Here are a few frames from a recent shoot here in Kentucky that I did with DR Harrison for his upcoming debut album, Deafening Dreams.  We discussed several ideas and stuck fairly tight to the original concept, but did stray maybe just a bit.  The shot above is something of a “Behind the Scenes” type shot.  We used my barn to take advantage of its height, the ability to shoot with a long lens to compress, and to be be able to get out of the wind that might have made this shot impossible.  It’s pretty much a simple lighting set-up using 2 Elinchrom Rangers with only small reflectors for a the harsh side lights, a Speedlight in a beauty dish for the main/fill light, and a small background light.  I really liked the retro-looking Wescott background.  The chair was rented from a local antique shop in West Liberty, KY, called Red Rooster.  The shot immediately below is what has been currently selected for the album cover.  I cooled the tones on the tighter head shot to give it a slightly more “mechanical” look.

A good friend of mine from down here in Kentucky, Brandon Phipps, dropped by yesterday evening with an awesome bird he had just taken.  The light was perfect, the bird was impeccable, and the hunter couldn’t have been any happier.  We spent about an hour shooting a mess of different photos, but these were a few of my favorites.  Hope you like them too.

I had an urge this morning to shoot something, besides a turkey, which seem to be really rare around here lately.  At the cost of busting my ass while wearing worn out Crocs and standing, but only momentarily,  on a wet rock in the creek, I got a couple new frames.  I’m somewhere between not wanting to stand and really, really not wanting to sit.  Here are  a few of the shots, but I refuse to post the one form the creek!

I’ve been in KY for the last couple of weeks, and for a while, I thought turkey season would not ever get here!  Well it has, although the turkeys have not realized it yet.  My good friend John, www.jandjprecisionfirearms.com, did manage to get one yesterday.  As for me, well it’s raining today so my excitement will have to take place at the laundromat…  We did get a couple of cool pix, or at least a couple that I liked, and I’ve included them here.  Hope you enjoy them.

I spent the early part of the week shooing for Realtree in the western part of Kentucky, and the second half of the week at my farm here in KY on the east side.  I’ve had the pleasure of shooting with and for Trent Marsh with Hawke Optics, http://www.hawkeoptics.com, or https://www.facebook.com/hawkesportoptics?ref=ts&fref=ts.  Hawke is a new client for me and dang near a neighbor as they’re US offices are in NE Indiana.  These couple days together at the farm have been as much about getting to know one another as it has been about shooting some images for them.  They make some amazingly sharp and clear optics as well as a few products that I will be photographing soon that you might not suspect coming from an optics company.  I’m really looking forward to working throughout the year with them, and many years down the road!

Tomorrow I will be shooting for a company that makes deer mineral products and will then be looking forward to greeting friends as they show up for the opener of turkey season which begins the following weekend.  It’s going to be a very busy, but fun time over the next few weeks!

The shot above is sort of a new thing for me, shooting more indoors rather than outdoors.  I would have thought it to have been simpler, even much simpler, than the normal struggles that I have shooting things outdoors.  I never realized just how demanding shooting in a studio can get to be.  I guess it’s one of those “Grass is always greener on the other side”, sort of moments.  There were several nights I was still up shooting at 2 and 3 in the morning.  I did find that there were some benefits to shooting indoors.  I could just look out the window and watch the snow fall, or the rain, or the wind blow, or the temperature drop, and just chuckle and bump up the thermostat a degree or two.  Indoors was also the reason I was still able to be shooting into the wee hours of the morning.  And too I was fortunate enough to have outside work as well to beat down the cabin/studio fever thing.  Below is another shot I liked from a multi-day Realtree shoot at the farm in Kentucky.  I’ve come home for about 5 days now for Easter and will head back out right after Easter.  The first couple days will be for a Realtree editorial shoot in Western KY, then it will be back to the farm on the east side of the state for a few days of shooting with an optics company and then quick shoot with a company that makes deer mineral products.  At the same time, a couple friends from home will be in putting a roof on my porch using some 10 foot tall cedar trees that we cut to use as supports.  It’s going to be hectic for a while.  I hope someone knows whose making the donuts!  About the time that all winds down, we’ll start getting into turkey season in KY.  A couple friends will be joining me there to hunt and we’ll even have a couple TV shows in to film a couple hunts.   I am so looking forward to this spring!

For the last several years I have been shooting Realtree’s effectiveness images for their Max4 waterfowl camo.  Each winter just before Christmas I would get to head to Mississippi for a week to shoot some new images for them and even get in a morning or two of hunting with my buddy Chris Jennings with Ducks Unlimited.  Part of the fun of this trip was staying at Harrahs Casino in Tunica and having a lease right across the street to shoot pix all day long.  Some of the images from that work has appeared on the back cover of several waterfowl hunting magazines each month for the last few years.  Now I have been fortunate enough to have a chance to shoot their new patterns, Xtra, and Xtra Green.  The image above and the one below are among my favorites from the days of shooting here at my farm in Kentucky.  We wanted to shoot turkey hunting set-ups using the slightly less turkey traditional Xtra.  It’s amazing how well this camo blends in!  I’ll be shooting some more deer hunting stuff very soon and then next month or May Ill be shooting more traditional, Xtra Green iamges. 

I’ve spent a very enjoyable week with some good friends from the Dominator 365 group, including D R Harrisson, his wife Laura, Phillip Vanderpool, and Joanne Conley, as well as their producer Dave Voisey.  We spent several days shooting some print ads and commercials for their Ghost ATV.  We were all pretty satisfied with the results.  Above is the image that I believe is the final choice for the cover of the Ghost catalog.  It had never crossed my mind that I could get wet until they were about two feet from the water, at which point my mind went into overdrive and went through about 100 scenarios, none of which ended well.  I was soaked head to toe!  The photos turned out good so it was worth the discomfort.  We also created a mock cemetary for both a photo shoot as well as for filming a commercial.  We looked at the possibility of using a real graveyard here on the property but opted out for several reasons.  Besides, I can’t help but think there isn’t going to be any good karma coming out of the use of a very, very old cemetary.  Several of the stones, which even had markings, were from the 1800′s.  The night shoot was a blast.  I love doing the larger production stuff.  The video shot of this is going to be totally off the hook!  I can’t wait to see the final product air.

The last month or so has been pretty hectic as I’ve whined about before.  Over the last few weeks we’ve been shooting more stuff for Realtree, gone to photo school, shot some work in Kentucky for the Ghost vehicle, pulled together two presentations for the POMA conference in Columbia South Carolina, and made plans to get to MIchigan this coming weekend for our annual RMEF banquet that Stacy and I are on the committee for.  Above and below are a few of the images shot for Realtree of some goose hunting from a week ago or so.  Very soon I will post some photos from an album shoot I did a while back in Nashville, and also some photos that are floating around Facebook from the Ghost shoot here in Kentucky.  Hope you like them!

It seems like forever since I took a moment to write anything here or show any new photos.  The double image above was used as the top of a booth at the SHOT show in Vegas by a company I started doing work for about a year or so ago.  I think it was about 6 feet tall.  They are now producing broadheads in addition to their sights.

In what I hope will be a pretty short time, I will be able to post some work I did recently for an album and a decoy company.  I think they both came out cool!  The remainder of the winter and early spring looks to be rather busy with a lot of travel.  I’m anxious to get started.  Early summer I will be shooting a few different jobs out west in Colorado.  That is really exciting!  I might even be making it to Montana for a bit, but that’s not certain yet.  I can see some fishing happening while I’m out there as well.

There will also be a shoot coming up soon for another group out of Nashville… More later.