Ashleigh in Santa Ana, CA

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

I recently had the pleasure of photographing Ashleigh in Santa Ana, California. She was my model for a photography workshop I was teaching there. I taught adaptive lighting techniques for portraiture, both in studio and on location.

I taught this event for 2 days at the California Center for Digital Arts, where I used their studio for the indoor photographs. For our outdoor location shoot, we stepped outside onto the street to use the sidewalk, alleyway, and nearby buildings – continually mixing sunlight with studio flash.

I love how these turned out and wanted to share them with you.

Ashleigh’s friend Natalie was her hair and make up artist, and she looked so pretty that I thought it’d be great to include her in a photograph too. Here they are together.

For the outdoor portraits, I liked them in both color and black and white. But the black & white gives them a great vibe with the textures of the street. And they work great in b&w for this trio design.

Here they are up close though so you can see how beautiful they each are.

Ashleigh did a great job and I appreciate her being my model for this event. And thank you to all the photographers that came to this 2-day learning event.

If you’d like some great portraits, give me a call at 801-728-3317. Even though we’re under quarantine here in Utah, some photoshoots are still possible with the right precautions. And others can be planned out too.

And if you’re a photographer that would like some training, check out my training website, BryCoxWORKSHOPS.com

And until next time, America.

“Soft Rain” by Janet Cox (My Mom)

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

My mom wrote this song, “Soft Rain” a few years before I was born. She wrote it on her ukulele and my dad arranged it for choir and orchestra. I grew up hearing it all the time. Besides singing it as kids, we’d constantly be invited to hear choirs across the valley perform it.

I really love this song, and our beautiful Utah spring weather has made various people post about this song online this week. So my sister took a recording from the 1970s by the Mormon Youth Symphony and Chorus, created this video, and posted it to her YouTube.

There are two windows to the outside world: the version given to us through screens (TV, news, movies, social media), and our actual windows to the outside. The messages are completely different from both views. The first tells us to worry, have fear, and creates anxiety. The second is much more positive. Being outside, talking with our friends and neighbors, and being involved in our community creates a far more positive view of the world.

So being spring time, and knowing that we all need something beautiful and positive today while we’re all in quarantine, here’s this song my mom wrote, called “Soft Rain.”

And until next time, America.

Fall Family Portrait Delivery and Install

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

I just delivered this gorgeous fall family portrait. It was created right here at in my studio gardens at the end of fall. My client was out of town for Christmas, but now that they’re back, it’s delivery day! This video shows how beautiful everything looks.

I love taking care of all the finishing touches for clients. That means taking the artwork and details past the shoot, and all the way through to the end. There’s a lot of work involved in making something perfect, but attention to detail at every step is crucial, including the individualized retouching, custom printing, surface coating, mounting, framing, delivery to the client, and wall installation.

I love the overall balance and grouping of the family, and how great all the kids’ expressions look. This really looks inspiring and beautiful on the client’s wall.

During a family session, it’s a great time to do smaller family groups too. Everyone can order their own portraits, plus they’re great too for smaller wall groupings and Christmas cards too.

Look at how cute all these kids are together. I photographed them about a year ago and it’s amazing how much they changed in that time. (I share those below.)

Sometimes we can end a family portrait session with just grandkids with the grandparents.

About a year ago I photographed just these four kids alone. Look how much they’ve changed and grown in just a year. It just shows how important it is to get portraits of family and kids regularly. Because they change and grow so fast, it’s wonderful to have professional portraits and wall art throughout their life. 

And during that shoot we also did individuals of each child too. These are great in wall groupings or in a child’s bedroom.

I love creating custom wall galleries and family artwork for your home. And I know it’s time for some updated family portraits for your family. Give me a call at 801-728-3317 and let’s create some wonderful wall portrait art for your home.

And until next time, America.

High School Senior Portraits of Shannon

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

I love photographing high school seniors. I can really be creative and the seniors love the fun images we get.

And you have to see these high school senior portraits that I did for Shannon while I was training photographers in Texas. While teaching photographers around the country at an event in Texas, I did a quick lighting and posing demo with Shannon. She was my model and I created some gorgeous high school senior portraits of her.

I have lots of wonderful choices and all of the images look amazing. But here are some of my favorites. I love images that show flow and movement, especially as a series. These four images are great as a collage for the wall as a set of 4.

Even though for this shoot I’m working on location in another state, I still like creating studio portraits when possible. Studio images look sharp and professional, and they separate you from the photographers who can’t or don’t know how to create studio images. Plus mobile lighting and setting up studio gear is possible anywhere.

However, with seniors I prefer to do mix sessions of both studio and outdoor locations. Here at my Utah studio, I have easy options for both inside and out, right here. Plus we have lots of wonderful outdoor locations very close by for more variety too. But for Shannon, because I was doing a lighting demo, we did everything in one studio location.

