Hey - we’re all about the hardcore UP bikers, and the labor day weekend was no exception for photogenic opportunities in the remote bliss of Copper Harbor. While I was touring the wonderful wineries of the Leelanau Peninsula with my family (Black Star, Mawby, Shady Lane, Willow, Forty-Five North: you guys rock! Leelanau Cellars, you guys do NOT rock…) Emily rocked it out in the Harbor shooting 400 shots in conjunction with Brockit’s new friend, Greg Maino of www.juskuz.com - a budding, race oriented, one-man operation with a good eye and Nikon gear (ah, Paul Simon…)  There is no better time to be had in the tip of the Upper Peninnsula - bikes, good beer, and my old buddies Mojo and certainly Joe & Andy Wilson of ‘steppin’ in it‘. Sorry I missed you guys, but so nice to see you at the Porcupine Music Festival - Joe, thanks for the new CD!

Racers, you know the drill: browse, review, and order digital downloads and / or physical prints from the gallery. Nice job bikers!

— UPDATED —

Racers, an additional 400 images from Brockit’s Emily Allen are now live on the site! All images are in chronological order which provides a unique perspective on the race. Nice job again everyone. Thanks for all the compliments on the shots - glad they are being enjoyed!

2008 copperman gallery 

A quick update to all you anxious, copperman competitors:

PHOTOS ARE UP! check them out!

Our 4-person crew covered the race well and we’ve got a TON of images for competitors. the weather was amazing, and everyone was their usual photogenic self. Thanks to the ATV drivers and to Terry for the shirts and the opportunity for us to provide all the imagery! I personally love doing this job every year, and I know you all love racing it; well… maybe not the swim so much.

Please feel free to browse through the galleries which are in chronological order from start to finish. Swim at the front, and awards at the end. Watermarks disappear on order of digital copy or prints of course - both of which are offered in a variety of sizes, finishes, and resolutions, including files big enough to make a billboard out of - if you’re into really showing off your sweaty, dirty, exhausted looking selves…

There are approximately 900 images up, with more on the way from Brockit Intern, Emily.

Images were shot RAW (I mean - of course…), with flash used quite a bit to shoot into the morning sun, to get some motion blur on the road course by the lake, and back in the woods to make that sweat really glisten. Some of my favorites were shot whilst strapped to the back of an ATV (seems like I’m strapping myself to a vehicle every few weeks here) and shot with the lens that goes under my pillow every night.

Seriously, nice job racers; extremely inspiring!

Browse away…

If you know me, you know I’m always ready to share with anyone, and this is especially true in terms of education. While I claim to know very little in terms of formality with regards to photography, I’m happy to present a viewpoint from a self-taught, cowboy photographer who has learned by trial and error. I presented to a Michigan Tech Summer Youth Programs group as a guest lecturer (I taught this class a couple years ago) and had a great time doing this. A quote below from Stephanie:

Hi Meg, Adam,

The students weren’t the only ones learning– my TA and I learned a lot as well.

More work for one of our favorite clients – this time the full-circle turnaround on shots for the commercial. Refer back to the ‘sweat shots’ post to see the evolution. Video guy Todd Brassard ran around like a madman with the Canon shooting the video that we are simply complimenting. Go Jessie & Ashlee for holding the reflectors in the high wind! My own backyard is the backdrop for the other shot, and thanks to the photogenic mother who let us shoot her day-old baby as part of another set of shots recently. Bounced an SB-800 off the right wall for that one…

For an anonymous Brockit client, the full team spent a beautiful evening on the shore of Lake Superior, shooting a number of locations and primarily candid & semi-staged shots. We had just come from the body painting shoot, so this was a good change of gears (hey, we’re flexible!) and I captured almost 300 shots before whittling down to about 125. A quick note about portraits like this: capturing artistic, emotional shots is just that; emotional. You really get caught up in the feelings of your subjects and when this happens and you have the shutter release down, firing away, you just know that you got the shot. Of course, that means that the technical aspects must already be taken care of. When shooting on a beach, this gets tricky; harsh contrasts, sun, sand, wind, reflections, etc. This means reflectors, diffuser panels, and of course – assistants. Go team!

