The other day a father brought his two children over for a portrait session.  He brought his mother-in-law to help out with dressing and handling the kids.  Dad wanted to present some surprise images to his wife on Easter.   His one-year-old did not like the whole affair and let us know in no uncertain terms as he was carried in the door.  No problem – I started with his three-year-old daughter.  I called her princess and she fit the part.  Cute as a button, I had a great time creating images of her.  She was dressed in pink which went well with the backdrop I had chosen for the shoot.  At one point I asked my daughter to just talk to her.  She began to tell her a story while I photographed her various expressions.  It’s what you often have to do with someone so young.  But we had a wonderful time and I was able to create some beautiful images.  When it came time to photograph her brother he was still not in a good mood so we began to distract him.  My daughter got out the bubbles and began blowing them over his head.  He would reach for them and hold his attention so I was able to get the images I needed.  We finished up and they headed out the door with an appointment for dad to come back and select the photographs he wanted.  The next morning he called me to tell me his wife would be coming to the sales session.  My daughter had used a non-popping bubble which left a touch of residue in hair of the kids.  It seems that mom was brushing her daughter’s hair and discovered some of the residue.  She asked about it.  Princess told her, “It’s from bubbles, but I can’t tell you.  We had our pictures taken.”   In a way I’m glad.  I think she’ll enjoy her trip to Ted York Photography and the chance to see all the images.

This evening I photographed one of Mike Lee’s political campaign events.  One of the individuals working on the campaign has asked me from time to time to shoot some photographs for them.  (I loved their t-shirts - it reminded me of Eisenhower – designed that way I’m sure)   We live in interesting times and it seems that more and more folks seem to be getting interested in the political system.  This is a good thing.  I think for too long now we have let politics run itself.  (My congressional offices are tired of hearing from me, but I keep calling. ) Anyway – it is fun to see people’s enthusiasm for what they believe in.  Get involved!  I hope everyone will pay close attention to the events taking place and head to the polls in November – informed and ready to change the direction of their country.  It’s that important.

The Adbag is out!  For those of you in Highland, Alpine, Cedar Hills, and some of the neighboring American Fork- you may have seen my advertisement in the Latest Adbag which was mailed on Monday.  (I also photographed the family on the front cover.  Adbag held a cute family contest the photograph is of the winning family posing at the Roxberry Juice Co.  in highland.  The location was chosen for the Roxberry ad.)   The theme of my ad on page 5 is that spring is coming soon and is an excellent time to have a family portrait taken.  With the vegetation greening up and the spring flowers in bloom portraits can be very beautiful.  This Spring I’m offering a complementary 8×10 if you book a photography session by March 31st.  April and may is a great time time to have that outdoor portrait taken, but indoor portraits are OK too.  At Ted York Photography we turn your loved ones into works of art.  Every portrait is handcrafted from start to finish.  We’ll help you prepare for the portrait with a consultation.  We work to create a piece of art in the camera. We retouch and enhance every portrait.  Finally, we finish the print to last so that you will enjoy it for years to come.  Give us a call and mention you saw our ad here or in Adbag for your complementary 8×10 gift portrait.    (With the order of a 16×20 or larger wall portrait.)

I have a daughter that assists me quite often.  She is great at setting up the studio for me while I concentrate on the creative side of preparing for a photography shoot.  When things are pretty much ready to go she will sit down and do a few poses while I adjust the lighting.  This morning I was working on some new photoshop techniques  and spun through my folders looking for some images to try them out with.  I came across this test shot and decided to play with it a bit – see what I could do with just a few minutes of work.  I could immediately see an artistic quality that I wanted to bring out in the image and that is what I went for.  I know when she sees it she is going to really like it.  I already have a huge image of her in the entry way, but I’m thinking I might just have to do an additional one.  I’m also going to have to shoot a few more images of my other daughters and sons to give them some equal time!  Anyway – I’m honing in on the artistic look that is my style.  At Ted York Photography we are striving to turn your loved ones into works of art – that is what we are all about.

