Zoom & Smooch...Or why my bike should be a tax write-off

A stock agency I shoot for mentioned they had very little New Mexico Mountain bike stock. After multiple (and very necessary) biking trips scouting some trails, I talked two friends into suiting up, driving to the foothills, and riding their bikes on the same 20 yards of trail over and over.

The afternoon was clouding up, and I was hoping for some spectacular light that often breaks on the mountain on summer evenings…instead I got light that looked like Iowa in November. To salvage the afternoon, I shot some motion blur with blooming choya cactus, and shots launching off drops. As the sun went down a nice sunset developed. Camera flapping behind me, we raced down the trail to an area where we could set our happy couple up against the fading sky. Awwww

On the Range

I just finished another shoot for Campbell Ranch, a ranching company turned developer that owns, literally, oodles of land east of the Sandia Mountains near Albuquerque. My mission: go take pretty pictures that will make people want to spends oodles of money on a 3-6 acre lot.

Checklist: hiking boots, photo backpack, pretty filter, big scary owl lens??

The area is not high mountains, but high desert with pinion, canyons and streams. There is a herd of wild mustangs, big open meadows cleared by early settlers, and Native American ruins. In addition to the mustangs popping up around every corner, I had an owl about the size of a refrigerator jump up from a nearby tree. I almost screamed like a small child. An amazing place.

Fun with Food

Yum! This was a recent shoot for Mudhouse Advertising. Their client, Centex Homes, wanted to talk about upgrades to their kitchens. The headline for the ad was "All because you asked us to build a well designed kitchen in which your gourmet chefs can whip up their latest creations." We had two just days to cast and prop. I found a great model through an acquaintance at my local CO-OP. For props, I roamed the junk food aisles at Target on an empty stomach, thinking like a five year old, which was alarmingly easy.

The day of the shoot, our biggest problem was keeping the model's big brother (and the photographer) away from the props. After the main shot, I saw the models hands and asked to art director to pour a glass of milk and had the model grab hold. They ended up using it as an insert shot in the ad.

In case you were wondering, neither Twizlers nor Gummi Bears are really supposed to go down the garbage disposal.