I’m not sure how to describe this one. When we shoot races, I like to throw an index card into the stuff-bags to let everyone know where to pickup their shots. While intern Ashlee did a great job with the flying bike below (I shot this as a ChainDrive technical shot a couple years ago) I wanted something a little more unique for the upcoming CopperMan Triathlon. On a caffeine buzz one morning I thought why not make a literal ‘copper man?’ I mean, we’ve got latex body paint just sitting in the studio, and I was sure we could get some willing volunteers. It was a good challenge, and the whole team helped here. Emily & Meghan tested the paint and got the mix just right, and Brent & Jessie volunteered as models (they’re both racing anyway). We found a sunny afternoon, painted them up, hit their gold-glitter bodies with a reflector, and that was that. Photoshop turned the gold to copper and the text & graphics followed. Final proofs are below. Thanks models. Sorry it was so hard to get off; next time we’ll use more base layer, or Brent, maybe you just should have taken my advice and shaved your torso! Go team!

Racers, we’ll see you all up in the Harbor for the big race. Check back here for the link (client area) to the shots. Woo hooo!

My, my, my. Jess was our wedding client for an incredible wedding on Presque Isle. Our standard wedding work is typically for 10-12 hours and we started with Jess and noon and packed up the gear about 12 hours and 1400 RAW shots later. With my immobile leg, we took a full crew on the road which included driver and heavy gear hauler Evan, intern & second shooter Emily, and massage therapist & artist Emma as an extra assistant. Actually, what is the Dude’s line in the Big Lebowski ‘you don’t expect me to be handling the money, driving the car and talking on the phone…’ Well, we did abide, and we rocked this out for Jess. Trophy winning, long distance horses just out of town at the family’s ranch, then Presque Isle with a beautiful, concise ceremony, then we took two limos around to a variety of scenic locations and local bars before hitting the reception. Nice shots, guys. Some of my favorites are below. How often do you get the chance to shoot a beautiful bride in amidst free-running horses?! And thanks to the groomsmen for literally carrying me up from some of the more difficult locations. Note the Old Milwaukee beer in his hand (though it is his, not mine) and Emma carrying crutches, cameras, and Crumpler bag. Nice!

So, yeah… this sucks. A tree trimming company came to do some work in our yard and got their vehicle completely stuck in the yard. I refused to even watch out the window, let alone offer assistance considering how completely trashed the yard was becoming - it was clearly a lost cause. Well, they asked for help to push their wood chipper trailer out of the way and I gave a try at it. Pushing with all my strength, I felt and HEARD something pop in my right calf and I hit the ground. The workers described it as sounding like a flip-flop slapping the ground. My good buddy Chad Arney showed up as he does for all of my accidents and injuries and monitored the situation (and a sleeping Kora) while Robyn and I headed to the ER. It took a shot to each butt cheek to temper the pain, and I finally quit thrashing around on the trauma room bed. Todd & Jessie Brassard showed up to offer sympathy and helped me get into the car, and thus began the ridiculousness.

Long story short: I have a partially torn Achilles tendon and Soleus (calf) muscle. It means a non-walking fiberglass cast for 4 weeks (on my driving foot!) and a torturous pair of crutches for the duration and therapy afterwards. I can’t say thank-you enough to everyone for being helpful and sympathetic, and it is an interesting experiment to have one leg, and makes me value the working one – which is getting nicely built up while my right one wilts inside the cast. Seriously, thanks to my family, friends, co-workers, clients, and strangers who are genuinely helpful, concerned, and encouraging.

You’ll notice a slight shift in the number of us on photo jobs for the next couple months. Instead of the standard intern and myself, you’ll see a full crew: dual interns & photographers, a personal assistant, and sometimes even a dedicated driver / sherpa. I admit that I’m getting pretty spoiled by the extra support, and I notice that our clients are getting spoiled as well – while I can’t wait to heal, I just might keep this going!