I have a lot of wonderful images that are great as standalone images. When I photograph a a high school senior, I want a lot of variety quickly with one outfit before changing outfits and backgrounds. This series of Shannon on gray would be just one of the sets I’d do with a senior here at my studio. We’d start with one color and outfit, then keep moving to more outfits and backgrounds. That gives us a lot of variety for the album design to come later.

But as you can see, in just a short amount of time and with one outfit, we have lots of wonderful images of Shannon for her wall portraits and album pages.

Throughout the shoot I like to increase the motion and action of the photoshoot. Here I’m having Shannon spin around, having fun with her hair.

High school senior shoots are fun, and you can bring your friends and family to the shoot too. In fact, adding close friends to part of the shoot is always fun for a few images – though most should be of just you.

If you’re a high school senior and would like some wonderful new images, this is the perfect time of year to get you in. Give me a call and let’s talk more about your personality and what would make for some creative portraits. 801-728-3317

And until next time, America.

Mark & Kendra’s Airport Engagement Portraits

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

My friends Mark and Kendra recently got married and I wanted to share their gorgeous engagement photos. Because Mark is a pilot, this couple wanted some fun engagement portraits at the airport. It was the perfect location and very creative, even down to the details of their costumes.

I love how these turned out. and always love to do location photo shoots, especially when the location incorporates something about the client’s personality. Everything in a photo should tell a story about you, and not be random. So being at the airport was the perfect choice for these two.

It was a cold winter day and they were short on time, so we had to work fast. To compensate for the difference in elevation with the couple standing on the wing, a ladder was needed to get the angles just right. And being winter, the sky, coloring, and natural light of the air was gray and drab. So a studio light on location was needed to really make the colors and the sky pop and create shadows and dimension. The results are wonderful skin tones and gorgeous colors.

 

We had a lot of great choices and I love them all, especially this one of these two running off together. One idea for their invitation was to have the images as old snapshots. So I cropped them square and treated the images so that they had a faded film look. Here was one idea of them as a trio.

Here are those squares close up.

Their final invitation design was an airline ticket, and this was the back of the design. I shot this using the old wood on my coffee table.

Before ending the shoot and entering the hanger, I did a couple individual headshots of these two as well. Here are my two favorites of those, cropped as squares with an old film edge.

I’m so excited that these two are married. They’re both fantastic people individually, and both incredibly accomplished in so many ways. They’re really good together, and they both compliment each other as a couple. I know they’ll make a great team and I’m glad they’ve moved forward with engagement and marriage.

Engagement Proposal Video

Mark also had me come photograph their proposal too. They love to rock climb together and he’d arranged to have a ring at the top of the route for her to get and bring back down. He told her that she was going to help him in a high-level training exercise and that she was to retrieve the “objective” from the top. She had no clue he was proposing and when she repelled down, he was on one knee.

To explain me being there, he told her that I was just in the area doing a shoot and thought it’d be fun to get some climbing photos. But I was really there to capture video and some photos of the proposal. She was completely surprised and you can see the immense sense of joy, relief, and surprise.

If you got engaged over the New Year and need some fantastic photographs for your engagement, bridal, and wedding, give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something wonderful for you too. And here’s a link to some wedding info too.

And until next time, America.

Elyse’s Wedding Album Design, Salt Lake Temple & Utah Capitol Building

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

The Salt Lake Temple is closing this month for a massive 4 year renovation. Plus this is the time of year when many people get engaged, so I thought a Salt Lake Temple wedding would be perfect for my blog right now.

I’ve had people ask about this album because I originally shared a few early favorites from this wedding on my blog, but not the entire wedding album. So here’s the entire album, in video form.

I love sharing entire albums because then people can see how wonderful things look from beginning to end. I don’t rely on “lucky” shots, but rather custom light every photograph to create an amazing set of images for the final album. To really see the story of these images and how it all flows in the album design, watch the video above.

And here are just some of the album page spreads that you see in the above video. As you can see, these two look like models. The portraits are romantic, fun, and flow together in a gorgeous album design.

I love creating these albums for my clients. If you’re engaged, let’s talk more because I’d love to create something like this for you too. My phone is 801-728-3317.

And until next time, America.

Joe McQueen Passes Away at 100 Years Old

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

Famous Utah sax player and friend to many of us, Joe McQueen has passed away at 100 years old. Many musicians of course know Joe here in Utah. But those who follow my blog may know him from these recognizable portraits I’d done of him a few years ago.

For his 100 year birthday, I’d recently helped his Baptist church congregation in putting together a book on his life. And they had me play sax at his birthday party too. For that event, I made up these two videos.

Here’s the video clip of performing at his birthday party in June.

Recently, my dad and I had dinner with Joe and some other friends of his from church. He was in great spirits and has kept a busy schedule gigging, even at 100. He was always blessed with health, talent, and was a friend to so many people. At his last birthday, it was inspiring to hear so many people talk about how their lives were changed by Joe.

I’m grateful for the time I had to get to know him. He inspired many people in many areas of life, and his friendship has led to other dear friends for which I’m grateful.

I know he’s playing his sax and feeling young and free in heaven.

Design Your Own Cox Christmas Cards + Print at Wholesale Cost Too

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

It’s Christmas and we all love sending out Christmas cards to our friends and family using updated portraits. Now you can design your own cards online using your Bry Cox retouched portraits, and get them at wholesale cost too.

Choose from lots of options, sizes, foil embossing, even creative envelopes. You can even order in quantities of 5 after the first 25 cards.

Everything is beautifully printed, and you can control the overall design and color scheme to match your style.

How to Get Your Cards Going?

First, let me know you’d like to order cards, and I’ll set you up with your own online store using the retouched images from your last photo shoot. I’ll then send you your own web link.

Click that link and your store will open up and look like this. You’ll see images from your shoot along the top, and below that, lots of designs to choose from. You can even sort the designs down by Card Type, Foil, Photo Count, and Shape.

Customize Front, Back, and Envelope

When you find a design you like, click it and customize it. In the customization mode, you’ll see 3 sections at the top of the screen: Front, Back, and Envelope. Make sure you go through all three sections and choose all the options you’d like for each, shown down the right side.

Drag your portrait into the card’s design, choose card colors, layouts, shapes, etc.

On the back of the card, you have more options too. In this example, we did the same photograph on the front and back, but with different layouts and text. We also choose a shape that makes this into a Christmas tree ornament.

Then on the envelope section you can choose blank or custom envelopes. There are lots of colors and designs here to make the envelope more fun to get.

Review and Check Out

When you like everything, review your choices, and check out. That’s it!

So if you’d like some beautiful new Christmas cards this year from your latest shoot, give me a call and I’ll get a store set up for you.

And until next time, America.

It’s my Birthday & Time for an Updated Portrait

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

After years of being a photographer, one of the biggest hurdles I’ve noticed for clients is that they stress about getting new portraits done. I understand that. Everyone has the same excuses to put off professional photos: I’m getting older, I don’t like how I look right now, I don’t have time, it feels vain, I’ll do it later, etc.

So to set the example, and for the mental exercise of doing it, I update my portrait each year. I use my use my birthday as the reminder and catalyst to create something new. I think it’s important to keep your portrait up to date, no matter what.

Many times a client will show me their website, and their business headshot is 5-10 years old. It looks dated, and nothing like them. And I speak and train photographers around the country as a PPA Master Photographer / Photographic Craftsman. Even amongst photographers, it’s not uncommon to see them using old headshots. So of all people, we as photographers should get and show updated portraits.

So for my new portrait, I wanted to try something new this year. I decided to do everything the opposite of my last one. Normally I’m smiling in my images, so I instead I’m serious. Normally as people get older, I photograph them with softer light to hide wrinkles, so for this I did sharp specular light to highlight wrinkles, lines, and textures. Normally headshots are close up, and so this time it’s full length. And normally I do a clean white or fashion gray for headshots, so this time I used a dark, hand-painted, Oliphant-style background that I got in California from DBC Backdrops. Normally a headshot is bright and airy, this time it’d be darker tones and moody.

After setting up the equipment and metering the lighting, I shot a few options both standing and sitting using a hand-held remote to fire the camera. These were my favorites. The artistic side of me often has to live with something for a bit to see how I like it, and so far I am really liking these. They are completely different from my last ones.


And I have another self-portrait to reveal on my birthday. I wanted to do a fun image of me, riding my motorcycle by standing on it, while driving through an exposition, shooting a gun, and waving the American flag. It would be over-the-top enough to be funny and entertaining, but also artistic and well-done down to the tiniest details. I’d do it just like a commercial art piece for a client.

For commercial work, sometimes a shot is impossible to get. In those cases I’ll create illustrative composites – multiple images combined into one impossible-to-create image. These digital composites are surreal worlds that don’t really exist. It’s a complex process, but first the idea is mapped out, then a series of photographs are created of each piece matching lighting throughout, then those parts are painstakingly blended together into one final art piece.

I love how it turned out. It’s comical and fun, but the attention to detail (like the shadows, lighting, and blending) all look great, especially up close.

Portraits should be fun. The creation process should be enjoyable and memorable. If you get them as custom wall art that you see every day, then those portraits should make you happy when you see them. We shouldn’t put off getting portraits either. I’m a believer that we should have current portraits that we love, whether you’re single, married, have kids or not, you should have a portrait that represents this time of life in a beautiful, artistic, and uplifting way.

