Biggest and Brightest Full Moon of 2010, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.
The moon this evening was the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. Denver had clear skies and the smog was low as well. Grabbed this image with my 70-200mm @200mm on a mono-pod. Other fun facts; Being the first full moon of the year it is also known as the wolf moon. Tonight’s full Moon was about 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons.
Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 29 Jan 10, 10.00PM MST.
Today offered me another opportunity to photograph some DaVita teammates. This time it was members of our compliance group and they requested business portraits for an organization chart. It was a bit cold to take them outside so these images were taken in the lobby of the building. I recruited one of the teammates to hold my reflector and taught her a bit about lighting.
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Mark Mortensen
Lakewood Colorado portrait and event photographer.
www.MarkMortensen.com
DaVita is my employer during the day and I do a lot of pro-bono photography work for their corporate events. Yesterday, the request came in to capture pictures of teammates from the business offices that are to be displayed in the new temporary office space in downtown Denver. DaVita has plans to build a new corporate headquarter building in downtown Denver but that isn’t scheduled to be completed for at least the next couple of years. The current building in the Denver West area is over flowing with teammates and DaVita needs more space.
Of course it isn’t all serious at DaVita and a few of the groups wanted some funny photos.
This next image was intended to be like a train but they couldn’t stop laughing. I work with a good bunch of folks.
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Mark Mortensen
Lakewood Colorado portrait and event photographer.
http://www.MarkMortensen.com
I got the opportunity this past weekend to finish photographing a custom made bedroom set by Robb Helmkamp of Kamp Studios. Robb’s dad lives in the Lakewood, Colorado and Robb is currently based in Asheville, North Carolina. His dad had commissioned Robb to build a new bedroom set for his home and it turned out amazing. Robb’s sense of the use of the elements and form are nothing short of outstanding. You definitely should check out his website and other woodwork creations.
During the shoot his dad’s two cats, Lewis and Clarke, decided to participate in the shoot and be my grip assistants. Not sure they knew that climbing in my camera bag and chewing on my battery pack cords was bad grip assistant etiquette.
Originally, I had met Robb in October 2009 via another woodworker, Cliff Whitehouse of Bernwood Custom Design, who is based in Denver, Colorado. I have photographed some of Cliff’s work and Cliff was renting shop space to Robb while he built his father’s bedroom set. Robb wasn’t able to finish the end tables while he was in Denver and later shipped them. The images above are the finished set. However, I did get to shoot the bed and a bookcase Robb was building in the studio during his October stay in Denver.
Technical Ramblings: For those that like to see how images are created I’ve included a few setup images. All the in studio furniture shots were done using 3 AlienBee B800s. Two in large softboxes with grids and one on a boom in a strip box with grid. I use the grids to make the white seamless background go black as it rolls out. After the bed shoot I’ve come to discover I need a much wider background as my 9 foot seamless just isn’t wide enough.
Linda told me she has been reluctant to get her business portraits completed for sometime. However, she has been needing some professional photos to help represent her image better in her pre-paid legal services business. She brought along her daughter, Alex, for support and they both did a great job in making the photo session fun and enjoyable. Linda was referred to me by a contact in one of my business leads groups. Referrals seem to be the way the majority of my work is coming in these days and is much appreciated.
Linda also wanted some B/W conversions as such this is one of the treatments I presented.
Thank you Linda and Alex for an enjoyable photo shoot!
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Mark Mortensen
Lakewood Colorado portrait and event photographer.
http://www.MarkMortensen.com
Business is growing and had 3 shoots for the weekend. This first one was to create images of 3 pieces of artwork by Charmaine. Charmaine is a co-worker at the day job and I feel she has some raw talent and needs to keep up the work. I only wish I could draw this well and have the patience it requires to do these drawings.
Before I get to the technique of photographing artwork I’ll show you her drawings.
Shading with crayon
Pencil drawing of a Tarantula.
Charcoal sketch.
Technical Ramblings: For photographing artwork I’m sure I could do it easier if I would spend the time to create a stand to hold the artwork. However, I don’t do this type of work often and haven’t seen a need to spend the time as of yet. I improvised this weekend and used blue painters tape to hold the artwork to the cardboard backer that was in turn clamped to the backdrop stand. Two AlienBee B800s in large soft boxes were placed on either side of the artwork to feather the light on the piece. This eliminates any glare and allows the texture of the paper to be shown in the photo. I also used the X-Rite ColorChecker Passport to create a custom Adobe Lightroom camera profile for this lighting setup. This allowed more accurate color matching to what you see in the actual drawing to what shows up in the final image.
Artwork is leveled and balanced vertically and horizontally between the strobes.
Another view from above to show how the strobes feather the light onto the artwork.
A third view to give some context to the positioning of the strobes and tripod.
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Mark Mortensen
Lakewood Colorado portrait and event photographer.
www.MarkMortensen.com
Palisades Reservoir – Idaho, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.
I don’t normally shoot landscapes, however, after finishing up a portrait shoot in the mountains of Idaho this past fall this scene made me stop the car. The moon, a bit of smoke in the air and calm water of the reservoir was pleasing to my eyes.
www.markmortensen.com
Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 9 Jan 10, 10.31PM MST.
Me, originally uploaded by mark.mortensen.
Self portrait taken in my studio (aka living room). Getting a successful self portrait is really hard. It is also good practice to be on the other side of the camera to get an idea what my clients are dealing with.
Technical Ramblings: 3 light setup. First AlienBee B800 in large softbox camera left about 2 feet from my face. Second AlienBee B800 with 7″ reflector and 30 degree grid directly above my head. Third AlienBee B800 below and behind me with 7″ reflector pointed at black seamless background. Also have a large round silver reflector camera left for fill light. Triggered with cybersyncs. Post processing is a secret.
www.markmortensen.com/
Uploaded by mark.mortensen on 9 Jan 10, 5.32PM MST.
Being the new year and reading lots of new year resolutions I thought I’d state my top ten goals for 2010. Is ’2010′ pronounced ‘Twenty Ten’ or ‘Two Thousand Ten’? How did I do at my 2009 goals?
2009 – I only had 4 goals written on my whiteboard
2010
The list could go on and on with things like learn Photoshop better, experiment with different strobe techniques, etc, etc. But I think this is the top 10 goals for the year.
The Denver West Chamber of Commerce had their annual holiday party recently. I am currently a member of the chamber and volunteered my time to photograph some of the members with our cowboy Santa. These events are a great way to meet other business members in the community and to see if there is a way I can help provide a service to their company. Here’s a sampling of the images captured. You might also enjoy the video slideshow of all the images.
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