Can I just say that I love opera singers? I love opera singers. Every time I get a chance to work with musicians I love it, and I especially love these folks: artistic, photogenic, confident, and so so easy in front of a camera. While it will be almost impossible to top the shots of New York’s Arielle Doneson (girl, why are these not up on your site?!) and Julie Baron, we came pretty close with this charismatic crew. All outdoor shots are natural light - with Emily holding a gold & silver reflector - and the studio shots were done with a single softbox and occasional rear fill from a second strobe. Wonderful job everyone – this was our pleasure. Check the gallery for your shots!

The Towles family and I go back a while now in terms of portrait and wedding photography and the most recent shots were a treat as well. Emily, Ashlee and I headed out to their place on the lake and shot a good collection of candid photos in between two other shoots on a Sunday afternoon. The two below are my initial favorites, and the one on the stairs was aided by Emily with a circular diffuser panel. Nice job everyone – always excellent to work with your family!

Another good challenge – we’ve certainly shot our fair share of interiors and exteriors for commercial clients, but starting to shoot for a design house that puts them together is not only fun, but quite satisfying. For this property, all shots are natural or ambient light, and 100% handheld. I just am not a tripod person. I’ll use one in the studio for commercial, repeatable work, but on location I just move around too much and it gets in the way. It is too hard to crawl on the floor, lie on your back, stand on furniture, and squeeze into corners when you are tied to a tripod. Leveraging ambient light with high but safe ISO makes this possible; well… that and holding your breath and shooting like an ROTC Rifle Team competitor of course. (yes, this was in a former life though) Whatever the case, the client was happy, and sent Meghan this great quote:

Meg -

We were so pleased with the River Valley Photos, we have several other
buildings we would like to have Brockit photograph.  Can we set up a
time for Adam to stop by and review two of the buildings?

Thanks

What a fun, fun project. Over the course of a few days, the whole Brockit crew gathered models, arranged scenes, and conned unsuspecting tourists for a series of shots to feature activities in downtown Houghton. We pulled out all the stops; handheld reflectors, rear sync flash in the woods, multiple photographers, etc. At the end, we have about 700 images for our good friends Dave & Karyn who are working on the project for the City of Houghton. No doubt that you’ll see these shots on large posters (see the sneak peek below), in visitors guides, websites, etc. Thanks for the fun project guys, and thanks especially all the accomodating restaurants, shops, bike clubs, dogs, hikers, interns, housemates, etc. To all the models that signed the releases -  we’ll get the full gallery posted with all the shots for you to enjoy as well. In the meantime, look for yourselves in downtown Houghton windows…

How does the song go: ‘its a small world after all…’ ? It totally is. Ramona Capilitan, PR at De Waerdse Tempel in the Netherlans is using a shot of Alan Parsons for his promotional material this week. The small world part: I just left Amsterdam about a month ago, shot Alan and his crew a couple years ago, and my daughter and Alan Parsons’ lead vocalist PJ Olsson’s daughter are playmates. Funny…

Ramona, dank u wel for the business and the VIP invite. Alan, Godfrey, Manny, Steve, John, and PJ, have a great show! Hope to see you guys soon.

Amy got married on the 28th and we captured her moments from noon until midnight. Red carpet is always challenging to match with flash, so I elected to leave it in the bag and just crank the ISO on the D3 a bit. Oh yeah, and it looks like I finally fried one of the SB-800 strobes and I didn’t feel like programming one of the other slaves to act as master. We’d have time for this later anyway… I’m not big on formal group shots, and tend to do these in a relaxed and artistic style vs. stuffy and ‘look at the camera and smile’. Its just not my style. My preference for a setup and shot is below with the mine ruin, sunburst, and casual poses. I admit that I did throw some strobe into this to carefully fill shadows without creating more. Nice job, Amy. You had a beautiful day!

Congratulations to Audrey for landing a super-sweet commission job for an art distributor doing a project for a China located Hilton. 14 7-foot hand-made beaded creations are going up in an executive meeting room which none of us will probably ever see unfortunately. We shot one of the creations in the studio and outdoors. The shot below is my favorite though; the artist and her work. Nice job Audrey – what a fun project.

