Happy Mother’s Day to all who pay attention to such things. Here’s a teeny collection of mothers with their kids from recent portrait sessions.
Last fall I drove to Ogden to make some pictures of Colin and Hailey, on the occasion of their recent engagement. We started at their house, then walked to a nearby park, and finished up walking downtown Ogden, near the location of their first date. They talked about that night “remember when you said…and then I said…”
Next week they are getting married and I’ll be there to make a visual record of their day. Hooray for love!
Today marks Ken Potts' 102nd birthday. He is a remarkable survivor of the infamous Japanese attack on the USS Arizona during the Pearl Harbor bombing. The ill-fated ship was carrying a total of 1,512 people when it was targeted, tragically resulting in the deaths of 1,177 individuals. Ken managed to survive the attack and is now one of only two remaining survivors still alive to this day. Here’s a portrait I made of Ken just a few months ago at his home in Provo, Utah.
Happy Birthday, Ken.
Ken Potts, photographed at his home in Provo, Utah, September 2022
ArtFUL episode on BYUTV
Last year about this same time of year, a film crew from the BYUTV show called “Artful” came to my office for a couple days. They followed me around and interviewed me about my work and how I got started and why I do what I do.
If I’m not taking pictures, I love talking about taking pictures so I really enjoyed the process. And even though it’s hard to see myself on camera, I also enjoyed how the piece came together. One of the most exciting parts about the episode, is that the producers wanted to revisit a family I photographed 12 years ago that had quite a unique story. Following up with them years later was a pretty moving experience for me, but I don’t want to give anything away. If you’d like to take a look at the episode, you can see it here.
My part of the episode starts at 12:18, or, you could also watch the beautiful profile that comes before mine, the artist Behnaz Karjoo.
Here’s a trailer from the episode.
Madison and Jordan are engaged and soon to be wed. They are from Nevada, near Reno, where the wedding will take place but since we were doing the engagement pictures here in Utah, I wanted to find a location that had a landscape similar to the town where they grew up. We drove out west of Salt Lake, past Eagle Mountain and we found a great spot. The wedding’s not until this fall and I loved working with these two and can’t wait for the big day in September.
This is a post about a wedding, but first, some back story. I need to tell you about my friend Craig Pack. Here are three quick stories about Craig, with whom I was friends in high school.
One time on the 4th of July, after the parade, we went behind the school and hit smoke bombs with a tennis racket out in the street. That ended when we mistakenly hit an unmarked police car.
One time around midnight, we drove to the Hibbard Bridge to jump off into the Teton River in pitch dark. We took off most of clothes, not all, but most, since we were wearing our good clothes having just come from a youth dance, and didn’t want them to get wet. After jumping off the bridge a few times, after we got out of the river, we didn’t have towels, so we just got back in the car “as-is” and headed into town before getting dressed. When we got pulled over for not having tail lights in the car, the officer’s face revealed quite a bit and suggested he was confused about why four soaking wet kids were driving around town in their underwear.
One time, me and two other buddies went to Craig’s house on a day he wasn’t around, and each took one of his shirts and one of his pants and all wore them to school the next day. When Craig came to school and saw that we were all wearing his clothes—and this next part will certainly come as a shock—he did not think it as funny as we thought it was.
Craig and I were friends in high school and had a lot of great times. We even worked at Kentucky Fried Chicken together. We’ve kept in touch and text each other every so often. So I was delighted when he called and asked me if I would photograph his daughter’s wedding. After high school, Craig joined the Navy, went to medical school, got married, and so hanging out with him on his daughter’s wedding day was really something special. I loved seeing the adult, grown up version of Craig, although I sure like the high school version, too.
Here are a handful of pictures from the wedding day. The third picture shows Craig and his wife Camille (who’s amazing) and their kids.
Ok, and just one more picture. That kid waving, that’s Craig when we were in high school.
Father of the bride, my buddy, Craig Pack, from way back when.
I’m pleased as punch to announce a full day portrait photography workshop on March 25, 2023 in Provo, Utah.