My neighbor’s snow blower woke me up this morning.  It snowed most of yesterday and into the evening.  Adding the the interest of a new coat of freshly fallen snow it was foggy outside.  I slipped on some warm clothes, grabbed the camera, and headed outside to see if I could make some interesting images.  I’m posting the results.  As usual I didn’t have a lot of time before it started to get light and the fog began to lift.  I merely walked around the neighborhood.  The camera was set at 800 ISO for a while, then I tried 400.  The images were noisy, but I liked that in these images.  Anyway – it was fun to play a bit.  The first image is of my home/studio.  In the second image I caught the snow plow as it passed by, adding some interest to the image.  The last photograph is a house in the neighborhood.

I was getting the kids ready for school this morning and noticed it had snowed outside and it was foggy.  I hesitated for a moment thinking it would shortly be gone, but decided to grab the camera and head out to see what I could see.  Unfortunately it didn’t last long, but I was able to get a few shots.  I find a certain mystery in wandering around in the fog.  For photographers there are some tricks to making images in the fog.  Exposure will play tricks on you.  The meter wants to tell you how to make images middle gray.  That makes for a pretty bla image.  Exposure normally needs to be increased one to one and a half stops so that you get whites in the image.  Anyway – I wish I had more time this morning, but shortly after I began to shoot small ice pellets began to fall and the fog started to lift.  I headed up the canyon trying to find more, but without luck.  I did put together a panoramic which I’m sharing here.  I’m going to spend more time looking for fog in the next week.  Hopefully I’ll have more opportunity to shoot a little more mystery.

I sat down this evening to answer a letter I received last week.  It was from a high school student who is taking a photography class in which she was assigned to write to a professional photographer.   I assume she found Ted York Photography on the web because she commented on my images.  This is not the first such letter I have received.  I like to answer them because I was once a beginning photographer and would have benefited from knowing a professional during my high school years so I wrote her a short letter and thought I would share it with you.  The letter answers  her questions and I hope gives her a bit of inspiration.  (I didn’t want to use her name on the Internet so I left it out.)

14 February 2010

budding photographer

some street

somewhere, UT

 Dear ——-,

 Thank you for writing to me about photography.  Although my business is only 4 years old, I have been shooting photographs as long as I can remember.  Thank you for your complements about my photography.  I found it interesting that you commented on my knowing when to snap the shutter.  I’ve always taught that part of being a good portrait photographer is knowing when to snap the shutter.  I remember when I bought my first digital camera and discovered there was a delay between when I pressed the button and when the camera actually took the photograph.  I could not make good portraits with that camera.  Fortunately the SLR digital cameras do not have that problem.  I have been using the Canon 5D series cameras since I went professional.  They are phenomenal cameras and I prefer the full frame chips for a better quality image.  I always use two cameras because when you are professional you must have a backup camera.  I don’t ever want to have to explain to a bride that I could not get her photographs because my camera broke.  My workhorse lens is a 70-200mm 2.8 which I use for portraiture.  I own a myriad of other lenses from wide angle to telephoto.  I’m slowly moving to non-zoom lenses though, because they are sharper.  The important thing to remember is that while good equipment is essential – it is the photographer that counts most.  The best advice I could give you is to get an understanding of light and how it can be used to make a two-dimensional image look three-dimensional.  Read, read, read; look, look, look at good photographs; and finally shoot, shoot, shoot.  As you get older and more mobile, you might consider joining a professional organization such as the Intermountain Professional Photographer’s Association.  You can join as a student for less money I believe.  In any case – you will meet great professional photographers and learn from some of the best.

 Good luck in your endeavors and make lots of images.