Ah, yes; we did decide to go. Earthworks Music – Family Camp. This rocked. Although I admit we were a little frightened when we pulled in, we quickly got comfortable and opened up immediately. A long weekend full of incredible food, friends, music, art, and extremely comfortable community living. Kora got a chance to do some violin work with the musically gifted Daisy May, and we all learned from each other. The pop-up camper of course was its usual awesomeness of habitat-on-wheels, providing shelter with a DOOR; what luxury. Hope to see you all at Blissfest and Harvest Gathering.

This set of photos for Finlandia University were shot with explicit direction for a set of ads. This is further example of how we are just never in the studio… its all about location and being flexible with a tight timeline. Of course its also about hiring interns who can double as models too; thanks Emily. I hear the library shot below made some regional papers as well. And, doesn’t the freebie 1994 Mercury Sable (aka EA22Y) just really make the statement in the high price gas shot? ah yes… it does. Thanks for the work Karen, hope these work for you; we had fun with the whole project.

Sorry to our client for the wait on the spring shots of their property, but spring comes a LOT later here in the middle of Lake Superior than it does in Kentucky. Cold weather kept the grass from growing and leaves from opening for quite a while, but once it did - the grounds crew made this place look stunning! Thanks to everyone there for letting us roam freely, and of course accommodating us during the winter indoor shoots. The shot below has a pretty good sky for being f/10 in order to expose the shadowed building. Nothing on the front of the glass either; I’m not a fan of ND or polarizing filters so…

We’ll keep her anonymous, but this client joins the many beautiful belly shots that I’ve done over the years. Emily and Meghan helped with poses and arranging fabrics which is always a massive help and the model / client did her thing by looking naturally beautiful. This was an interesting day to shoot in one of my favorite places as the light was unusually diffused with some overcast skies but still reasonably bright. I shot a couple stops lower than I usually do and resisted the urge to bring the exposure up in post-processing which is especially notable in one of the shots below. Subtle light and a slight underexposure made some of these quite interesting though. Nice job, model, and thanks for working with us a week from your due date; we’ll be thinking about you.

What a weekend - Bridgefest, Chaindrive, Anniversary (11th), and a wedding. Brockit had a full crew with Emily & Tess shooting secondary on the trails. I shot start to finish from a number of spots including bungee strapped to the tailgate of a pickup truck to ankle deep in the swamp. As always, some terrifically photogenic racers, notably my good neighbor Chris Schmidt. The rain held out and the weather made for some good sky. Got some good use out of the circular 8mm, and flexed the D3 with some harsh light. Nice job racers; hopefully you have fewer black fly bites than I do. Thanks to Christine and the Keweenaw Brewing Co. as always for the support as well. The first gallery is up already; look for additional content from Emily & Tess in the next day or so.

— UPDATED (Emily’s shots) —

Brockit intern Emily Allen has a couple hundred shots that are uploaded into the main gallery. For her first bike shoot, she did great. Way to go, Em! All images are chronological  in order as you passed one of our crew on the trail. Please remember to thank Christine Young and the race organization for providing cost-free imagery to all racers. How nice is that!?

— UPDATED (Tess’ shots including awards and Kids Race) —

Brockit gun-for-hire Tess Steube shot an amazing amount of photos at multiple points on the trail including covering awards and the kids race. 700 shots are up from her, making our total 1247 shots of inspiring bikers - woo hoooo! Nice job, Tess. Always nice to have you along, even though you shoot with Canon… Paul Simon would be dissapointed…

CHAINDRIVE 2008 GALLERY

nice quote from a first-time racer:

Hi my name is Elliott Krizek, I just raced the 32 mile Chain Drive for the first time and I wanted to thank you guys for the great photo work that you produced. The colors and images are rich and a joy to look at. Thank you!!!

Leah was our bride directly after shooting the Chain Drive race on the 14th. Nice job bride & groom. Lovely weather and good locations for shots. You will recognize the bride and groom from their winter engagement shots, and now here they are; married and happy. Lovely job - it was a pleasure to be with you from the early afternoon until the late night fireworks (literally) in downtown Houghton. Many congratulations from us at Brockit. Some sneak photos below, including some fun ones of guitar master Mike Irish, and video king Todd Brassard. Enjoy!

