Stephen McGhee is a Business Leadership coach in Denver. He needed to hire a professional photographer to update his photos on his website and for his new book, ‘Learning to Believe the Unbelievable: Living Life as a Miracle Leader’. What did this mean for me? A super fun business portraiture session!
Sure we needed to get some solid, smiley happy headshots, but I always like to have some fun, and Stephen was all about it. Action!
Of course no photo shoot of mine would be complete without a brick wall shot . . .
. . . but Denver does have something that Boulder does not – skyscrapers! Nothing screams business professional like skyscrapers. Well, except maybe Mercedes, but I don’t think he’s that kind of guy. Hmm, I wonder what kind of car he drives?
There is this cool stone structure by the Platte River that I’ve been eyeing for a while. The fun really starts .when the client puts himself into physical danger! Oh jeez, or something like that . . . hey I’m an extreme sports kinda guy so sure I’ll roll with anything. Stephen is a many who likes to push his edge, and was doing some Warrior 3 yoga postures out there, but then I got the idea to throw some dynamic action into the photo. Toss the jacket! Be free! Be free! :>)
We were almost done for the day, when I noticed some sunlight coming through the trees. So we did one more series of photos. This turned out to be very auspicious because as it turns out Stephen’s new book is green, and the background color is a perfect match! So that wrapped up a great shoot with a super great guy. That’s all for now, lots more shoots to be posted on the blog here very soon!
The Flatirons are an iconic geological formation here in Boulder Colorado. They figure prominently in the skyline and are a symbol of natural beauty in Colorado. As a result, there are approximately 6,873 engagement and wedding photos taken in front of them every year. There is a rock at Chautauqua Park where there is no grass at the base because so many photos get taken there. Yawn. So what is the Engagement Shoot Challenge? As a photographer, it is to honor Flatirons photo requests yet make the images unique and different!
The next part of the challenge is getting up early enough to be there at good light. Most of my clients and I are not really all that into getting out there at 5:30 in the morning for first light. Matt, Christine, and I decided 8am was good enough. Well the day started out with blazing sun, no clouds, no shade, and a whole bunch of wind. What has been with the wind this year anyway?! Still, these guys were awesome and we made due with the conditions.
For me the key to keeping things interesting is to not shoot too many pictures at the mountains anyway. I picked a different location on the south end of town. The bonus to that area is that you can shoot off in the other direction and get a completely different view of wide open spaces. The sun was blazing so I shot quite a few sun flare shots. I try to get at least 13 pieces of flare at every shoot (movie reference joke . . .)
Christine and Matt are going to be pretty famous on my blog this summer. They are already in the previous post, since they are friends with Leah and Matt! Their wedding is coming up REALLY soon, so they’ll be back up here again for their wedding at the Red Lion in Boulder. That’s all good with me, since they love photography and have tons of patience. They even let me play around with some zoom blur shots like the one above, which mostly amounts to a lot of trial and error! So until next time, thanks for checking out the photos.
Lube and Latte is a new small business where you can get an oil change, auto mechanic work, lattes, and snacks all in one location. They know that you don’t have time to get your oil changed, so they have wireless internet and a clean and comfortable waiting room and patio so you can get stuff done while you wait.
One day I stopped by for an oil change and mentioned that I’m a photographer and that I could help them with some good website photos. Well 6 months later Dustin gave me a call and explained that they were ready for a website overhaul, and they wanted to base the design on some professional photography. Here is Dustin, really happy that he is making a latte and not drilling out a snapped and rusty engine bolt.
Not that he couldn’t fix that snapped bolt if he wanted to. He can also bust out his high tech engine-checker-majiggy which can identify engine troubles. I think it also plays MP3′s and plays Scrabulous but I’m not sure.
Lube and Latte is staffed with a crack team of professional mechanics. Sometimes they drill holes in tires to make them lighter.
The waiting room is clean and stylish, so as to attract women-folk who dislike your usual greasy mechanic shop. Coffee drinks, loose-leaf teas, some sandwiches and other usual cafe goodies await inside.
You should come in and score a double chocolate triple whipped cream latte the next time you need and oil change. You are powerless to resist these eyes.
Lube and Latte, because coffee tastes better than oil!