 Sincerely,

 Ted York CPP

Ansel Adams was an incredible photographer.  Known for his beautiful landscapes, he developed a method of capturing images that he called the “Zone System.”  Without getting too technical – the Zone System was way to determine the reflective values in a scene and compress or expand them during film development so that all the tonal values could be registered on the print paper.  As a result his prints were beautiful, with a wide range of tones from black to white.  He was an expert at maintaining the detail in both the highlights and his shadows.  Our eyes are much more versatile than film and print paper.  We can see both highlights and shadows at the same time.  Film or in the case of digital, the chip can not register all the tonal values of a high contrast scene that on might find on a snow covered mountain or at the beach.  Ansel would expose his film to capture detail in the shadow portions of a scene and then alter his development time to increase or decrease detail in the highlights.  We call the film’s ability to capture highlights to shadow it’s and it’s ability to be off slightly in exposure and still produce a good print it’s latitude. When digital came of age it had less latitude than film.  Most professional photographers now shoot RAW files which gives us the ability to make better corrections after the photograph is taken.  There is a new development in digital photography called High Dynamic Range (HDR).  With HDR images of the same scene shot at different exposures can be combined to increase the dynamic Range or available tonal values in an image.  I can now make an exposure for the shadows, and one for the highlights and then combine them to get an image with detail at both ends of the spectrum.  It is just in it’s infancy and very exciting.  A while back I took the kids and my new camera up into the mountains so they could sled and I could shoot some images.  It was a beautiful day and the sun was shining on the snow which would normally make for very harsh high contrast images.  But this time I decided to try out the world of HDR and got some amazing results.  Normally in the photo of the kids the shadows would be under exposed or the highlights would be blown out.  But in this case we can see both and no additional lights were needed to bring out the detail in the kids.  I’ve heard some people say Ansel would have detested the age of digital were he still alive, but I thing he would have embraced it.  I think he would have welcomed the ability to extend his creativity and be able to reproduce his results in print after print after print.  This Utah photographer will be embracing HDR in my future landscape photography and am looking forward to seeing what I can produce through expanding the dynamic range of my images.

This family has been friends of mine for many years now.  We have a couple of daughters that have grown up together.  I was excited when they asked me to take their family portrait.  A  portable studio was set up in their living room.  fortunately the ceilings were high so I had no problems with arranging my lighting equipment.  I chose one of their couches to pose the family on.  It took a bit to put all the family members into a pleasing group and pose them.  That can be a challenge with the larger LDS families we  have here in Utah.  The other challenge you must deal with is a slew of young kids who would rather be at the computer or just horsing around.  Kids like to wiggle and these were no exception.  Harder yet, the parents often struggle with holding a pose and not wanting to manage the children.  This family had triplets so they still have quit a group of younger children.  Fortunately I know the triplets well and felt at ease with working with them.  All in all everyone did very well.  One tool that the world of digital has given us is the ability to swap an occasional head which helps to fine tune a good portrait into an excellent portrait.  I find family portraiture to be quite rewarding.  In this case I was able to pull the elements together to produce a very nice product.  I delivered a rather large canvas wrap which is now hanging above the fireplace to be enjoyed by this family for many years to come. http://www.tedyorkphotography.com/

A few years ago a gal in her 70’s” called me and said she wanted me to shoot her “funeral pictures.”  Her husband had passed away and she was not able to find a good photograph to display at his funeral.  It made her realise that photography is important at any age.  Photography is not just for the young.  It is about nostalgia, memories, and what we leave for our legacy.  I like to think that I’m building memories at Ted York Photography.  A while back I was over at Wallaby’s Smoke House enjoying some smoked ribs when the owner came over to talk to me.  He loves to wander around conversing with his customers as they dine.  During our conversation he mentioned they were getting ready to celebrate his mother’s 99th birthday.  I looked at him in amazement as he talked about her.  I had to photograph her and let him know what I was thinking.  He agreed and arrangements were made to do the shoot in her living room.  I brought in a simple background and some lights and went to work.  His mother and I had a ball.  Despite her age, she was sharp as a tack and we enjoyed some great conversation.  I teased her a bit as I worked and we had some good laughs.  Her son later told me how much she enjoyed the session.  He had be gone on a trip to Colorado and when he returned home all she could do was talk about how much fun she experienced having her photograph taken.  We sometimes think that to be well photographed we must be a young, thin, drop dead gorgeous model.  I disagree whole heartedly with that notion.  A beautiful portrait is a window into who we are.  I once told a group of business people that I loved my clients.  And where there is  love you see beauty.  To me this 99 year-old woman was beautiful.  These images will be treasured by her family for years to come.  Posterity that are not yet born will know her, not only from stories, but from the photographs I made on her 99th birthday.  Any age is a good age to have a portrait made.  Photography is not always for the young, but good classical photography will always be a treasured by the young.  Please visit http://tedyorkphotography.com

