Blueye Photography

No you are not hallucinating and yes you are at the correct site. I’ve overhauled the whole dang place!! Oh yeah… it’s a brand new Blueye Photography website, an updated logo, and a sweet new blog theme. I am very excited to unveil these changes and hope that my faithful site visitors and blog readers enjoy the update.

Do me a favor, though… leave me a comment and let me know how rockin’ (or lame) you think the update is. I value everyone’s feedback.

Special thanks to Creative Motion Design for the awesome flash site, Triple Scoop Music for the amazing music, LOGO XOXO for my new logo, and Simply Splash for my splash page.

PS. There are a few small kinks to be worked out with this blog template, but let me know if you see anything out-of-whack… I may have overlooked something.

This past Saturday I had the pleasure of having an engagement session with Jen and Lewis. We had planned a downtown session and boy did we get lucky with the weather. The forecast was calling for rain most of the day, but right around 6pm everything dried up and we had fantastic weather to wander around town. I’m looking forward to shooting Jen’s bridals in a few weeks and then their 5/17 wedding out at the Lakeway Resort and Spa. Enjoy the sneak peek.

(6 more photos after the jump)

I received one of those phone calls you just don’t ever want to get today.  My Mom called and told me that my cousin Rob had passed away yesterday.  He had been fighting a brain tumor for the past 7 months and had recently taken a turn for the worse.  Being inoperable there wasn’t much choice but to live with the tumor and survive as long as he could.  I never did make it to the hospital to see him when we visited PA over Christmas, but I think that is for the best.  I will remember him as a fun, energetic, loving father of 3 boys who always had a good joke to tell and who would help anyone that he could.  We’ll miss you Rob.

Another week, another Monday. Today was a loooong day and I’m really tired so this will be a short post.

Yesterday I set a record for the number of hits on my blog (no I’m not going to post the actual total because I’m sure it’s way below the larger sites on the web). Thank you for visiting though
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While at WPPI I bought Nik Color Efex Pro 3.0… I’m going to have some fun!

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I did manage to watch a few of the college basketball games over the weekend. I’m happy to see that my Longhorns made it to the sweet 16. They’ll need to bring their A game next Friday when they play Stanford, though.
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If you haven’t heard of Amy Seeley before reading this you really should check out her site. I heard her perform at Jesh’s platform class at WPPI and I was blown away. She is something special.
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Random Cutframe.tv movie: Sac of Shoot

What an amazing, uplifting, challenging, rewarding, emotional, much-needed, fun, tiring, AWESOME trip! I could probably come up with another 50 words to describe the trip to Vegas. I had high hopes for Sin City and my expectations were exceeded. Going to Vegas with a host of other cool photographers made the city that much cooler and I’m already looking forward to next year’s trip. I’m going to try to make this post as comprehensive as possible so it will be verbose, but I’ll spice it up with a few photos to keep you interested.

Before I start my book I want to acknowledge all of the amazing photographers I met and heard speak while in Vegas. Y’all made the trip worth it and I hope to keep in touch with many of you:
Chenin Boutwell – www.boutwellstudio.com
Doug Boutwell – www.boutwellstudio.com/dougb/
John and Dalisa Cooper – www.altf.com
Heather Owens – www.photosbyheatherowens.com
Jen Lowe – www.jlowephotos.com
Ronnie Ruiz – www.ronnieruiz.com
Leon Li – www.leonliphotography.com
Michelle Ocampo – www.michelleocampophotography.com
Denise Hoogland – www.modephotographers.com
Jay Tsai – www.jaytsaiphotography.com
Josh Solar – www.joshsolarphoto.com
Coralee Penner – www.redphotoco.com
Jeffrey Neal – www.jnpstudios.com
Eliesa – www.photogen-inc.com
Mike Colon – www.mikecolon.com
Becker – www.thebecker.com
Doug Box – www.dougbox.com
Jerry Ghionis – www.jerryghionis.com
Jesh de Rox – www.jeshderox.com
Alycia Alvarez – www.alyciaalvarez.com
Jason Cohen – www.jasoncohenphoto.com
Jason Domingues – www.dominguesphotography.com
Nick Collins – www.nphocusphotography.com
Rob Greer – www.robgreer.com
Jennifer Longaway – www.longawaypix.com
Garrett Elliott – www.garrettelliott.com

My reasoning for going to Vegas was two fold: to attend the Anti Workshop and to attend the WPPI 2008 convention. My goals were simple: break out of my shell with the workshop and get a creative kick in the pants, meet as many photographers as possible, and learn, learn, learn. I can easily say that I accomplished every goal. Here’s a breakdown of the trip.

What an amazing trip!  We got back from Vegas last night and it’s been a whirlwind trying to catch up with everything and everyone.  I’m still not completely done and I probably won’t be completely caught up until Monday.  I do have more photos to post from the trip, but they will have to wait until tomorrow as I’ve run out of hours in the day to post them now.  Check back tomorrow evening (well I guess it is technically tomorrow already so it would be later today) for another post with my final thoughts from the workshop and WPPI as well as some fun personal photos that Melanie and I took.

T.

Last night I played in the DWF (Digital Wedding Forum) poker tournament that J and Becker put together over at Caesar’s Palace. I played very well and made it to the final table (outlasting Becker and Jessica Claire), but got knocked out by Rob Greer when he paired an 8 on the river and beat me with a king kicker (we both had aces and 8′s). I finished in 8th place out of 60+ so I’m happy even though I was one spot away from the money. I’m aiming for a money finish next year.

No photos of my own for this post, but here’s a link to Eliesa’s photos of the tournament. You gotta check out Mark from LaCour with his rockin’ glasses.

T.

Wow… okay… quick catch up and then I need to get some sleep (the 8:30am class is going to be tough to get up for).A couple of photos from the Fremont Street area.

Yesterday was the end of the Anti Workshop and we had a great time watching and shooting with Chenin, John, and Doug at the Neon Boneyard here in Vegas. The workshop was awesome and I’m very thankful that the Boutwell’s and Cooper’s put this on each year. I had fun taking pictures of the group, the signs, and the instructors so here are a few of the ones I took.

(11 more photos after the jump)

Just wanted to write a quick post that the Anti Workshop concluded today and I have some photos to share, but that I have to wait until tomorrow since it costs $14 a day to have wireless internet at Paris. Today was Melanie’s turn so I’m writing this from her laptop. Tomorrow I’ll hook mine up and post the photos.

T.

So if you didn’t know (by reading my previous posts) I’m in Las Vegas attending The Anti Workshop. It’s a 4 day photography training class hosted by the Boutwells of Boutwell Studio and the Coopers of Alt-F. For the past 2 days they’ve been sharing information about how they run their businesses and giving us tips and training on how to push the envelope of our own wedding photography. Each day we’ve had a shooting exercise and they’ve been a blast. Yesterday we had a Polaroid camera and a cardboard cut-out of Elvis and we had to shoot a 10 frame themed series. My team chose to document Elvis’ fall from Grace(land). Here’s a shot of the few rejects we had:

Today we were given the task of completing a 24 frame series with a live bride and groom. My team (me, Josh Solar from Kansas City, and Denise Hoogland from Las Vegas) were paired up with Phil and Ayumi (hopefully I spelled that right). These two were great and they did everything we asked them to do. We all had a bunch of great photos to submit for the project and I wanted to share a bunch of them with y’all. Phil/Ayumi, if you are reading this thank you for donating your time to work with us and please email me so I can get you copies of the photos.

(6 more photos after the jump)