Although I do have experience and training in it, I'm not necessarily a portrait photographer. I will do them for family and friends, but otherwise I'm just not sure I have the personality needed to be a client pleasing portrait photographer with people I don't know very well.  

This is an engagement session that I did with a good friend of mine that I've known since High School, and her fiance. We had a great time doing this shoot, and I really love how these turned out.  These were my first formal portraits that I shot using my newish Fuji outfit.  

We took these at the Colorado Railroad Museum who were very gracious hosts and we really appreciated the hospitality.

On the early morning of October 21st, a rare and thick wave of fog rolled through Denver.  Here are a few shots I took of it.

I know it comes as no surprise that our first snow in Denver has arrived on the 18th of October, but that doesn't mean I didn't want to take a few photos of it.

About a month ago it was time for me to head out East of Denver in search of Sunflower fields to photograph.  Due to drought earlier in the year, the fields were not nearly as amazing as they usually are, and all of the old ones I had found in the past were not planted as Sunflowers this year.  Finally I came upon a Sunflower field at dusk.

Once I had shot all of the Sunflowers I could, I focused my attention on capturing some unique photos of the Denver International Airport with Sunflowers in the foreground.

I attended the recent Broncos vs. Raiders game in Denver on Monday night and took a few snapshots while there.  It was a great game and it was my first time to see Peyton Manning play in person.

I recently spent a few days in St. Louis for the awesome StrangeLoop conference.  The conference party was held at City Museum, which is a very cool and fun place to say the least.  I'm not even sure how to describe it other than if Willy Wonka were to create a museum, he would create something like the City Museum, and even that is not a good description.  Instead of me wasting your time trying to explain it, take a look at a few photos (which is only representative of a small part of the museum):

This weekend I finally got around to going out to shoot Sunflower fields again, and finally found one during the last few minutes of sunset.  I wished I could have got there earlier, but due to some wildfires burning in Idaho, the sunset was a very bright red and looked amazing!

You can purchase these Denver Sunflower Photos For Sale and many more in my Online Store!

I had planned on heading to LoDo in Denver to photograph the Colorado Rockies fireworks show at Coors Field, but unfortunately my RTD bus showed-up well past the time I expected it.  Much to my surprise, I had a great view of the Westminster Fireworks show from the bus stop, so once they started going off I quickly setup my gear and started shooting.   Here are a few photos I took of the show.

A supermoon is the coincidence of a full moon or a new moon with the closest approach the Moon makes to the Earth on its elliptical orbit, resulting in the largest apparent size of the moon's disk as seen from Earth. The technical name is the perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system. The term "supermoon" is not astronomical, but originated in modern astrology.

These photos of a supermoon over Denver, Colorado were captured on June 22, 2013.

Recognized as one of the top ten pride events in the country, Denver's PrideFest is a celebration of community, heritage, family and culture. Produced by the Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Community Center of Colorado (The Center), more than 250,000 people from Colorado and surrounding areas come out to enjoy the parade, rally, music, entertainment, food and much more.

The Black Forest Fire burning near Colorado Springs has already been designated as the most destructive fire in Colorado's history, and here in the Denver Metro area we're definately seeing the result of how bad it is.  It seems that the naked eye compensates a bit for the haze in the air, but I think these photos give a better idea about how much smoke and ash is actually in the air in Denver.

A view of Downtown Denver from Westminster, Colorado

Same spot, but zoomed in.

Same spot but looking towards Commerce City

Looking west towards the Rocky Mountains in Westminster, Colorado.  Normally the mountains are clearly visible from here, but currently you can barely see their outline through the smoke.

I just got back from a short trip to Las Vegas and captured this from my hotel room.  Ignore me in the window reflection.  :)

An amazingly colorful sunset over Westminster, Colorado taken on May 5th, 2013.

An overcast evening in Westminster, Colorado.

The set for an episode of American Ninja Warrior being assembled for filming in Civic Center Park in downtown Denver while the Colorado State Capitol is being restored.  Taken on Friday, May 17th, 2013.

Thanks to my friend Jason Paul Roberts for posting about this, otherwise I wouldn't have known it was going on.

Hard to believe that my daughter could barely even roll over a year ago.  She's definitely grown-up into a little girl...