Ted York Photography has been doing work for AdBag, a local advertising venue.  This morning we photographed a family at Roxberry’s in Highland.  They advertise in AdBag and they are being featured in the next addition.  I showed up on site about an hour early, gave some instructions to my daughter who was helping me, then began the setup.  I could have used a higher ISO and natural light coming in from the windows, but decided to stay at 200 and supplement with two studio strobes shooting through umbrellas.  There were a lot of compromises to make due to reflections and the locations of signs, wall, etc.  I had something going around my mind for this shoot.  Who hasn’t seen Norman Rockwell paintings of people gathered at the soda fountain sipping on shakes and interacting with others sitting near by or the soda jerk behind the counter.  Unfortunately I didn’t have the options of moving some of the items I would like to have moved, but I was able to make most things work the way I wanted it to – at least well enough to make the image work.  When the family arrived I went to work posing them to fit what I was looking for.  If I was creating this for myself I would have had more interaction between the family members, but for this project we wanted them to look in the direction of the camera – A family portrait at Roxberry’s.  The children did a good job for me and the shoot went quite well.  I chose a quick image for this blog witch is indicative of what I was able to achieve.  I gave it some “pop” to finish off the look I wanted – although it probably won’t show up as well in this blog.  For those in the Highland, Cedar Hills, and Alpine, Utah are – keep and eye out for this or one similar in the upcoming addition of Adbag.  Not sure what the client will chose for the final image, but I’m hoping for the Norman Rockwell look

I enjoy photographing weddings.  I shot one in mid December that presented some challenges for this Utah Photographer.  To begin with – it can be cold in December – snow, Christmas, Santa Clause, and that sort of thing.  Aside from goosebumps, chills, and numbness experienced by the couple and the photographer, the scenery is not always pretty.  Unless we receive a fresh snowfall the night before things can look pretty bleak outside.  Brown grass showing through the grungy snow contaminated with footprints from all the feet that have pass through, haze from the inversions we suffer in mountain country, as well as the lack of colorful flowers that have long disappeared for the winter.  Adding to the challenges of the day – there was a severe lack of time.  We had one hour to shoot around the LDS temple (If the couple came out on time.) and then it was off to the reception where we had only three or so hours before the couple headed out on their honeymoon.  I was a bit worried about getting enough images for the album.  While four hours of shooting might sound like a lot – when you consider that that is not all time dedicated to you posing and shooting the couple – it’s not a lot of time.  I would much prefer at least an hour and a half at the temple and then another hour or so before the reception to photograph the couple.  Anyway, I adjusted to what I had to work with and came up with a nice collection of images for their album.  It did help that I had already photographed them for their engagement announcement and had spent a couple of hours working with the bride for her bridal shoot.  I wanted to share a couple of images that have a nice old-world feel to it.  Two of them I gave an old glass plate feel.  I also included a color shot that works well because of the soft light from a window near by.  I think these will add some variety to the album.  The last image is a composite.  The couple had changed clothes before leaving.  They had come out of the changing rooms and were standing close to each other at the top of the stairs.  It was an intimate moment that I was able to catch.  I added the clouds to give some flair to the image and better tell their story.  In my next blog I will talk more about catching the emotion at a wedding.

