Denver wedding photographers, Colorado wedding photography

Archive: January 2008 - View all recent posts

Friday, January 25, 2008 - Personal

Jared Wilson - Weding Frtogfr

My daughter just handed me a note:

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I'll interpret:
Dear Jared I love you.
Will you be my photographer for my wedding!
I really really love you!
Do I love you? Yes

Mmmm... That feels good. :)

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Thursday, January 24, 2008 - Photography

WPPI 16x20 competition

o today I gave the UPS guy a box of four prints I had done up for the annual WPPI 16x20 print competition. I'll be attending the WPPI convention in Las Vegas this March and I'm excited to see how well my prints do in the competition. I believe last year nearly 3000 prints were entered by wedding and portrait photographers from all over the world. As far as I understand things, they judge prints on a 100 point scale and only those images scoring 80 or higher receive the "Award of Excellence". Of course, if every photo entered got the "Award of Excellence" it would be pretty meaningless, but I guess they judge pretty hard and it's quite an honor to score an 80 or higher.
So, I honestly have no idea if these images have a chance of totally bombing or of winning their categories (I entered each of them in 4 separate categories). I'll let you know in a couple months!
Out of the thousands and thousands of images I took in 2007, these are the 4 I sent in. Don't ask me why I chose these four over any others. I don't know that I have a good answer.
Except for this first one. I just love this image. If ever there was a photo that contained a thousand words...

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And this one tells a great story too.

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I was noticing that many of the winners from the past couple years were doing some pretty crazy post processing on their photos. And many of those winners were Australian, but anyway...
I did the usual texturing on this one and then I took it to the extreme with some funky actions I got from one of those Aussies.

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And here's Nick, who I entered in the High School Senior category.

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I wish I could've entered tons more but it costs some mega $$$ to enter each photo - so four will have to do.
Let's see what happens.

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Monday, January 21, 2008 - Treasure Box

Oscar Nomination Predictions

'm a self professed film buff and I love the Academy Awards. It's over the top, and sometimes ridiculously so, but it's the biggest stage for celebrating this art form we call the movies and I'm a total sucker for it all. (And this year it might not happen at all due to the ongoing writer's strike... we'll wait and see I guess.)
Sometime tomorrow before I wake up they will announce this year's nominees and I'm sure that when I do get out of bed I'll check oscars.org first thing to see who got the nods. But right now, 9 hours before the announcements are made, here are my predictions.
Best Picture: No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Juno, Michael Clayton, and Atonement (Atonement is the iffy pick here)
Best Director: No Country for Old Men, There Will Be Blood, Diving Bell and the Butterfly, Sweeney Todd, and Atonement (Really a 2 horse race between the first two I'd say)
Best Actor: Daniel Day-Lewis, George Clooney, Johnny Depp, Viggo Mortenson, and Emile Hirsch (I remember one year they only nominated one movie for an award - I think it was Lord of the Rings for Special Effects or something like that - because nothing else was close. They could probably do that here this year for this category. Nobody but Daniel Day-Lewis should bother preparing a speech.)
Best Actress: Julie Christie, Marion Cotillard, Ellen Page, Cate Blanchett, Angelina Jolie (I saw 'Away from Her' and thought it was 'Ok'. I don't really understand all the raves about Julie Christie's performance. But it sounds like it's her trophy to lose. Ellen Page in an upset anybody?)

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In the morning I'll leave a comment about who really got nominated and how well I did or did not do.

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Sunday, January 20, 2008 - Photography

Pocket Wizards!

've added something new to my arsenal - or 2 something news really. They aren't in my hands yet, but they're on the way. I can't wait to start playing!
These Pocket Wizards should allow me to start using flash 'off-camera' for some great dramatic lighting.
In a couple of months l'll probably be saying to myself 'How did I ever manage to photograph receptions without these things'?!

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Tuesday, January 15, 2008 - Weddings & Clients

Becca and Brent - The Engagement

must confess that I will not actually be shooting Becca and Brent's wedding. However, they're here in the Denver area and needed some engagement photos before their wedding in April in Austin, Texas. They heard about me, we talked, and then we arranged to meet up at Chautaqua Park in Boulder. It was pretty cold and if you look close you might see some rosy cheeks (and fingers). But we braved the elements and had a great time taking photos together. They're a great looking couple and I'm jealous that I don't get to go to the wedding too. :)

Anyway, here are some of my favorites from the day.

