Last night my friend Keith and I caught with our old friends Scooter, Jeremy and Sam in the band COLD at a tour stop right here in Appleton. While taking in the show, I had a rather impromptu portrait shoot with Josh Brown, vocalist for the band Day of Fire. We had about 15 minutes to set-up our gear in a parking lot, nail the shot and head back inside before the band took the stage. These are headshots for Josh’s website devoted to his artwork and paintings. Afterwards, Josh hooked us up with limited edition signed prints of his work. Have a look.

Here are a few shots of Day of Fire on stage at Revolution here in Appleton.

We had a chance to catch up with our friends in COLD just before they took the stage. This was clearly one of the most difficult shows I’ve ever shot, as COLD’s set was almost in total darkness. Many thanks to my friend Brett Stoddart for lending me his 5D Mark II for the week. It came in handy.

Jeremy and Sam backstage before the show.

A quick portrait of Sam. All available light. No time to set-up gear. The only light source was an overhead CFL bulb. Gotta use what you got..

Sam (drummer) warming up.

Scooter and Sam.

A group moment before the show.

~dave

NOTE: These are merely an excerpt from Helen & Kosty’s engagement shoot. They wanted photos “outside of the box.”

Well, they got ‘em.

Don’t worry, we shot the lovey-dovey stuff too..

~dave

Here are some shots from this past weekend’s portrait workshop I threw here at my studio. The day went past the 16-hour mark, but we got so much accomplished and met some great folks. Some of whom traveled from Milwaukee, Madison and even Ohio! The workshop was not a wedding photography, business management or theory-based lecture by any means. The day was geared towards the basics of shooting portraits and spoke to the ground level mechanics of photography, composition, exposure and the principles of why we shoot the way we do. We dug into the basics of making more dynamic portraits and getting to a comfortable space with our photographer-subject interaction.

I have spoken to groups on numerous occasions prior to this event, but this was the first time running a seminar on my own. It went amazingly well and confirmed my love for sharing and learning within the photographic community. This wasn’t about re-inventing the photography wheel or delivering magic bullets to make us amazing photographers, but more about helping move past frustrations within our own work. Heck, I even learned a bunch from the attendees!

~dave

Although I won’t be posting any more photos from Saturday’s shoot for a while, here is a behind the scenes look at the day. Many thanks go out to Jai Schmidt, Scott Burns, Mark Plowman and Brett Stoddart for helping bring it all together. Aside from being a demanding 12-hour day of shooting, our models Nyomi and Lauren hit it out of the park.

~dave

The Winter 2009 ISPWP Photo Competition results are in and I’m excited to say that six of my wedding images have placed in the contest. The winning photographs are as much about my awesome wedding clients as they are about me. They made it happen. Have a look!

Bethanie & Kevin.

Stephanie & Andy.

Heather & Nicolas.

Kristine & Kyle.

Erin & Brian

~dave