     I photographed a large family the last week.  There was  no extended family, just mom, dad, and seven beautiful children.  It’s not unusual for this Utah Photographer to have to photograph a family with four or more kids.  The shot took a few minutes to set up as I worked with each member of the family to pose them in a position that would result in a nice portrait.  The first thing I did was to put a couch in position as a base for the posing.  I asked one of the girls to sit on the couch so I could run a couple of test exposures to make sure it was where I wanted it to be.  I did one at each end and one in the middle.  As it turned out I wish I had taken a moment to pose her because one of the test photographs turned out to have the look of an old world painting.  The lighting and color combination was delightful.  The pose itself – which was not directed – was very nice and only needed some minor tweaking.  I may see about getting her back again so I can create what is now in my head.  In the meantime here is what I got for the moment.  After the test shots I posed the family and went to work extracting the facial expressions and tweaking the poses, and shooting photographs.  Things were complicated by a one-year-old who was not really in the mood to have a portrait taken in the first place more or less one that would take some time to create.  He was a wonderful baby, he just wasn’t into sitting still for more than a millisecond – not unusual.  This problem accentuated the challenge of getting a good pose from the three-year-old.  But, that is part of the job so I persisted and was able to get a nice shot of the entire family.  Lighting a large family is challenging.  You must be careful to avoid shadows on neighboring faces.  Most of the time that calls for flat lighting, but in this case I was able to arrange each family member in a way that avoided the problem.  I did have to occasionally adjust children who would settle back into the shadows, disappearing from sight.  The other difficulty is adjusting the light so that the exposure is the same for the persons on the side closest to the light are exposed the same as the persons farthest away.  To do this my softbox is pointed perpendicular to the family, using feathered light, rather than directly at them.  This is what gave me the beautiful lighting on their young daughter during the test shots.  This lighting is so nice that it is an advantage on really large families is to shoot smaller groups and stitch them together.  With a small group you can light them more artistically plus you have the advantage of not having to work with so many folks at one time.  Artistic lighting contributes so much to a beautiful portrait.  Our goal at Ted York Photography is to present out clients with a work of art that will be displayed and enjoyed for years to come.  Good lighting , good posing, and good expression is what the Art of the Family is all about.  I ended the session by shooting mom and dad together.  I can’t wait to get them in to see the images.

One thing this Utah photographer seems to get a lot of are LDS missionaries.  I have photographed several who I have known for years, but with a busy life, not paid close attention to.  Out of the blue they come in for a missionary portrait and usually there has been a big change.  I remember this young man coming over when he was just 5 or 6 and helping me put together a swing I bought my wife for Mother’s Day.  He quietly kept me company, and handed me a tool or two.  This is the forth session I have done with my new Mark II.  You won’t see it here, but all I can say is what a difference with this camera.  But I digress (as usual).  Anyway – This guy turned into quite the handsome young man and photographed very well.  The images you are seeing here are pretty much straight out of the camera with a minor tweak or two.  I couldn’t include them all, but I hope you will enjoy them.  I used window light  and a backdrop.  I usually keep the missionary shots pretty simple and in this case it was a good thing.  Window light is soft and if used right can produce a very nice image.  Long story made short this guy turned out to be another sleeper and I got some great images.

As I swung the truck into the parking area at Tibble Fork reservoir I glanced up to see -2 degrees on the truck’s temperature indicator.  Mark and I climbed out of the truck and put on the snowshoes for a walkabout in the freezing cold.  But hey – it was beautiful.  Fifteen minutes and I’m up in the Wasatch mountains enjoying a blue sky and the rays of the early morning sun as it touches the tops of the mountain peaks long before we see it rise into the morning sky.  How great it is to be a Utah photographer!  Heading out to do a little scenic photography is a change from my usual routine of portraiture.  We headed down the hill and hiked along the shores of the lake heading up to the area where the stream flows into the reservoir.  It wasn’t too long before we were passed by what appeared to be a son, father, and grandfather.  They had boots on, but no snowshoes.  Shortly after passing us they crossed the creek and pulled out their fishing rods.  I was amazed as I watched this.  About the time they began fishing my toes started to tell me that my boots were not providing enough insulation, but I digress.  The fishermen were a welcome touch of interest to this portrait photographer and I made them the subject of several images.  I have spoken several times about the art of photography and these fishermen braving the cold were just begging for some artistic interpretation at the computer.  By the time I got back to the truck my feet were hurting from the cold, but I have to say I had a great time.  Next time I will wear some thicker socks, but I do plan on getting out again because I love the outdoors and I love to create art – even if it is in an icebox!