Overview

This past weekend I took to the streets of Denver by taking the CPAC Denver In The Dark Photography workshop led by Christopher James.  I mostly took this class to see Christopher's work as he has some really great stuff taken during a very transformative time in Denver's history, as well as to get some ideas from him.  But most importantly, I really wanted to put my Fuji X-E1 to a test and see how it fared for night photography.

If you haven't read any of the other posts on my photo blog, you need to know that I'm about three weeks into owning a Fuji X-E1 which I may use to replace my Canon 5D Mark II.  I primarily shoot pictures of "things", such as Landscapes, Urban Scenes, Architecture, Cars for the most part, but also shoot the occasional portrait and family photos as well for both family and friends. In general I want to move to the X-E1 to take more photos as its much more portable and low-key than the Canon 5D.

Photo Results

Anyhow, now that we've got that out of the way, lets see the photos!  The technical details of how I took these will follow the images at the bottom of the post.  All of these photos were taken with either the Fuji 14mm XF, or Fuji 35mm XF.

The above two photos are a good test of the dynamic range of the camera sensor, as well as how the 14mm lens handles lens flare.

This one is probably my favorite of the city photos.. it just has a lot going on between the building with lights, the reflection off of the car, the light trails from nearby traffic, etc.

I'm currently taking a night photography class being taught by local Denver photography legend Christopher James and am testing out the low light capabilities of my Fujifilm X-E1 Setup.  Here is an example shot which has several things going on:

• There is a bright light in the foreground.  With a traditional mirrored SLR, this light would show up as a big star.
• Very colorful scene, but at night
• Color vs. B&W processing

Although not all night photography works with color, I think I prefer it in this case.  As always, the Fujifilm X-E1 color balance is spot on, and the detail is amazing.

Here are a few photos and a couple of videos I captured of the April 15th snow storm from Broomfield, CO.

I'm working from home today and couldn't help but notice how awesome the Boulder Flatirons look after a Spring snow storm.  I grabbed my Fujifilm X-E1 with 17-55mm lens, headed to the roof of my apartment, and captured this quick snapshot of them.  Wish I had time to get a little closer because they look awesome today!

My daughter and I being nerds for the day.

Originally predicted to deliver anywhere from 6-18 inches of snow, this snow storm so far has been a bit of a let down.  I think the revised forecasts are putting us at 6-10" of snow now.  I'll update this post with new photos today if I see anything interesting to shoot, etc.

This photo is taken in Broomfield, CO.

The first game of the year for the Colorado Rockies, the Major League Baseball team of Denver, is always a big deal. Tickets are sold using a lottery system in order to meet demand, and downtown Denver fills-up with fans who do and don't have tickets to the game.  I decided to take my camera with me downtown today to take a few photos of what opening day is like on the streets of downtown Denver, particularly Lower Downtown (LoDo).

I don't normally like to over process photos, but decided to just for this one since it was already fairly imperfect.

Something I'm trying to get in the habit of is taking my new smaller camera with me more and more and capturing pretty much whatever I run across.  In this case it was the continued construction of Union Station, and a couple of other things around LoDo in Denver.  All of these were taken with my Fujifilm X-E1.

I've been sort of idle with photography for the past year or so mostly due to having a kid, being busy with my career, etc.  Overall I've decided that I need to make it easier to take new photos, lower my costs on gear (it's hard to recoup the cost given my usual subject matter and lack of time to do commercial work), and explore new avenues.  At the same time I also decided to redo my website yet again, and also start my blog again from scratch.

That said, I recently traded and sold some gear to purchase a Fujifilm X-E1 which arrived today and I like it quite a bit so far.  I love the size of the XF system as I've really grown tired of the effort it takes to lug around a full-size DSLR as well as the attention I receive when I do.  If all goes well with this new camera, I plan on ditching all of my Canon gear and moving to this format instead.  I'm tired of rewarding Canon for essentially no innovation, and am excited about all of stuff that Fujifilm has going on right now.

My only complaint about the X-E1 is that the auto-focusing kind of sucks.  It's going to be hard to take photos of my kiddo when she's on the move, but I suspect they will fix that in the future with a newer version of this camera.

I have a couple of photo opportunities planned that I'll post later once I've completed them, but until then, here are a few initial test shots I took today with the new camera.