Niko Gemini from the band Davey Suicide

Niko Gemini from the band Davey Suicide Niko Gemini from the band Davey Suicide

In my early photography days I loved making colorful images so it is nice to get back to my roots so to speak. If you want to check out my older work here on my website click here.

Side note....are you following me on Instagram yet?  I tend to post more work on that page. https://www.instagram.com/mistypicscolorado/

Nikki Misery, MyChildren MyBride, Ace Von Johnson 

I haven't been posting too much because I have been working on my portfolio.  I have about 24 printed 11x14 images on the way for my print portfolio.  I have a portfolio review at a photo workshop in Los Angeles in 2 weeks so I am in the last minute push to get everything ready!  Can't wait to show you what I shot when I get back from Los Angeles so stay tuned. :)

Doing an attempt at a music video 2 days this coming week.  Video is a challenge for me so wish me luck as it could be used on a bigger music magazines website. 

I did have troubles with getting my studio lights to fire so I am buying the rest of the items I need to upgrade so that won't happen again!

Still a few things I learned and will try differently in the future.  I have another drummer lined up for this one but it may have to wait until next Spring/Summer when the temps are warmer again. 

http://thepitmagazine.com/myth-creation-sunshine-studios-colorado-springs-co-9-21-16/

Wednesday 13Photos of Wednesday 13 live at Sunshine Studios in Colorado Springs, Colorado

First time being contributing to an online magazine!  Check out my review and gallery of the Wednesday 13 show at Sunshine Studios in Colorado Springs, CO on 9/14/2016 in The Pit Magazine.

http://thepitmagazine.com/wednesday-13-sunshine-studios-colorado-springs-co-9-14-16/

Seems like this summer I am all about shoots having to do with water.  Still a few more up my sleeve to work on just have to hurry and get them done before the Colorado cold takes over. 

After

Before

My live shooting skills are improving and I am nailing the focus more which can be hard during live events.  I am also experimenting more with exposure so some have a darker feel.  I wasn't much on living shooting as I prefer working with studio lights instead but I have to say I am starting to enjoy it more and more. 

Here are a few recent images. Check out the new Band Photography gallery for more.

MotograterMotograter band live at Sunshine Studios, Colorado Springs, CO

So since I last posted I had 3 more images make it into a magazine.  3 images of Laci and 1 of Alexis made it into FTP Magazine!  See below for the tear sheets.  

Here is the first one I edited.  I know this won't be everyone's cup of tea. :)

Took my camera to the repair shop yesterday for a good cleaning and I have a new light to test when the camera is back from the shop.  I can't wait to test this new light out and show you the results!

So I ended up deciding if I was going to work for free I was going to work on experimenting and trying out all kinds of different things with lighting and such.  This lead to some of my most creative work and helped me figure out my photographic style.  If you want to see some of that journey check out the personal work section of my website.

Fast forward to present day where I decided for fun I would shoot a local band.  I had 4 hours of time in a local studio that I could use so I invited the members of Goatsilk to stop in.  Had a blast taking pictures of them and I ended up making one into a composite image.  Recognize this background image I used on a previous practice composite image!?!? 

Had a great time shooting a model and one local band.  Below are two images of Tyra and I will have to show you the band ones another day as they have to make a line up change announcement before I get to post.

I understand the need to have yourself photographed and it isn't for you but for the other people in your life.  I preach it but I haven't been so good with doing it myself.  I think part of the problem is you are the one person not use to looking at you.  Everyone else knows what you look like and are fine with it as that is who they see all the time.

So putting on my brave face as I post these tonight.  Thanks go out to Paul Martin who took these.

One serious and one smiling.

I purchased a new lens for my camera last weekend and I am going to be testing it out with Trya tomorrow in Florence.  I will show some from that shoot. 

Well come see me outside the gate of the Florence High School football came on 9/4 to see what it is. Game starts at 7 pm in Florence, Colorado.

I also had a photography meet-up at a local car salvage yard in my town.  I asked a high school senior to join me so I could mix some portraits in with the old cars.   I took a few extras of just the cars with my Infrared camera that came out cool. 