Utah photographers get to photograph a lot of families – big families.  Sometimes it is a single family with 6 or 8 children.  Other times we are asked by grandparents to photograph their children, spouses, and grandchildren.  This was one of those occasions.  The grandparents had been talking to me for a while about creating a portrait of their family.  It took a while to coordinate every one’s schedules and pull it together.  The day came and we gathered in their backyard to photograph the group.  Because of the challenges of gathering everyone the grandmother expressed a desire not to travel.  That presented some challenges, but I decided we would shoot in the back with the mountains in the background.  Sounds easy enough, but while the sun had essentially set for us in the back, the mountains in the background were very much lit up.  The dynamic range was beyond the capabilities of the camera so I had to add flash for additional lighting on the family.  It is a tricky thing to do because you risk having it look like flash was used.  Another challenge is that the lighting in the background changed as we were working.  The last problem, the one I want to address is that we had a bunch of young children including 3 toddlers.  I started out posing the adults then working my way down through the group to the younger kids.  All the time stressing the need for the adults to hold their position.  It’s not an easy task.  I have a hard time myself trying not to move for a long period of time!  Ah yes – the toddlers!  They wanted to do what they wanted to do when they wanted to do it.  One would hold still, but the others would move.  It was a challenge to hold their attention.  If you can not do it fairly quickly and the session drags on, it gets worse as you start to lose them to disinterest or boredom.  Some solutions lay in methods of entertaining them and how you place them in the group.  Sometimes it comes down to having the camera on a tripod so the background does not move in relation to the subjects making it possible to swap heads and bodies during post production to put together a great portrait.  This was one of those times, but I think the end result was quite nice and the Grandparents loved this image.  That is the ultimate goal of Ted York Photography.  Big or small I want to produce family portraits that they will treasure for years to come.

I was sitting comfortably in my leather chair doing a little reading.  My youngest came in to give me a hug and kiss before she headed off to school.  About that time her older sister yelled, “look at the sunrise!”  I rose out of the chair and opened the front door to see beautifully lit clouds hanging just over the mountains.  I ran and grabbed the Canon 5D Mark II that Canon just awarded to me and began shooting.  I did a quick hand-held swing from one end of the horizon to the other shooting a total of eight images.  I copied them into the computer and stitched them together producing a 200 plus megapixel image.  As I took a look at the results I realized I had forgotten to reset the ISO – I had shot the images at 6400 ISO.  By this time there was no going back, the sunset was gone.  So I cleaned up the image using Topaz Denoise.  It worked quite well.  The noise quality of the Mark II is phenomenal!  It is opening a new world of photography for me and I can’t be more excited.  This Utah portrait photographer can’t wait to put the camera to the test, but for now I’ve got a slew of orders to get out.  Maybe this weekend when the snow starts to fly I will get out and shoot some serious images.  Just like a sunrise – this camera is going to bring a new day to Ted York Photography.

