This is the brand of memory cards we use!

I just read this funny story about a newspaper photographer in Missouri who set up his camera a little too close to a bridge that was being blown up and the debris shredded his camera--blasting it to bits! The interesting part of the story is that his camera memory card survived and had some great photographs to show for it!

Invariably folks will ask me if I'm shooting digital and whether I think it's better, etc. This sure is one advantage over film...a film camera never would have survived to show pictures from a wreck like this! I'll admit that after some vacation pictures, I've even left one of my cards in my jeans pocket and it went through the washer and the dryer and survived to show the pictures just fine! We use the high-end professional version of SanDisk Extreme memory cards that are sealed against extreme temperatures, moisture and vibration so they should be able to take quite a bit of punishment but we normally take pretty good care of them...keeping them in cushioned storage cases when we've filled them up.

In any case, I thought the story was pretty interesting and evidence that your pictures are always safe here!

-Tim

more AWESOME senior portraits!

Some high schools make seniors go to a specific photographer for their senior portraits in the yearbook because that photographer (probably a national 'big box' shoot-for-quantity-not-quality studio) is kicking back free or discounted yearbook publishing to the school.

It's not uncommon for our studio to hear from a few of these seniors each year, hearing that they weren't at all happy with their pictures from the 'big box' studio. We love taking in these seniors because they're in for a completely different experience here!

First off, we're fun, personal and one-on-one. You're not waiting in line for your turn in the studio here...you have an appointment that's all your time. We usually even go over time because we're having so much fun! You can have a consultation beforehand and when it's all over, you get to come back to our cozy studio for big-screen previews in our viewing room, we'll even make popcorn if you want!





















Second - we're all about personality -- we're not the studio with the big styrofoam 'SENIOR' letters. You're going to see YOU in your pictures -- personality and happiness, just you at your best!

Finally - we give you the best quality! Image Factory portraits aren't run on an ink-jet printer in the back room -- everything is painstakingly retouched and then printed by professional printers on professional portrait photo paper. We mount bigger prints, give you presentation mats and boxes to carry things home in and we can even put your creation in an awesome frame, ready to hang on the wall! We'll help you decide what you need (not push you to fill a sales quota) and make sure that you have fun and want to tell all your friends.

When it's time for your portraits, give us a call -- come in and have a free consultation. I guarantee you'll love it!

Science Day

I had the really great privilege of giving a presentation on Photography to my daughter's class at Colorado Springs Christian School yesterday. We talked a little bit about the history of cameras and I led up to Harold Edgerton's experiments in stroboscopic photography (remember the famous picture of the bullet going through the apple?).


We finished off by doing hands-on experiments with my camera and shooting Nerf darts and flying paper airplanes in front of a flash firing at 20 - 100 times per second. The results were really great and the kids loved it. The images below were made by 3rd graders under the careful supervision of an expert photgrapher...haha.




Pretty cool stuff! This is something just about anyone can do -- I think we only used about $7,000 in camera and presentation equipment to make it work ;)
Seriously though, if you're an educator and want some tips on how this is done, I'm happy to help out, just drop me an e-mail (tim@imagefactoryphoto.com). I would consider doing this one more time this year for another school in Colorado Springs too, so e-mail me if you'd be interested.

-Tim

Camera Obscura

I'm getting ready to do a presentation at my daughter's school about photography and since they're learning Latin, I wanted to talk about where the name 'camera' comes from. It's from the Latin word 'camera obscura' which means 'dark chamber' -- you see, the very first cameras were boxes with pinhole lenses that would project an image on the opposite wall. Artists had to trace the image if they wanted to keep it!

Anyway, as I researched this, I found some photgraphs of what this looks like and I thought it was really cool. You can read and see more at http://www.themorningnews.org/archives/stories/camera_obscura.php


I've got some portrait sessions coming up this weekend that I"ll show off soon, plus I just finished up some terrific senior pictures but I don't want to post them on the blog until the senior sees them so hang on....I'll post some fresh work here very soon!

-Tim

Pothole season

All the snow and ice has been brutal to the streets around here, creating scores of nasty potholes. Last week DeAnna ran over a BIG pothole and hit it so hard it bent her rim and flattened her tire! Before I could even get mad or give lectures on my superior driving technique, the same thing happened to me! Last Friday night as we were heading up through Denver on the way to the mountains for a nice relaxing weekend of skiing, we found some of the biggest potholes Denver had to offer and I bent my rim even worse. The fun part was not knowing the tire was going flat until about 65mph on the freeway!

As I changed the flat tire on the side of the interstate, I stupidly shut the engine off but left the lights on, hazards blinking, interior lights on and the radio playing. By the time I unpacked the trunk, changed the tire and repacked the trunk, I had a dead battery. Thanks to all my 2006 travels, I had a hotel night we were able to cash in at the Hyatt and a rental car we were able to pick up at Hertz the next day.

The good side of all this is that instead of paying the $120+ that the tire store quoted for bent rim repair, we found C&P Hubcap of Colorado Springs -- a little shop down on Colorado Avenue that specializes in this sort of repair and the bill was only $35. So when you ding your rim in the next pothole, be sure to give them a call!



