I've begun a new personal photography project that serves to document and share the stories of Colorado residents and their favorite snap shirts.
The Western snap shirt originated in Denver, Colorado by Jack Weil of Rockmount Ranch Wear, and quickly became a popular style that has been worn by everyone from cowboys to Hollywood actors, and politicians to urban hipsters.
If you want to share the story of your love affair with these iconic shirts, please contact me at info@calanan.com to participate in this project!
I just found out that one of my photos is being used without my permission in a promo video by Colorado Springs-based ad agency, Vladimir Jones. (Thanks to an anonymous tip!)
In this case, I decided to file DMCA (Digital Millennium Copyright Act) takedown notices with YouTube and their ISP.
Prior to doing that though, the first thing I did was take screen shots of the usage (including URL) as proof:
I then needed to determine who hosted the infringer's web site, which I found out to be GoDaddy by searching their domain name at Whois Lookup | Whois.net. This led me to find GoDaddy's trademark and copyright infringement policy, which directed me to send a DMCA-complaint letter (or email facsimile) for their review.
If, like me, you find yourself in this kind of situation and need good sources for DMCA takedown examples, check out these versions that I used to form my own copy:
Here's a sampler of a recent executive portrait session with the great folks at the Denver Preschool Program in Denver, CO who wanted new photos for their web site and annual report.
Denver Preschool Program's Acting Chief Executive Officer, Eileen Piper wanted fresh, natural-looking portraits for her staff members, as well as the Chair of DPP's Board of Directors, John Plotkin. After scouting locations within DPP's offices to find environments that worked well as backgrounds for approachable and casual poses, I used a combination of existing light and portable Nikon Speedlights to shape the light such that it suited the natural-looking portraits Eileen envisioned.
Thanks to DPP for not only their business but also for the warm, welcoming reception they gave me!
Serving Denver, CO and the surrounding suburbs this offer includes:
- 30 minute mini-session, 1-2 poses - 50 4x8 flat or 25 5x7 folded cards - Low-resolution digital images
Call 303-335-0348 to make your appointment today!
Details:
- Package includes low-resolution copies of all final images,suitable for e-mailing, Facebook, etc. High resolution digital copies suitable for printing, and other printed options are also available.
Hello, dear readers! I apologise for not keeping up with the blog, while I'm not closing it down any time soon I do recommend also following my latest updates over on my Facebook Fan Page, which I update on a much more frequent basis. Here's how to follow Calanan Photography on Facebook:
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Thanks for following this blog! If you don't use Facebook don't fret, I will continue to post updates here.
Camera: Nikon D700 Exposure: 4 seconds Aperture: f/11.0 Focal Length: 24 mm (Tokina 12-24mm f/4) ISO Speed: 200
I don't know why I haven't tried this before, to start with it was actually pretty easy to dial in exposure settings. There was quite a bit of ambient city light (orange sodium vapor streetlights) so I ended up keeping the shutter/aperture low enough to knock down the ambient yet just long enough to catch some full bolts of lightning.
Once exposure was set, I locked in the view I wanted with my wide angle zoom, locked the tripod down and took sequences of 4-second-long shots and crossed my fingers that I caught lightning.
Have you captured lightning on film? Share your links (and tips) in the comments!
I recently photographed the McDermott family at the Denver Zoo, where they spent a couple of hours viewing the animals while I tagged along and took candid "day in the life of" photos of their adventures. At the end of their visit took a series of formal portraits against a backdrop of greenery and flowers.
I love this combination of candid photojournalistic photography and posed, on-location portraiture as it takes advantage of my ability to capture those special moments while challenging me to think fast to compose photos in a way that tell a story. My work as an editorial assignment photographer in the magazine industry taught me how to find interesting portrait locations, and to make the best of natural lighting and portable artificial lighting (like small SLR flash units). Likewise, I also learned how to quickly build a rapport with strangers to try to make them feel comfortable so that their natural expressions show through in their photographs.
If you're in the Denver area and would like to book me for a "day in the life of" session please contact me for details and booking at info@calanan.com or 303 335 0348. Mention this blog post and I'll discount your session by 10%!
Last weekend I had the pleasure of photographing the marriage of a wonderful couple in a stunning location in the Colorado Rocky Mountains.
On June 5th, Sarah Czajka and Eric Mitchell wed at The Secret Garden Bed & Breakfast in Ouray, Colorado. Ouray is billed as "The Switzerland of America" and this bold claim is certainly not without merit. The town is located just shy of 8000' elevation and is situated in a bowl encircled with beautiful mountain peaks rising 2000'+ above it.
Here's a photo of Sarah, taken at an overlook just a few miles out of town while we were scouting for a location for her posed wedding photos:
Sarah's bouquet was one of the prettiest I'd ever seen:
Finally, here's a group photo taken at Sarah and Eric's rehearsal BBQ at Angel Ridge Ranch B&B and Equine Sanctuary near Ridgway, Colorado.