A few months ago I photographed a wonderful family down at Thanksgiving Point.  It was a location they picked out and were excited about.  I was a little worried because we were not going to be able to shoot until early evening and I did not have an exact spot picked out.  The one area I had hoped to use was reserved for some other event.  To further complicate things my client was running late and the sun was going down.  As I was unloading the equipment I couldn’t help but take notice of the landscaping right at the entrance to the facility.  At first I tried to ignore it, but as the sun lowered in the sky the appearance of the location kept changing.  I became more and more intrigued.  It turned out to be my savior for the shoot because by the time my client arrived walking into the park would n0t have been an option.  As it was, I only had thirty good minutes to work.  Thirty minutes is hardly enough time to pose let alone get all the shots you need.  There turned out to be a lot of challenges to this image.  The client and I spent a lot of time discussing the options for the after shoot processing.  I burned the midnight oil for a couple of days.  This morning I was putting some final touches on the image and decided to try something new by doing some digital painting to my image.  I think it turned out spectacular.  Unfortunately at this resolution you may not be able to discern beauty of this image, but it will give you an idea of the potential.  This image would look spectacular on a canvas print.  The motto I use in most of my advertising is,” Turning your family into works of art.”  I didn’t just make the phrase up when I started Ted York Photography.  As I would deliver finished prints to my clients they would invariably call my and artist or tell me the print looks like a painting.  I’ve always viewed photography as another art medium.  A couple of weeks ago a friend of mine, who paints portraits in oils, called me.  She was all excited about a portrait she had seen on my blog.  All she could say was that she had new respect for what portrait photographers could do.  Coming from a painter that is a big complement.  The debate about photography as an art form has raged on since the invention of the camera.  Many painters reject the notion that photography can be art.   Part of the problem is that we are surrounded by so many snapshots.   Looking a picture taken at the last party, with red eyes on all the subjects staring back at the camera, would make you wonder.   But I’ve never doubted a photograph can be a work of art and it has always been this Utah photographer’s goal to create works of art for my clients.  I love this image of my client’s family at Thanksgiving point.  To me this image is a perfect  example of how a photograph can become a work of art that any family would be proud to display in their home.  It is a piece of art.

Fall is always a busy time for photographing families here in Utah.  Such was the case this year.  One of the problems this Utah photographer encountered with the 2009 season was the fact that the leaves changed quickly and disappeared quickly due to a couple of storms.  I photographed this family later in the season, but was able to find some great fall color in a cherry orchard not far from the house.  I used this location a couple of times this year.  The orchard is a great location from spring to fall (I have yet to try it in the winter.)  One of the great features there, is an old dilapidated fence that I use to add a leading line to the image.  It’s age adds character to the photographs I have made there.  Whether the trees are blossoming in spring, covered with  green summer leaves, or bright with fall color - this remains a wonderful place to make outdoor family portraits.  Perhaps I’ll get a chance this year to create an image along a snow covered fence line just for a change.  Why not?  A beautiful high-key image with another great family.  I can see it!   But for now Ted of Ted York Photography is happy just to have found a little more color for the fall season.

A couple of posts ago I talked about a young man I shot that was very photogenic.  I thought I would share some of the rest of the story.  The boy just left for an LDS mission and his mother asked that I photograph him and his sister before he left for his two years as a missionary.  It is not unusual as a Utah photographer to shoot guys leaving on missions.  It is often the catalyst for making a family portrait.  To do a brother and sister at this age was a bit unusual, but it turned out to be a lot of fun.  I photographed the sister first using a couple of backgrounds.  At their mother’s request I shot the two of them together.  We had lots of laughs and I got some nice expressions.  I finished up with the young man.  The entire shoot took just over an hour.  The best part for me was when mom and dad came over to look at the images.  They had a difficult time widdling it down to their favorites. When all was said and done they decided to do a grouping in their living room.  The grouping will consist of two large prints that will serve as anchors.  Then there will be five other prints along with some wrought iron decor.  I think it will look spectacular when it is all up on the wall.  The couple also ordered some smaller pieces in black and white to surround a black and white image I made of the family several years before.  It is a pleasure to see a family value artistic photography of their family and use it as decor for their home.  I often think of the 100 year old photographs of people with their eyes bugging out and everyone looking stiff because they had to hold still for the long exposures necessary in the early days of photography.  To have a photograph taken back then was a big deal.  Just think what we would have missed if they had not taken the time to do it.  Today it is much easier.  The investment in time is the same, but our abilities to turnout a beautiful portrait have changed with the tools we have today.  We are not only making a record, but we can do it in a way that makes you look beautiful to all who view the portrait.  Good photography is an investment, but the images I’m doing for them will leave a wonderful legacy for this family in future years.  One day this brother and sister I just photographed will have the joy of sharing these photographs with their spouses and children and grandchildren. You can’t ask for anything better than that and Ted York Photography is proud to be a part of it.