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Lately I've been inspired by the amazing photography coming out of Australia right now. Here's my attempt to create something from down under. What do you think?

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And here's a nice 11x14 I whipped up.

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Thanks Becca and Brent for a fun afternoon in the cold of the foothills. Sounds like it might be even worse here tomorrow. I hope you've got those jackets close!

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Monday, January 14, 2008 - Photography

Photographik 2.0

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Here's a little news bit for the photographers out there - and for Brides too.
I've been advertising with Photographik since last August and according to my Goolge Analytics it is one of the very best sites that I advertise on as far as getting people to come visit my site to see more of my work.

This past Friday they launched version 2.0 and I have to say that it looks fantastic. Brides - go check it out!
I spent a few hours today tweaking the four different ads I have on their site. You can view them here:
Destination
Mountain
Denver Wedding
Denver Portrait

If you're a photographer looking for a great place to advertise, definitely check out Photographik. Note though that they don't just let everyone advertise on their site. Here's how they put it: Directory placement on photographik.org is granted only to those photographers who demonstrate skill, proficiency and excellence in their respective photographic areas of concentration.

So, you need to send in your $17.85 application fee and then the good people at Photographik will go have a look at your work and give you the 'yay' or 'nay'.

Lucky for me they said "YAY!' :)

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Thursday, January 10, 2008 - Treasure Box

TOO-FIDDY!

ell it's been Seven Hours and Fifteen Days...
*ahem*
No really, it's been 52 days now since the launch of this new blog. And today we hit the 250 Comments mark. Sweet!!
I love comments. When I see a new comment on the blog it kinda feels like a hug from a friend. So - keep 'em coming!
In honor of this momentous occasion I would like to send lucky commenter #250 a $20 iTunes gift card. So, my congrats and my thanks to Tonya of reddoorphotography for stopping by and leaving a note here.

By the way, have you figured out yet how to subscribe to this and other favorite blogs/sites using RSS?

I got this from Wikipedia:
RSS (formally "RDF Site Summary", known colloquially as "Really Simple Syndication") is a family of Web feed formats used to publish frequently updated content such as blog entries, news headlines or podcasts. An RSS document, which is called a "feed", "web feed", or "channel", contains either a summary of content from an associated web site or the full text. RSS makes it possible for people to keep up with their favorite web sites in an automated manner that's easier than checking them manually.
RSS content can be read using software called an "RSS reader", "feed reader" or an "aggregator". The user subscribes to a feed by entering the feed's link into the reader or by clicking an RSS icon in a browser that initiates the subscription process. The reader checks the user's subscribed feeds regularly for new content, downloading any updates that it finds.

So here's the scoop in my own words. I have a Mac and Mac makes subscribing easy and very cool. Maybe Windows does too, but I have no idea. I think subscribing to RSS feeds is great because I can read the latest content on my favorite blogs whenever it appears. I don't have to keep going back and checking every day, or even multiple times a day. :) I just go visit when I know there's something new. Really Simple.

Here's how I do it on a Mac. I click the little blue 'RSS' that you see up there in the address bar. That takes me to a 'content only' type page. I then bookmark that page and I personally put that bookmark in my bookmarks bar. Then, whenever I open up my web browser, I will see something like this under my address bar: Melissa Jill (1)
Now I know that sometime recently Melissa has posted some new content for me to go enjoy. If I don't have time to read it immediately I can always come back, and sometimes I'll see a little note like this - (2) - beside her name. That means there's double the goodness waiting for me whenever I choose to visit. So, now, no more surfing the internet for hours on end, visiting all your favorite spots only to discover there's nothing new there. Instead, get notified when there's something there, and surf accordingly. :)

Finally, I know alot of people subscribe to RSS feeds using Feed Readers. With my Mac setup I don't need to do this, but I know they're out there. Google has one if you are in the market, and of course it's free. Check it out HERE. And make sure jaredwilsonblog.com is the first RSS feed you subscribe to!

Now, it's a race to 500...

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