If you’re interested in photographing people but your current pictures lack emotional zing, then this workshop is just what you’re looking for. With in-class instruction and hands-on demos, I’ll teach you how to improve your portrait game through simple exercises and mindset shifts. I’ll share what I’ve learned and practiced in my own business for the last 20 years to make meaningful and memorable portraits and teach foundational principles to help you discover and hone your own creative vision. Whether you’re taking pictures of your family just for fun or making portraits for clients, this content-rich workshop is designed to help you build your portrait photography toolkit and your creative identity so your images are memorable, meaningful and engaging.
The full description is here or click here to sign up right now!
For eleven years now, I’ve done this project. Since age 44, I started taking self portraits on my birthday. I take as many portraits as the age that I’m turning. So, yesterday, on my 55th birthday, I made 55 self portraits. Some were on my own when I was at my office, some were with friends that came over in the evening for root beer floats. I don’t know how long I’ll do this tradition, but at this point I can’t see a reason to end it.
(Here’s where you can see what I did in 2022).
Some of the images are repeat ideas from previous years. I kind of like shooting how my day starts and ends, so that motif gets repeated from year to year. And some of the images get repeated because, I’ll be honest, it’s hard to think of 55 brand new self portrait ideas that I’ve never done before. So here you go. Fifty five self portraits on the occasion of my 55th birthday.
Click on any image to view it larger.
JessiKate Riley, in 2021, won Miss Utah USA. Built Bar was a sponsor for her, and Chase Marketing lined up this shoot.
Jake Van Wagoner is a father, producer, director, actor, and who knows what else. He’s written and acted in movies, worked on the show Practical Jokers, he’s in the comedy troupe Thrillionaires and for the last couple years, show runner and director for Studio C. Here’s a picture of Jake during the production of one of the Studio C sketches.
Elizabeth is my niece, and I’ve been taking pictures of her since she’s a baby. Earlier this year I took her engagement pictures and now that she’s married, I suspect some time day the road I’ll be taking pictures of her babies.
Sasha Fazulyanov needed updated actor headshots and portraits and came to the studio in Provo to get that done. Smashing and likable, meet Sasha. Click any image to view it larger.
Brock and Sage, photographed early in 2022. I photographed their wedding, too, so I’ll post some of those at some point. Brock’s is also a photographer and loves shooting film so that seemed like as good as any to use a camera I love using, my Rollei twin lens camera.
Back in the 90’s, there was in Salt Lake an organization called The Salt Lake Print Society. I don’t know if it still exists. A quick Google search turned up a website with that name, but I can’t tell how current.
Every year they would have a garage sale, and people would set up tables and sell their used and unwanted gear. I went a couple times and on one occasion, bought an interesting camera called a Rollei 35. It’s a 35mm film camera that’s very tiny, smaller than a fist. Many years later I ended up trading it for another camera that I’d use more often from my friend Jeff Archibald. He’s given me a few real gems.
The other camera I bought at the Print Society garage sale was a twin lens Rolleiflex. The one I have was manufactured in Germany in 1958. (That’s before the internet!) I can’t remember how much I paid for it, but I remember it was a stretch at the time and I wasn’t sure if I was making a good choice. But very early on after getting it and putting it to work, I realized that it was a real smart buy. So I patted myself on the back for being real wise. I remember Kent Miles was walking around the garage sale that day and I asked him if I should get it. He encouraged me to do so. So maybe I should have patted Kent on the back.
One time I sent it in for a camera’s version of an oil change. It cost me $500 for repairs and cleaning and getting the thing in tip-top condish. And I’m still using it.
It’s not the camera for everything, but for me, I love using it when photographing individuals and couples. There’s something about the square format that is well suited for that kind of subject matter. Some of my favorite pictures that I’ve ever taken were taken on that camera.
So here are three pictures from the engagement session of Brock and Sage with the Rollei. I took lots of other pictures with my digital camera that day, too, and I love of lot of those. But as much as I love digital photography, it’s just really hard to duplicate the look of a square film image combined with Tri-X 400 film.