I realized while I was there I haven't been out to take live band pictures in 10+ years and I had only used a film camera when I did before.  Since I was shooting digital this time I played around with the images and did fun stuff like double exposures.  This bar had no real lighting(just a beer sign) for the bands so it was a good challenge to overcome a dark room!

Here is a small tease of a behind the scenes of an image.  Still working on editing all the pictures and will show some in the future.

Here is a work in progress as I am sure I will keep tweaking this some more before I am done.

Showing before and after images. :)

Was nice to take a day listening to another photographers ideas on things.  The main point of it was to make you think about how to take your business to another level creatively.  So I will be trying some new things in the coming future and trying to work on more personal shoots to help me grow more creatively.  Time to start pushing things to the next level!! 

I will be in the middle row in Veterans Park which is right off HWY 50/3rd St in Canon City, Colorado.

I will be selling landscape photos and I will have samples of my high school senior portraits. Stop and say hi!

So what do you think of them?

Still working on designing banners and brochures for the craft show coming up.  Should make my deadline to get them off to the printing shop and back in time.

So hard to narrow down which images to use!

I am having trouble motivating myself to take some winter pictures this year.  I know I need to get out there and take some new images but I just can't get myself to leave the comfort of my warm home to do it.

Winter pictures are always a challenge for a number of reasons but the cold is the main one.  I even picked up some snowshoes at the end of last season so I could move around better to take pictures.

Last year I took pictures in Steamboat Springs, Colorado(pic above).  This year I am thinking I might want to take some pictures of the ice climbing walls they have in Ouray, Colorado. I also love that entire part of Colorado and haven't really visited it in the winter.  Let's see if I can find the motivation to get out! :)

I belong to two different local geology clubs so I go on digging field trips.  I just started a crystallography class which is super hard but I am hoping to learn some new things about how crystals are formed.  I will be starting a gemstone faceting class in a few weeks where I will learn how to cut gem stones for making jewelery.

My father, mother, 2 nephews and 1 niece all usually go digging as well so it is some quality family outdoor time.

What kind of things are you into or what are your hobbies?

Below are a few random pictures I have taken over the summer.

Digging out amethyst in Canon City area

Some of the amethyst finds getting cleaned.  These are currently in the rock tumbler getting polished up.

Below is the hole where I am digging for black smoky quartz crystals.  That is my mother in the background.

Please don't forget to print the images you take as technology is always changing and what you have them stored on now might not be accessible in 10 years.  When I was in photo school and then graphic design school (10+ years ago) all my projects were put on zip disks.  That technology isn't really around anymore and I have no easy way to get them off there.   Cd's are already being replaced by USB as we speak and computers can cash.  Print, print and print!!! :)

Below are a few I am printing out of my niece and nephews.

While out shooting I also take images that I think would be good for stock work, most I never intend to sell as big prints.  Some of these will be images that I can picture people using while they are writing an article about a certain subject such as the two bottom images being about hunting or camping.  The hammock could be about relaxing or getting back to nature.  

Guess stock photography is a good way to upcycle unused images!

I have been back to the same spot each year to take pictures of the Dallas Divide Mountains in Colorado(4 years ago I didn't know about the spot while I was in this location). This location is about 5 hours from where I live so it is always an adventure and a weekend vacation of sorts for me.

I still haven't nailed the shot I want! 2012 missed the fall colors and a snow storm was coming in so too many clouds. 2013 had the snow but no clouds. 2014 had the clouds but no sunrise color and no snow on the mountains. Still trying for snow on the mountains great color in sunrise with clouds and perfect aspens.  Landscape photography isn't easy! 

The only clue in the listing was Wetmore, Colorado.  The person who ordered the print lives in Texas and she asked if this was taken on a specific road and creek.  She was correct on her guess and she said that was her parents horse!  I took the image about 2-3 years ago while out taking real estate pictures.  I happened to go across this bridge on the way back from taking pictures of a home and I decided to snap a quick picture of this horse by the creek. 

What are the odds of someone knowing exactly where this was with what little info is shown in the picture!?!?!? 

Back from my fall colors trip to the south west corner of Colorado.  This is my favorite area of the state and no matter how many times I have been there I can't help but fall in love with the place all over again.

