It’s spring in Denver and the trees are in full bloom. Every evening for the last couple of days I’ve been wanting to go do some macro shots of the flowers. However, the wind would gust too much for any picture taking. With the weather forecast saying a high of 43 and 40% chance of snow tomorrow I figured this evening was my last chance. I have a plum tree in my back yard and it was sheltered just enough from the big gusts of wind to get in a few shots. I also wanted to use these shots to experiment with the ‘Totally Rad Actions‘ from Boutwell Studio I had picked up this morning. I’ve noticed pictures that just seemed to pop in color and wanted to know how they do that. The reason being is that I know of no camera that will capture that much saturated color in RAW format. I also can’t get Lightroom to do that much post processing either. I discovered that one way other photographers get images to pop (or snap in Butwell terms) is to post process in Adobe Photoshop. I guess I could of spent hours reading manuals on how this is done but I don’t have that much time on my hands. I needed a quicker solution and these actions seemed like they would do the trick. So for this blog post I’m going to show you the before and after shots of the flowers.

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I’ve finished processing the DaVita Annual Take Your Child To Work Day 2008. Over 42 kids were brought to work this year. Activities and entertainment included: a general session describing the DaVita philosophy, building tour, face painting, balloon making clown, magician, West Metro Fire Department fire engine and frozen treats. I want to thank DaVita for letting me photograph this event. View the event’s images by clicking the image below.

Today at DaVita (my employer) was the annual ‘Take Your Child To Work Day’. Of course, I volunteered to do the photography for the event. It was a great day filled with events from 9AM to 4PM. By the end of the day, everyone involved in the event were exhausted. I wanted to post a preview of the photos from the event to share. Today’s event also gave me a chance to try out my new Canon EF 70-200mm f/2.8L IS USM lens. All I can say is this piece of glass is amazing and so worth the investment. Click on the image below to see a preview of the today’s event!

We had a friend stop by the house a while back and she brought her two kids along. Me being all about photography ran downstairs to grab the Canon 40D. We set up a train set for the little boy (Zach) and then I warmed him up to the idea of having his picture taken. I’ve noticed that kids warm up very fast to the lens and just start being themselves. I also grabbed a few shots of Zach’s little sister Talia. Take a look at the session and let me know what you think.

I just got finished post processing my latest corporate event shoot and want to share. Actually, I work for this company (DaVita) and was sent to the event as an attendee. It’s known as Academy and all new hires get sent to learn about DaVita’s company culture, which is very interesting but I won’t go into that here. DaVita is a dialysis company and I do business intelligence and some photography for them. I’ve been experimenting with coffee table art books and used this event to create my first example. The layout is designed for a 10×10 inch book. The event was rather stressful for all attendees because the hotel didn’t have rooms for the 350+ attendees and a large majority of us contracted the Norovirus at the end. The Norovirus gives you stomach flu like symptoms, which put some of us in the hospital. Enjoy the slideshow!