dcc art show.

I am fortunate enough to be the coordinator for this show for the second year. Last year, we raised a lot of money for a local artist's charity and this year, we look to outdo ourselves.

Please mark your calendars and bring your tastebuds as we'll have a delicious selection of food, wine, and art for any palate.

Announcing the official call for entries to this year's show:

Calling All Artists! The Annual DCC Community Art Show (Posted: 9/20/09) -- The DCC Community Art Show is seeking applications for its annual art show/wine tasting event, November 14 being hosted at 1101 S Washington St. in Denver, CO. We are currently looking for artists who are looking to gain more exposure for their work or are new to showing and/or selling their art. This year's show has an emphasis on the greater community and what that means to its artists. The show will be open format and all mediums will be considered within discretion. We ask that artists submit 1-3 pieces (either separate or part of a set or series) that are framed or presentable for showing (no works in progress). To submit a piece/s for entry, please email a JPEG of your work along with the name, medium and sizing of each piece. If you are looking to sell your work (encouraged), please include all prices. There will be no entry fee this year but we will be accepting donations from any sales. We are also looking to get a short bio on each artist including a sentence of what community means to you. Please send all entries and questions to dccartshow@gmail.com. Submission deadline is October 25th.

family portrait time.

"Family Portrait Day" is a phrase that has the ability to strike terror in the very souls of many. When was the last time you had a family portrait taken? Have your kids sprouted up (as they all tend to do)? Have you added any new family members? Babies? Spouses? Is your son's ex-girlfriend, whom he can't stand the sound of her name, in it? I know our family can list many of the above reasons for needing to update the family portrait. Those holiday cards and newsletters will be going to friends and family around the world. Why not include a current family portrait for them?

Announcing our fall family portrait package!

$279 includes:

60 minute session at the location of your choice

20 holiday cards printed on Kodak Professional Endura Metallic paper

$100 in print credits .

An additional charge of $15 per person will be added for parties greater than six people.

A $50 retainer fee is required at the time of booking to reserve your session time. Reservations made prior to September 30th will receive an additional $25 in print credits.

Space is limited, call to book your session today! 720-227-5505. Dates are available in Denver and Seattle as well.

growth.

Although I have always loved taking pictures, my career in photography started by accident. I never really had a "good" camera and never had more of an interest in photography outside of capturing the odd memory of certain occasions.


My camera collection started with a small 110mm camera that came in a cereal box and my first 35mm was found in the glove compartment of a car we rented after I hit a deer in the middle-of-nowhere-Colorado. It wasn't until college that I used an SLR for the first time. The class was photography 101, chosen merely to fill an art credit I needed because I couldn't paint, sculpt or draw. The class was intended to round out my degree; little did I know it would change my life.

My first day in class, I vaguely knew what shutter speed meant, and I'd only heard the term, "f-stop" from conversations with others I knew that had taken a photography class. I don't know if it was the amazing instructor I had or something about tapping into an as-yet-undiscovered passion, but that class changed me.

I spent the better part of a year isolated in the darkroom at school, and by the end of the summer of 2004, I was asked to photograph my first wedding. I actually considered declining the offer. To that point, the only people I had ever photographed were the ones required of portraiture assignments, which I hated with every fiber of my being. Despite my nervousness, I shot the wedding anyway, and had a blast. Suddenly, I wanted to shoot fewer flowers and dilapidated buildings and more people.

I consumed the idea of shooting portraits and found some workshops to take and learned more about the art of portraiture. The more I shot, the more I realized how dynamic and amazing the human form is. As I look back on my portfolio from those first awkward portrait assignments to the work I have shot this summer, I love seeing how much I've grown as a photographer, and find it funny that I find so much joy in the very situation that used to make me wish I had enrolled in ceramics instead.

Even though I surely have some favorite landscapes and still life images in my portfolio, I certainly enjoy taking pictures of people more than I did when I first started shooting six years ago.

emily.

Get the flash player here: http://www.adobe.com/flashplayer

This session was awesome. I have known Emily since she was about five years old, but I was truly floored when she came to me and said that she wanted me to take her senior portraits. Knowing her family's "usual" flavor for portraits, I wasn't sure that accepting was a great idea. I didn't want her to be disappointed when her photos weren't of the cheesy-background-in-a-department-store-studio style. She insisted.

I haven't slept in three nights in anticipation of this shoot. I had a ton of ideas, but still wasn't sure that my client and I were on the same page. So we headed out to the beautiful ponderosa forest of Northern Arizona this afternoon and went in search of some decent places to take pictures. I wanted to avoid, at all costs, the typical senior portrait of my generation: letter jacket wearing senior leaning against or hugging skinny pine tree.

Let me tell you this girl did not disappoint. She climbed up rocks, mossy wet slopes, laid in rotted out tree stumps, and ventured down a dark and muddy wash, all for the sake of some great portraits. As we hiked and talked, I asked her why she wanted me to shoot her portraits so badly. She said, "because I'm not an ordinary person. I don't want my senior pictures to be ordinary." Ahh, a girl after my own heart. Her reason for wanting me to shoot her photos were the exact reason I wanted to start shooting senior portraits. To take a step away from ordinary.

The rest of her awesome session can be found here.