she can land more of these types of singing gigs.

Our location was at the Eliot Street Collective in the Highlands neighborhood of Denver. It’s a cool little mixed-use space with exposed brick, gorgeous hardwood floors, bright colors and lots of natural light.

We did three shoots, with three different wardrobes, each striving for a different mood. Shoot #1 was going for simple, delicate, approachable, natural and mellow.

I’ll be posting Shoots #2 and #3 later in the week.

Not the usual narrative here, but more like an account for my bloggy absenteeism of late. I kind of mentioned this in my last post on Paco, but I’ve been super busy as of late with the usual summer stuff, a few shoots and oh yeah, the day job. Coming soon, however, I’ll have three new updates on what we’re up to at Tanager Photography. First off will be images from a photo shoot with singer Michaelanne Dehner (above). And I still haven’t completed my Mexican Travelogue, though its time to give that a break. I have probably two or three more posts to whip together, including one of the exploding Judas’ on Easter in San Miguel de Allende.

Have a happy and safe Fourth of July everyone.

For this category, I have a request: please vote on composition, positioning, expression, etc…not based on who’s familiar. And please add feedback in the comments box. In more than any other category, portraits is the one where I’ll value feedback the most. This will help me deliver better and better results for my clients in the future. Click on each photo for a larger view.

#1. Anya Wieder

#2. Peter Ossian + Nancy Cason

#3. Jeremiah Day

#4. Michaelanne Dehner

#5. Ryan, Suzy + Andrew Stone

#6. Lilli Canino

#7. Paul Luellig + Lorene Parrish

Last Saturday, my friend Michaelanne and I got to watch the Rocky Mountains hibernate. It was one of the more memorable hikes I’ve done in recent years, a late-season jaunt across familiar ground in an unfamiliar season. In Colorado, the difference between one weekend and the next is drastic and ultimately humbling. In a week where I watched the economy do more of a tailspin — and also watched more friends lose their jobs — it was deeply refreshing to walk in the woods, hear the most perfect silence, and get my spiritual bearings back. We tend to be small, temporal, self-obsessed, insulated and driven by things that are ultimately not important. Nature is persistent, beautiful, and tends to be more brutal than any stock market. This fact was not lost on me last Saturday — as we entered a clearing on the trail, we could see the Ten Mile Range disappearing in the snow.

That’ll make you pay attention, especially when you are wearing shorts like I was.

This hike is top-notch. I’ve done it four times, and it never ceases to amaze me. Do you want in on the secret? Oh, alright. Seeing that my blog gets about 15 readers a day (and I presume many of you are out of state), I’ll divulge. Just don’t telegraph it to Colorado.com. You can’t trust those tourism promoters!

It’s the southern end of the Gore Range Trail. The first segment is fairly popular as it goes to Wheeler Lakes, a pair of alpine ponds in a clearing. But the trail forks to the left, and what’s beyond that junction is what interests me. I can’t name another trail in Colorado that has such variety: it weaves in and out of the woods, through meadows, past ponds, around marshes, across creeks, along rocky ridges, back into the trees, across scree, beneath a hidden lake, and ultimately, up through the tundra to a low saddle called Uneva Pass, where a window to the north unveils the serrated Gore Range.

Each of the four times I’ve trekked up this (twice I’ve reached the pass), something magical happens. The first time was with my best friend Matt after I’d graduated from high school. At the scree field just shy of Lost Lake we saw an ermine dash across the trail and scurry over the rocks. The stench it left behind — they are mustalids like skunks — was short-lived but I’ll never forget the lesson: don’t f&*# with an ermine.

This go around, Mikey and I had a pretty different wildlife encounter: two couples of blue grouse.

Now, obviously I love birds. Who doesn’t? Certainly not these folks. But more often than not, the only birds you see on the trail in Colorado are juncos, jays, nutcrackers and the occasional woodpecker (a western tanager is another story). But grouse is a bit different. In spring these horny little bastards get all gussied up in hilarious breeding plumage and strut like they’re on Project Runway. In fall, well, they’re more concerned about survival. These fatties were pecking around the forest floor and running around with their tails up. Easy dinner if this were the Oregon Trail.

One couple was just shy of Officer’s Gulch. The other couple was hanging out just beyond it. At the crossing of the creek, Mikey and I found ourselves hiking through chest-deep willows the color of rust.

Mikey is running in the Philadelphia Marathon in November, so we kept a pretty quick pace for most of the day (and she somehow ran 18 miles the next day). By 11am we were at Lost Lake (pictured at the top, where she’s covering her ears) eating lunch and debating whether we should push for the pass. One stiff wind — which rippled the placid lake and carried the scent of snow — sent us back to the trailhead.

We made great time, ultimately reaching these ponds by 1pm, just as the wind mellowed out. In summer, the ponds are surrounded by marsh marigolds and elephantheads.

But on this day, it was pale grass and brittle stalks baring seeds. You can see what I believe are elephantheads, the dark stems below left of the grass.

One final thing about this trail, why I love it and why I was a bit relieved last weekend as we trekked it. As I’ve mentioned before — and as any of you living in Colorado know — our northern mountains have been ravaged by the mountain pine beetle, especially Summit County and the Gore Range. In the past few months, I’ve gotten accustom to the sight of red and dead lodgepole pines in the James Peak Wilderness, Grand Lake, Rocky Mountain National Park and Steamboat Springs.