Congratulations, Sarah and Eric. More photos soon!
I recently had a portrait session with an elderly client named Dene who wanted a set of wallet-sized photos to mail to his family and friends. I found this so endearing, that in an age of digital photography (be it digital SLRs or even cellphone cameras), e-mail, Facebook, etc., Dene wished to invest in an in-home portrait session so that he could have physical prints of himself to give to others.
Dene hadn't had a portrait taken in many years, in fact as he gave me a tour of the memorabilia in his gorgeous Craftsman-style home the most recent professional portrait he has was one taken of him in his 20's!
After spending some time talking with Dene to both get to know him and to determine the look he was after, I set up my equipment in his living room and posed him in front of his Grandmother's antique - and still working - Seth Thomas mantel clock.
Here's the portrait that Dene selected:
And here is one of his alternate takes...
...as well as a more relaxed portrait that we made before he donned his colorful, giraffe-print bow tie and suit coat:
Technical info:
Nikon D700 Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 Nikon SB-800 + 43" Westcott white umbrella, 1/2 power Nikon SB-600 + grid spot, 1/16 power (Speedlights triggered by Nikon CLS)
Yesterday evening the Xcel Power Substation several doors down from our house exploded in a fireball that shot up 70-100 feet into the stifling Denver sky.
I was in my house when I heard the first of two booms, and ran to the window to see what happened as I saw my neighbors (who had been gardening) looking towards the explosion with horrified faces. As I could only see their reactions from my vantage point I had no idea what happened and wondered if a plane had crashed.
My neighbors then screamed and immediately started running down the block in the opposite direction so I ran out to my porch to look in the direction they'd been looking when I heard the second boom and saw a 70-80 foot mushrooming fireball looming over my house. Just moments later I was hit by a wave of heat.
I was frozen, for a moment wondering when the fireball would stop growing, wondering if it was going to consume me.
As the flames burned off the thick, black column of smoke continued to rise I ran back into the house, grabbed my camera and headed towards the burning substation.
Despite the raging fire, the growing heat and possibility of further explosions I moved closer to the substation and took photos from across the street until the heat became just too intense.
As I moved back, the smoke and particles triggered a localised rain of wet, black deposits (which I hope were carbon and not PCBs).
I ran back in to my house, washed off what I could and headed back out to continue photographing and to assess what might happen next.
Just then remembered that I had my cellphone and, after what felt like an eternity, forced my shaking hands to activate the video capture and shot this short video:
At first only a few people ventured outside...
...but eventually a flood of onlookers, fire trucks, and media filled our street as chaos reassembled into some sense of normalcy.
Neighbors were interviewed...
...and remnants of the substation rained down on lawns...
...and on cars.
Power was eventually restored by about 1 AM, which I thought was amazingly quick, I assumed we'd be without power for at least a day. My hat is off to those Xcel workers who made that happen. I couldn't fall asleep so I headed back out to take some last photos of the event. Here, the substation continued to smolder into the night...
Just a couple of snapshots of our pets with my favorite lens, the Sigma 30mm f/1.4. I'm using this lens (designed for crop-sensored cameras) on my backup Nikon D200 while I wait for my D700 to be repaired by Nikon.
"The Del*te Me! Uncensored (DMU) photography collaboration is highly original. Its stylised sense of humour and biting bitchiness is forming its own movement, a performance art environment within the wider photography world that revolves around a central premise of a brutal game.
The DMU collaborators submit their best photographs to an online gauntlet of unbridled, at times personally insulting, critique. Ten saved votes gets you into the portfolio. Ten delete votes and the image is unceremoniously deleted."
A good friend from back east visited us here in Denver last week, it was his first time out west and the first time he'd been above 5000' (without being in an airplane). In addition to showing him Denver we took him to beautiful Winter Park Ski Resort for some skiing and ended his vacation with a trip to glorious Rocky Mountain National Park (Estes Park, CO) for some phenomenal snowshoeing.
In the spirit of the hilarious blog, Photoshop Disasters ("Have you seen a truly awful piece of Photoshop work? Clumsy manipulation, senseless comping, lazy cloning and thoughtless retouching are our bread and butter..."), I spotted these disasters in a commercial for Dulcolax Balance during the Olympics.
As you can see, rather than flipping the image the "artist" turned it 180 degrees before pasting it, also seen again in the screen capture below. And I'm no specialist in optics but the reflection of the bottle in the glass of water didn't look right to me so I tested the concept with a glass of water and a box of Triscuits. The only way I could come close to duplicating that image is by placing the glass quite a distance in front of and to the left of the box and even then the refracted image of the box in the left side of the glass is reversed.
Update: Admittedly, upon further - ahem, reflection - the image wasn't simply turned 180 degrees otherwise the little glass would be located more to the right on the Balance bottle (below).
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