Experimenting with some technique called free lensing. Slightly dangerous. It entails actually removing the lens from the body of the camera and holding it near the camera mount. Manual focus is necessary, but the results can be gorgeous.

First session to shoot with the new 5D Mark II.

Not going to lie, I could get use to this camera.

Just look at that bokeh.
"bokeh: (BO-KUH) Japanese: [boke]) is the blur, or the aesthetic quality of the blur, in out-of-focus areas of an image..."

The 5D Mark II arrived on Wednesday.Ohmygawsh holy full frame 21 megapixel camera Batman. I think this camera will take my work to a whole 'nother level.

Some of the stand out features for me, personally, are: 21 Megapixel (Had to throw away the 1GB memory cards, and buy two 8GB CF cards, this thing's file sizes eat 1GB for breakfast.) Expandable ISO to 50. (I haz no noises whatsoever!) FULL FRAME! (Is this what 50mm looks like?) Weather sealed.

I finally got a chance to take this thing out on Saturday and see what this thing can do. Below are the results:

I bought a new camera.5D Mark II. Arrives Wednesday.

For a family that has a photographer as a son/brother, we sure do hate having our photos taken. I've never convinced anybody in my family to let me take their photo, outside of the occasional snapshot. So when my sister, Emily, finally gave me the opportunity to have a hour and a half mini-session I was excited to see what we could get. And alas. I totally love it.

After mom saw Emily's photos she was finally convinced maybe I actually do know what I'm doing with a camera and allowed me five minutes to get a shot of her.

Special note to Elizabeth, next time I see you, I'm fully expecting to have you on here as well. :)

"...we as photographers tend to give them (clients) what we think they want, and so clients tend to see the same things everyday, just different versions of it. They see the same lighting, the same photoshop tricks... So when they see the personal work, they see the things that you would be doing outside of what they want..."

-Jeremy Cowart

I'm going to be posting a lot more personal work to the blog. I highly recommend if you're a photographer you take a look at the interview video I took the above quote from. Very inspiring interview with one of my favorite photographers, Jeremy Cowart.

Shooting a couple can always be a gamble. Simple common sense would tell you that, obviously, two people would be twice the work as opposed to just shooting an individual (I know, groundbreaking discovery), you're working with two personality types, two people have to get used to the camera, there's twice the posing, and so on. But it's when I thank my lucky stars when I get a couple like Abby and Andrew.

I know Andrew from graduating with him from high school. And knowing that he is one of the funniest guys I've met, and completely uninhibited, I was already expecting shooting him to be a breeze. And he completely talked up this Abby character, who at this point, I knew nothing about. I heard adjectives like "chillest", "amazing", and "freaking awesome" being tossed around when he was describing her. And who-da-thunk-it? She drives a Jeep Wrangler. Boom, I'm done, sold. I instantly knew she was awesome. I mean come on! We are basically kindred Wrangler driving brethren!

After weeks of delays and bad weather we FINALLY got to have the session. As soon as I met them at the scheduled time and place, I was pleasantly surprised to see the obvious rad-tastic-ness emanating from these two. They oozed confidence and were completely down for anything that I wanted to try. Both Abby and Andrew's personalities played off each other so well it took most of the hard work right out of the session and it felt more like shooting some really great friends.

I, being the goober that I am, thought we should start with one of the harder to get to locations first, so after a short 10 minute mini-hike and a very minor allergic reaction we started shooting. The next 3-4 hours seemed to fly by!

So, Abby and Andrew, I want to personally thank you guys for being such a riot to shoot and I hope you enjoy your photos.
And for the rest of you, enjoy the shots below and feel free to hit the like button, or post a comment.