BYU vs Utah Football Game

My Grandpa was honored at the BYU vs Utah game this year. For anyone outside of Utah, this is a huge rivalry and one of, if not the, biggest game of the year. Before the game, they gave a brief overview of my Grandpa's military career and honors, then he fired the cannon to start the game. I tried to get them to let me down on the field so I could get some good pictures, but no one would work with me, so I did what I could from the seats. I found a good spot, threw my 70-200 f/2.8L IS in front of my 2x teleconverter and shot from where I was, which unfortunately turned out to be the other side of the stadium. Here are the pictures of my Grandpa on the field firing the cannon, and a few shots from the game itself. This is my Grandma and Grandpa down on the field during the opening festivities.



They were put up on the big jumbo screens in the stadium with my Grandpa's name and everything.

Here he is firing the cannon:

A few shots from the game:

You can view the set here.

Riverwoods Animal Hospital Christmas Card Photos

My sister works at the Riverwoods Animal Hospital and contacted me about shooting photos for their Christmas card. We agreed to shoot the photos last Saturday morning. The weather was cold, overcast and it had been raining the entire night before. I wanted to warm the photos up and give some kind of indication of a magic hour light, so I set up the shot very similarly to what I did when I shot my sister's family pictures last year. One flash was off to camera right, gelled with a cut of full CTO gel, zoomed out to 105 mm and fired at full power. The other flash, I had sitting behind the umbrella for a fill light on the people's faces. It was camera left, angled so the most direct light from the umbrella would hit the opposite side of the group the strongest, and the fall off would light the group evenly as it moved from that strong side back to the left.

The fill from the umbrella really brought out the areas under the eyes and around the cheeks of the people in the group. It was pretty obvious in shots I took before my light had recycled how much of an improvement it was making.

Here are the shots.




Finally, the owner of the pet hospital wanted a quick portrait of her with her dogs. I pulled the light with the umbrella around to camera right and let the CTO's flash stay pointed at the background. I had to lower my umbrella light because the brim of her hat was causing a lot of shadow on her face. Here's the shot: