Larry H Miller

In the few day's since the passing of Larry H. Miller, owner of the Utah Jazz, I have been very busy trying to do my best to tell this important story.

I had a few minutes last night to reflect on his personal impact on my life.

Without Larry, and we all called him that, (I called him Mr. Miller, just once and he shook my hand and said, I'm Larry) I would have never had the opportunity to take photos of my first professional NBA game. I would have never had a chance to photograph my first NBA finals, and I truly believe that without his great vision in putting Salt Lake City, and Utah on the professional sporting scene, the 2002 Winter Olympics would have never come to Utah.

I sent a short email to his son Greg, whom I recently photographed when he took over from his father as CEO, expressing my condolences on his loss. I shared with him that I too had lost my own father at a relatively young age and that it was difficult, but I found myself thinking of him often and the wisdom he had taught me.

Greg's father Larry touched a lot of lives, many more than he ever imagined. I count myself as one of the lucky ones. Rest in peace Larry and may your family find comfort and peace at this time.

Here are a few images that I took at the morning shootaround for the Jazz as they recalled memories of their owner and friend. 

Memhet Okur, Utah Jazz (above)

Deron Williams, Utah Jazz (below)

Matt Harpring of the Utah Jazz (below)

Jerry Sloan, coach of the Utah Jazz, gets emotional while talking about Larry H. Miller (below)

The quick portrait shoot-how to

Ron Anderson, Author of a book on Abraham Lincoln.

I recently was given an assignment to take a portrait of Ron Anderson who had written a book on Abraham Lincoln. Rather than just doing the photo in his office, which was the original suggestion I had been given, I had seen a nice bust of Lincoln at the Utah State Capitol while there for a previous assignment. I asked Ron if he had time to ride with me up to the Capitol to take the portrait next to this statue, which I explained to him would make a more dramatic and dynamic portrait. He agreed and I picked him up in front of his office and took him to the Capitol. As is frequently the case with most newspaper portraits, you are very limited on time and thus not able to set up very elaborate lighting schemes.

So for this portrait I took two Canon 580 II EX strobes and I set one up as the main light on top of a light stand with a small Photo Flex softbox and with a 1/4 CTO filter taped over the head of the flash (Camera, left). I then placed the second strobe on a railing at camera right and set the head to zoom to 105mm (giving it a narrow more spotlight type of beam) and focused it on the Statue to give it a little rim light which helped separate it from the background.

Lastly I set my camera (Canon Mark III, lens Canon 16-35mm) on RAW but shot on tungsten color balance. This gave the background a blue tone and with the CTO filter on the main light it kept the flesh tones on the subject warm.

The whole shoot from picking Ron up setting up the lights, taking the photos and returning him to his office took less than 30 minutes. 

I was happy with how the image turned out. Hopefully the subject liked it as well.

5A swim meet and other fun stuff

It's been a couple of weeks since I last updated  my blog. Here are a few of my favorite photos from the last couple of weeks, in no particular order. Enjoy!!!

Utah Utes get honored before the Utah State Legislature (above). 3A State Swimming Championships (below)

Women's World Cup Skeleton end of season stop in Park City, Utah. (below)

Men's World Cup Skeleton end of the Season stop in Park City, Utah (below)

5A Region One Wrestling Championships. (below)

Gymnastic meet between the University of Utah, BYU, SUU, and Western Texas University at the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City, Utah. (below)

Krysten Koval of BYU performs on the vault. (above)

Utah's Nina Kim performs on the beam. (above) Melissa Hough of BYU performs on the beam (below)

This photo (below) of Jamie Deetscreek of the University of Utah is from a remote camera that I set up to capture the uneven bars.

LDS President Thomas S. Monson during a small luncheon meeting. (below)

The State 5A Swimming Championships held in Provo, Utah. (below)

Cody Reed of Brighton High school celebrates taking 1st place by 100ths of a second in the 100 Yard Freestyle race at the 5A State Swimming Championships. (above)

Using a slow shutter speed of 1/15 of a second to pan with Sydni Johanson of Skyline High school as she swims to a 1st place finish in the women's 500 Yard Freestyle race at the Utah State 5A swim championships. (below)

That's it folks. Until I post next time.