Took the large format camera out for spin while I was there. Used it for one sunrise and one sunset(see each picture below).  Ended up getting rained out on Sunday so I only ended up with one day of shooting, which is a bummer! 

Going to try and shoot some more things and then send a bunch of film off to the lab for processing. 

Sunrise

Sunset

Here is a view of what I was taking a picture of today.  O'Haver lake, Colorado

Here is what it looks like taking the picture.  4x5 cameras show the image upside down and backwards.  Takes some time to get use to seeing the world like that. :)

I am so glad Spring is here!  Some how I ended up not taking any landscape pictures this winter.  Had the best intentions as I even purchased a pair of snowshoes at the end of the previous winter to use this year.  I think I must have went into hibernation mode and I am just now coming out of it.

The good news about the weather getting better is I can get some more outdoor high school senior portrait shoots in.  Going to attempt one this evening if the wind and weather hold out.  Fingers crossed!!

Here are 2 teaser images as I haven't even had a chance to look over all the pictures I took.  These were shot in Pueblo West, Colorado.

Infrared high school seniorInfrared high school senior Black and whiteHigh contrast black and white high school senior pic

I have been making them since I finished photo school and I moved out of Colorado to California in 1999.  The beach image was my first Christmas card after being out on my own.  It is funny how the images follow different chapters in my life.  The next card is was on my move out of CA to AZ where I was going to get my BA in Graphic Design.  Arizona was so hot and I couldn't wait to finish college and move back to California so the card for that year was meant to make everyone laugh so the sign I was holding said "Get me the hell out of here!!".  I then followed it up the next year with standing in front of the Hollywood sign saying YES!! so everyone would know I had moved back to CA. 

My favorite card was the year I got to meet Marilyn Manson.  In my first year in California I worked at a photo lab where all the stars had their film processed so I meet a number of famous people but I always wanted to meet Marilyn Manson.  Took me about 10 years to cross his path but it happened and made my year!  Yes, I love goth/industrial music if you couldn't figure it out.  This card is still on a few people's refrigerators 6 years later! :)

One day I decided I should be taking better advantage of living where there is an ocean so I went to a surfing school one summer and fell in love with surfing.  Moving back to Colorado was hard due to my love of surfing so I thought it would be funny to show my current version of surfing.

I am totally slacking this year and I haven't gotten around to making my yearly photo card.  Looking like it might be a New Years card kind of year. 

What story do your Christmas cards tell?

Sometimes I am capturing the changes someone goes through as they grow.  I was lucky enough to photography Eres when she was 5 days old and I recently photographed her and her family for holiday portraits.  Amazing to see how much she has changed now that she is 7 months old.

Eres 5 days

Eres 7 months

STU_0355

First up is a Marmalade which is a group that invented a system called Spike that really takes high speed photography to a new level.  I am going to be on the look out for this kind of filming when I am watching commercials on TV. Check out this video http://vimeo.com/43455552

Next is two guys who did a kickstarter project to start production on Pixelstick.  Pixelstick is a new way to do light painting(using flash light with long exposures in the old days) in camera and it takes full advantage of computer programing.  Some pretty amazing results when you watch the video.  Good to see they raised way above their goal so looks like they might have a hit on their hands.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/bitbangerlabs/pixelstick-light-painting-evolved

Can't wait to see what people will come up with next!  Have you seen anything else that I should check out?

Here is an attempt I did a light painting the mountain using a flash light. That Pixelstick sure would have come in handy!

In the film days you had to be careful that you didn't get dust inside the camera or it would scratch every roll of film. One of my original film cameras is guilty of the one piece of dust that scratches the film.  In the darkroom printing days you had to dust the negative before putting it in the enlarger or you ended up with dust (white) spots on your prints.  Fixing dust spots on prints wasn't too fun as you pretty much had to paint the spots with special dye.

As things progressed but still not digital camera days you would scan the negatives so you could work on them in Photoshop. I have been using Photoshop since 1997 if that give you an idea of the time line. Instead of painting the dust spots you could retouch them out with the computer.   This image is an example of dust from scanning.  I am out of canned air so more dust was on the negative than the norm but you get the idea.  See all the white specks and such!

Now in digital camera days the dust is internal for me.  I am not one of the people who switches lenses so the dust I get on my images is caused by the inner workings of camera.  That dust ends up on the camera sensor and causes black blobs all over the place and is most noticed in images that have the sky in it.  See this image for an example of image sensor dust from my last photo trip.  Usually I just take it out in the computer and put off having the camera cleaned but this last trip the dust has won so I finally took it in for a good cleaning.  So much less processing time if I don't have to spend time fixing dust. 

All red circles are to show some of the dark dust spots.

Native Earth

Fall colors coloradoFall in Colorado. Aspen tree, leaves, snow and green moss.

Dallas Divide near Telluride, ColoradoDallas Divide near Telluride, Colorado

Dallas Divide near Telluride, Colorado

Yep it is almost that time of the year again.  It is time to get up super early to catch sunrise and fight for a space to put my tripod up with all the other people out taking pictures.  I hit some spots that aren't so crowded but sometimes the crowded places really do have the best photographic possibilities.  Crowd of photographers at Maroon Bells during fall Aspen, ColoradoCrowd of photographers at Maroon Bells during fall Aspen, Colorado Crowds at Maroon Bells, Aspen, Colorado in 2012

This year on my hit list is Kebler pass which is near Crested Butte.  This location is great because it has what has to be the highest level Aspen only grooves.  Many places you find other trees mixed with the aspens so that makes that a bonus.  Last year I was about a week too early so many trees were still green.  Timing on catching the fall colors at the peak is hard to predict.

Kebler Pass, Crested Butte, Colorado fallKebler Pass, Crested Butte, Colorado fall Kebler Pass, Crested Butte, Colorado

I am also planning a weekend in the Southwest corner of Colorado which is my favorite location in all of Colorado.  I am still trying to catch a good sunrise or sunset with the Dallas Divide Mountains.  I have made a number of attempts and the colds haven’t worked out to allow a good shot yet.  Maybe I am saving up all my luck for this year so I can finally nail it! 

While I am in that part of Colorado I also like to visit Ouray and the Box Canyon Falls which are just on the edge of town.  During this time of the year the water levels are low so I can get in at ground level with my tripod.  The tourists coming in are also few so that allows me lots of shooting time there without having to move out of the way for other people. Hoping to catch some more fall leaves down there this year.

Box Canyon Falls, Ouray, ColoradoBox Canyon Falls, Ouray, Colorado Box Canyon Falls, Ouray, Colorado  

Undecided if I will brave the crowds again at Maroon Bells in Aspen or not.  I got  a few good shots last year but I would still like to catch it with some colds during the sunrise and even better would be snow with the fall colors.

Fall colorsautumn, aspen, black, colorado, colors, fall, leaves, mountains, pond, rocky, trees, white Maroon Bells, Aspen, Colorado

to purchase check my website mistysprouse.com

Raw food/Vegan dinner of organic greens, quinoa, sprouts and a natural salad dressing.  I did forget to buy the tomatos so it is missing that pop of color but not a bad first test.

So for my first post I thought I would mention something that I am working on that is part of my long term photography goals.  I am working on starting to build my photography studio in my garage.  I have been shooting in my basement but I find I would love a better space.  When I purchased my home 3 years ago it came with a good sized garage that the previous owner used to work in often.  How often do you find a garage that has a bathroom with a shower in it?  At the time I thought I will never use all this garage area but now that I found myself looking for more options it is a big bonus.  Having what I thought was a useless bathroom out there is now presenting all the possibilities of what it can be and that I am lucky it is already set-up with one.  Yes that is the toilet for the bathroom in the outside garage picture :)

I am working on a very limited budget so that is why it is on the long term plan.  First up I am working on cleaning it out and maybe a nice coat of paint.  Some of the bigger problems is the bathroom remodel as it is guy's bathroom which I don't care for and honestly have barely been in since I moved in.  I also need to work out a way to control the temps in there so it will be comfortable for clients. 

This weekend after thinking about it for months I finally got myself in gear and started cleaning it.  Like most people the garage is often the place of clutter and the last thing to be cleaned out right!?!? These are the before pictures and I hope to keep you all up on the progress I make on it.