One thing I love about living in the middle of Lake Superior is the dramatic weather; clouds and sun are especially fun to watch up here, and I have go no further than my back lawn, or around the corner to get shots like these. It is no secret that the other thing I love is shooting Kora. She is a natural, and she should be; she’s had a camera in her face since she was born. Long-term, detrimental effects aside, she likes it, and helps often with photoshoots. We use her as a model often; she is flexible and her talent fees are low! Of the four shots below, two are with the point & shoot (so handy!) and the other two take advantage of larger glass. As always; no PS work; as fake as the clouds look, they are real.

Jessica is a Brockit Bride for October. She and her fiancee took advantage of their engagement shots on a breezy, slightly overcast spring afternoon in Hancock before heading hundreds of miles back home. You guys are both naturally photogenic and will do great! The shots were all done with the 70-200 in natural light - my favorite formula… Nice smile below, Jessica.

A follow-up quote from Jessica to Meghan:

 I love them! Adam is fantastic, I can’t wait to see what he does with the wedding photos!

Thanks - I’m blushing…

From the earlier post, y’all (sorry, just back from Kentucky) know about the Houghton Spring Art & Music Festival. Along with others, I donate time and energy into the festival, specifically for me, into arranging the music, setting up the damn risers, making sure the show runs smoothly, then tearing down the damn risers. The effort was helped a lot by Todd & Jessie of Brassard Media who helped with poster design, distribution, and running the sound stage. Nice work! This was probably the best house (tent) sound we’ve had for the event, and an excellent, two-stage poster release; nice - nice! A few shots below for my Art Center girlfriends in downtown Hancock. Bonnie & Cynthia, always nice to do this; lets get going on next year’s plans.

Ah, this was lovely. Lori Polzin was our bride for the 6th of June, and we shot a beautiful, private wedding on the top of Brockway Mountain in Copper Harbor; shot in some local scenes, then moved southwest along the shoreline to Fitzgerald’s (Eagle River Inn) along Lake Superior’s shore. A wonderful, in-love couple, for whom Brockit intern Emily and I signed the witness lines on the marriage license. Excellent day you two, and congratulations!

Yes; another fun, challenging location to make look sexy through the lens. Working for a couple groups back in Houghton Emily and I headed 20 miles south to shoot in a manufacturing facility to provide fresh content. Everyone was accommodating, and the facility was probably the cleanest, most organized, comfortable plant I’ve been through in a while; nice. We shot with ambient light and a variety of lenses, checking off the shot list on a rainy evening. Excellent to meet you all - you got some great shots!

I never tire of shooting doctors, and for Portage Health, we nailed a couple of them in a couple different locations as we continue to provide updated content to Jessie & Karin. Always fun to work for you gals, and doctors, thanks for being photogenic. Matched gels to ambient light for these, with saves so much (all) color correction pain later. I mean honestly, who has time to adjust these things in post anyway?!

Kora, Meg, Carrice, Emily and I spent a quick hour shooting Carrice’s senior work for Finlandia University. The single picture does not do justice to the web of suspended glass objects, mirrors, and windows. It was pretty tough not to back into a feature, but the collecton of shots turned out decent. Brockit does a lot of work for starving artists, like Carrice, and it is great. Always nice to see fresh, edgy art from Finlandia’s students. Nice work here, Carrice, and we thank you for the Bells.

My family and I had the fortune of joining my siblings and parents on an almost two-week trip to the Netherlands - the birth and childplace of my dad, Abraham Poot. Fun, fun. This was a surreal trip that would be hard to explain, let alone repeat. I pushed myself to keep a daily blog where you can look through the images and rambling text that outlines everything from our arrival to our departure. At first lamented the absence of the gear I’m comfortable using, which I left at home for reasons of simplicity, weight, discression, etc… Oh yeah, and Robyn made me; so there is that. I grabbed a new, ultra-compact Panasonic FX500 which I ended up loving, despite its inevitable compromises by being a tiny point & shoot. On the other hand, it prevented me from looking like a dork and allowed me to be subtle and flexible. Fun, fun. So, yes; check the blog here if you want.

The three images below are all shot with the camera on the ground; something I can’t do easily with the D3. Oh yeah, and I got a nasty sting of nettle leaves while lying in the grass in front of the windmill; damn those plants…