Last weekend, it dawned on me as we were heading down in a light snow that the forests leading up to Uneva Pass seem unaffected by the beetle. My fingers are crossed on this one, but I wonder if it has to do with how spaced out the trees are. I’ve always enjoyed how this trail weaves in and out of meadows and takes in views of the Ten Mile Range and the Mount of the Holy Cross. And maybe those meadows are a buffer. Or maybe the beetle just hasn’t found them yet. We’ll have to see. In the event I go back in the next few summers and find one of my favorite places in Colorado red and dead, I’ll just have to remind myself that nature is brutal and there is a certain humility I can gain from that.

We got back to the car at 3pm, stretched our chilled muscles and hopped in the car. It then began to pour an icy rain…nature, at least on this day, was forgiving.

Above is our crew (from top to bottom, left to right): Beth Bonczek, Keith Lin, Lisa Pogue, Carrie Koenig, Mikey Dehner (y’all remember Mikey, right?) and Madeline, our 86-year-old dynamo trail boss.

Weaver sets this program up each summer where we form groups around interests and causes (e.g. women’s issues, international aid, outdoors/mountains) and those groups each get one paid-day out of the office giving back to that cause. Being the co-founder of the Mountain Funk Militia in high school, you know what I opted for: trail work!

Keith and Lisa did a good deal of the research, and the two of them set us up with the Colorado Mountain Club and Rocky Mountain National Park. Last summer, the park had some road work done on Trail Ridge Road, the highest continuous paved through-route in North America (did you know I used to be the editor of the Colorado Official State Vacation Guide and can blurt out random Colorado facts on a dime?). The road work site did a bit of damage to the alpine ecosystem immediately downhill, and the park needed some help restoring the slope and slowing the erosion.

For the project, the park’s botanist had gathered 14,000 native grass seeds, grew them in the park’s greenhouse, and we simply planted them. Well, not simply. It felt like we were planting the grass in loose marbles. The hill was mostly gravel and jagged granite rocks, so getting the plants secure and flush with the hillside was tricky.

As work progressed, the hillside started to look more like a zen garden than a natural habitat, but over time (at least we hope), the roots will spread and keep the hillside together, green and pretty.

However did we maintain our stamina at 12,600 feet? Lots of trail mix. Oh, and $9.99-gas-station-aviator sunglasses helped keep the sun out of me eyes. (thanks to Mikey for insisting I strike this pose…it’s badass).

By the way, Keith is the most mild mannered guy at Weaver…really, he is.

You can’t help but think what a great gig this: the scenery, making stuff grow, the camaraderie….sure beats stuffing envelopes for a volunteer stint.

One lone hitch: we had it in our heads that lunch was provided, but…it…wasn’t. Fortunately, all of the other volunteers gave us trail mix, chocolate and cookies. Generous, yes, but I was sugared out and surprisingly punchy afterward.

As we rapped up, I found these perfect alpine gentians. Gentians are always the last flowers to bloom in the high country — a precursor of autumn — and because of that, they are kind of a sad flower for me. When I see them, they usually remind me that I didn’t do enough hiking in the summer.

On that note: smiling group shot!

OK, the next few weeks will have some exciting blog posts so stay tuned.

• We might head down to the DNC tomorrow night. Don’t know what we’ll see, but I’ll be carrying my camera. I’m loving the fact that Denver matters for once.
• On Friday, a new piece of equipment will arrive on my doorstep courtesy of BH Photo: bright white-seamless paper and a support stand. I’m going to start experimenting with portraits on a white backdrop, so look for those.
• Also, I’ll be hiking Sunday with Grand Master Mountain Funk (aka my best bud Matt), who knows where, but it oughta be good
• And the following weekend we’ll be heading back up to Estes Park for the Scottish-Irish Heritage Festival. Another white seamless opportunity? The idea is intriguing….

(As always, click on the photo for a larger view).

Michaelanne is a co-worker and friend of mine at Weaver Multimedia Group. Twice we’ve volunteered together with the Colorado Fourteeners Initiative, doing trail-building weekends with a group of colleagues on Mount Evans and Pyramid Peak, two 14,000-foot peaks in the Rockies west of Denver. It was on those trips that we really got to know each other as friends, and a few weeks ago we got to talking about photography (I was shooting the Greenlight Guide Launch Party and I don’t think she realized how into photography I was).

So she volunteered to model, especially since she has a five-year anniversary coming up with her husband Ben and was working on a collage as a gift. As a surprise, she wanted photos of her riding her horse, Cheerio, something she just doesn’t have.

So we set off after work last Wednesday to scout the stable and riding course offered at 5280 Equestrian where she gets to ride Cheerio a few times per week. A little pre-scout goes a long way, and it allowed us to discuss what she wanted out of the shoot. For sure, an action sequence of her and Cheerio jumping. No problem. The Canon 40D has a wicked motor drive. Portraits, perhaps bareback…maybe barefoot. Those sounded good first thing in the morning, and backlit. From this we came up with a loose schedule, and agreed to meet on Friday morning at 6am.

Cheerio, of course, is an animal, which I seemed to forget going into this. Oh yeah, animals don’t always cooperate. They walk out of the frame (tough for someone who loves fixed prime lenses like me), they keep their eyes closed, they do weird things with their ears, and they slobber at inopportune times. All of this made me a bit tense, which in turn made Cheerio tense (they sense fear!) and Mikey a bit tense, too. So we slowed things down. She sat on the fence, I put on a wider lens, and then it started to flow.

Then it was time to suit up and do some jumps.

Here’s a collage I posted on Flickr last weekend (click on the photo, it is best seen large). Kind of a flip book of the sequence. Cheerio is a freaking huge horse.