One night I was walking around New York City a few years ago, and walked by a theater around midnight that was screening, for the first time ever, Mike Burbiglia’s movie Sleepwalk With Me. The marquee said “sold out” but as I was milling around, just watching people in line waiting to go inside, a woman called out that she had an extra ticket and would anyone like it. No one said a thing, so I said, sure, I’ll take it. How much? She said, “forget that, just take it”. And then I noticed I was standing right next to Ira Glass, who was the producer of the film and was there at the premiere, chatting with people outside waiting to see the show. As we entered the theater when it was time to go in, Mike Burbiglia was the one taking tickets. So, cool night. But that’s not the end of the story. The next day I was photographing a couple somewhere around Bleeker Street, and I could see Ira Glass walking up the sidewalk towards us. I said, holy cow, Ira Glass, I just met you last night at the movie. I asked if I could take a picture and I had no idea what else to say.
I don’t really care too much about meeting famous people, but of all people I’d really want to meet, Ira Glass is on that list. But then when I did run into him, I had no idea what to say.
Well, that’s the story of the time I met Ira Glass.
When I have a picture that I think is funny but I’m not sure, if I have a picture I’m proud of and want to show it off, if I have a picture from an experiment that failed but I still want to tell someone, I text all those kinds of pictures and many more to my friend Trevor Christensen. We met years ago. He was young, and even back then, I was old. He’d ask if I needed him to chew my food and I would put my teeth back in and yell, I’m not that old, now get me a sweater.
Some of that might not be true. The thing to know is that I’m grateful to have a friend in Trevor. He used to call me and ask me photography questions, now I call and ask him questions, too.
Here’s a portrait I made of him some time last year.
A family portrait from 2020. Do you guys remember Covid?
It’s always so great photographing my comedian friend Arvin Mitchel because he’s the nicest guy in town, and equally as funny.
In my early 40’s I started taking self portraits on my birthday, as many portraits as I am in age. This year, I’m 54, so here we go, 54 self portraits on the occasion of my birthday. (Click on any image to view it larger.)
For part of the day, my son and I drove to an old mining town about 40 miles from where I live, called Eureka.
And if 54 portraits of me just doesn’t satiate you, here’s the self portrait birthday posts from 2021 and 2020.
This is fun for me to do. I look forward to it all year. But it is challenging. For one thing, it takes all day. Also, it’s hard to make 54 unique portraits, let alone, something that’s not a repeat of previous years. But some repeats I favor, and lean into, like starting each time in my bed. So some are repeats and some I’m trying to make new each time, and then overall, I just know not every picture is going to be a home run, and I can live with that. But I do feel like if I can get 5-10 that are interesting or surprising or compelling or amusing, then by golly, I’d call that a success.
I’m sure I’m not telling you anything you don’t already know, but when you run your own business, you do a lot different jobs, from marketing to janitorial. This summer we hired Brenna Christen-Server as an office manager and she made an immediate positive impact. Meet Brenna!
Every summer in July we load up the minivan for our family vacation (and that’s when we say, maybe we should get one of those luggage racks) and we head to Island Park, Idaho. As a kid, that’s the place we’d camp on weekends, it’s the place I learned how to fish, it’s the place I learned to drive a pickup truck before I had a license. It’s heaven on earth, that place, and I love that I’m able to take my boys there, too, and give them similar experiences.
I took a lot of pictures with my digital cameras, but for this post, I want to show some of the film images. Most of these were taken with a $39 point and shoot film camera called Ilford Sprite II and I love the old timey look it gives these images. They feel like how a memory might feel. A little bit blurry, not 100% sharp, and some of the information your imagination has to supply on its own. I know this look won’t suit everybody. And this tool wouldn’t suit me for most of the things I photograph. But for a family vacation I think it really hits the spot. The last three images, those that are square, were taken with a twin lens Rolleiflex. Those cost a liiiiittle bit more than $39.