Anyway, the ski weekend workred out great and I got to try snowboarding with Abby! I'm a pretty good skier but snowboarding is entirely different so I spent most of the time falling down and I'm quite sore now! If someone doesn't pick up the phone when you call the studio this week, just visualize me trying to get out of the chair and limp over to the phone..hahaha.

Online Previews & Ordering System

We just completed the most major upgrade to our online previews & ordering system since the launch last July. Hopefully everything was transparent to you since most of the changes were 'under the hood' but now you should find that it's faster than ever before, also bringing us increased capacity and security.

You may notice that the system doesn't remember your e-mail and password for you the first time you come back, if that happens, no worries, just log in with the e-mail and password you provided at registration and leave the 'remember me' box checked.

Click on this link if you've forgotten your password: http://previews.imagefactoryphoto.com/index.php?do=remind

If you have any trouble logging back in or any other issues with seeing and ordering your pictures, please call us at (719) 219-9791 or e-mail tim@imagefactoryphoto.com.

Frosty Trees

The gentle snow from the last couple days has postponed some of our commercial work but it sure has made some beautiful scenery around here!

Christine & Josh

These guys are troopers! We braved a chilly day at Cheeseman Park in Denver but I think the heat from all their kissing kept them warm for the whole session (yeah, cheesy I know, but it's almost Valentine's Day!) -- seriously, it's so awesome being a wedding photographer when you get to work with couples that are this much in love! Thanks Christine & Josh! Enjoy the rest in your private gallery! Here are a few of my favorite images:

having fun with business portraits

My client last week asked for some 'fun' and 'goofy' portraits at the same time as the formal ones to go on a collage. It turned out really cool -- it's sort of a variation of what we've done in the past at wedding receptions with our fun pictures stand. Anyway, press the 'play' triangle on the slideshow below to see what I mean...there is music to it too.

Dueling Pianos!

We had the opportunity to photograph a couple fun parties last week and one of them included these really fun dueling pianists! Caz and Matt from Actual Talent Mobile Entertainment came out to Mile High Station and put on a fun show for a private party. If you've ever been to a 'Howl at the Moon' bar, it's a similar concept except that these guys actually come to your party and put on the show....really fun! They kicked up the party quite well and managed to bang out everything from Elton John to Sir Mix-a-Lot on the pianos. If you're looking for a very energetic and interactive kind of entertainment for your event, you definitely need to check these guys out!

Congratulations Colts

So my Bears lost. I'm bummed but only for about a second since we're so occupied here that I have little time to mourn or celebrate anyway. It was a great game (great first half anyway) and I enjoyed a great party with DeAnna and friends here at the studio. I do have to post a quick note about how classy I think Tony Dungy is (and I know Lovie Smith would be the same way) based on his post-game comments. Everyone from Coca-Cola to Tostitos to Jim Nance of CBS was trying to get him to push the 'first black coach to win the Superbowl' angle as if we just let him win because we are now racially enlightened and as if it had nothing to do with all of his own personal hard work and committment, but Tony gave credit where credit was due saying:

"But again, more than anything I've said it before, Lovie Smith and I not only the first two African-Americans, but Christian coaches showing you can win doing it the Lord's way, we're more proud of that.

It takes class and guts to witness like that in front of 150 million people. Well done Tony.


You can read more about Tony at www.thegoal.com



I'll show some more Image Factory work here on the blog soon!

-Tim

Snow on Red Rocks

We went out to Red Rocks Amphitheater last night for an event and it was snowing pretty good by the time we got there -- the car almost couldn't make it up the hill! Thanks to some expert Colorado driving and some new tires, I was saved from a new 4x4 payment...heheh. Anyway, I thought these two photographs were really cool the way the spotlights were cutting through the snow. The spots and the pink gels on the rocks were provided by our friend Merissa and team at Richter Scale Productions (www.richter-scale.com).

Yes, there are lots more pictures than this but after 3 solid days of shooting and about 10,000 images, it's time to take a break and go skiing tomorrow (there are advantages to the time of the year when we don't have a wedding EVERY single Saturday!) so I'm going to hit Winter Park tomorrow, watch the Bears on Sunday and show some more pictures Monday. Have a great weekend!

-Tim

Go Lopers!

I saw a herd of antelope along the side of US Highway 24 the other day -- the snow had covered the fields so much that they were grazing in the dip next to the road where they could still find some grass. I was one of about six drivers that pulled over to enjoy the site but it wasn't long before they got spooked and ran off. I like the action in this shot.

I call them 'lopers' because that's the mascot nickname for my alma mater - the University of Nebraska at Kearney. Pretty appropriate too since as I recall that's about how our football team performed during my years there -- running scared ;)

Anyway, I'm not a landscape or wildlife photographer, this was just something cool for me. We just wrapped 3 days of heavy shooting for a coroporate event but had the chance to do some fun, creative things that are much more up my alley and I'll post them here as I get through the 10,000 plus images we made!

-Tim