If you’d like a new headshot or even some new family portraits, it’s a great time to come in. The studio gives us a lot of artistic options, but there’s still some fall left to do something outdoors too. Give me a call at 801-728-3317.

And until next time, America.

Salt Flats Morning Shoot with Addie, the Bubble Trailer, and the Chop Stick Guys (part 3)

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

In parts one and two of this series, I talk about how my photographer friend from California, Suzette Allen and her husband are touring the United States in their Bubble Trailer to teach and train photographers. And I share the evening shoot we did when they came through Utah, and now I’m excited to share with you the fun early morning shoot we did the next morning here on the Utah Salt Flats.

The next morning, we got up for an early sunrise shoot. Suzette and her husband interviewed me as the sun was rising behind us. Here’s that video…

And here’s a selfie video showing the gorgeous sky.

But before the sun came up, we started shooting photographs and my beautiful friend Addie was our model. The early morning sky was deep blue with just a touch of pink on the horizon. Using my Profoto studio lights to both sculpt Addie and also capture the true colors in the distance, I started photographing with the blue sky as our background.




While we were doing our photoshoot, Suzette and the Chopstick Guys were off shooting video.

With just a few studio lights on location, we were able to create some beautiful images with vivid colors. I really loved this early morning light. As the sun started to peak over the horizon, the colors around us went from deep blue to soft pastels. These colors worked perfectly with Addie’s outfit.

As Suzette photographed Addie with her Bubble Trailer, the warm colors of the sun started to peak over the salty horizon and hit the clouds. The golden clouds and warm light was a magical time.

The rising sun brought a cool desert wind which I found exhilarating and fun creatively. And as you can see, we all were having a lot of fun in this beautiful and creative environment. Here’s Suzette rockin’ her Lumix camera, with her husband Jon having fun behind.

When Suzette had her images, I photographed Addie again, but this time using the sun as my main light. The wind and golden warm light were gorgeous. I love all these gorgeous colors together, and Addie did such a great job on this shoot. And she was a lot of fun too. We were laughing a lot.


I had to keep stopping to soak in the view around me. And that made me want to create some long panoramas as well. I loved how the warmth of the rising sun on east side of the horizon mixed with the deep blues of the other end.

I also created some panoramas showing my Nissan Rogue and Profoto studio flashes on the salty desert floor, because it looked like a commercial ad. (Hey Nissan and/or Profoto, if you need commercial photography work, check out BryCoxPro.com.)

And of course with such a beautiful sunrise and mountain range, we had to do a quick selfie together, firing the camera with a remote in one hand.

And here we are having more fun, dancing in the wind and sunrise.

Then mixing in studio lights with the sunrise, I wanted to capture the golden sky behind Addie. I wanted to shoot into the sun, and for that I needed some serious lighting power. I love how these turned out!






With the cold wind finally making Addie cold, she went to warm up in the vehicle. And I took a moment to create a selfie showing my studio light and sunrise behind me.

Fall has now hit us here in Utah. It’s time to create some beautiful location photographs of your family and kids. If you’d like something in the fall leaves or on an exotic location like the Salt Flats, and you want that some awesome lighting that makes you pop in that location, give me a call at 801-728-3317. Let’s create some iconic and legacy portraits for the walls of your home.

Also, if you’re a photographer looking to up your game and get more training to really understand lighting better, check out my online and in-person courses at BryCoxWORKSHOPS.com.

Salt Flats Evening Shoot with Pamela, the Bubble Trailer, and the Chop Stick Guys (part 2)

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

In my previous entry I shared the first part of this shoot at the Utah Salt Flats. And continuing on, the sun was going down quickly and we were losing our light. As Suzette Allen and her husband prepped the Bubble Trailer and lighting for their next series of photographs, my model Pamela did a change of clothes while I set up a multiple-light look for a clean, commercial, studio look that would work with and accentuate the deep blue of twilight as things got darker.

These turned out to be a fun and wonderful series of images. I love the motion between the images and feel they’re best shared in sets of three to show action.

For these next couple of horizontal portraits, I let one of my lights show in the image. I loved the lighting angle, and I wanted to show the open vastness around us. Pulling back with the camera allows that long, empty, and open horizon to show. And the light I think it adds interest, telling the viewer that the lighting is controlled and specific.

I often see photographs posted from the Salt Flats by other photographers and the results are dull, muddy faces, washed out backgrounds, noisy grainy images, blurry faces, and shadows in the wrong places on the face. Why? Because most photographers don’t understand exactly how to custom light, where a light should be, and how lighting needs to continually move and be adjusted based on sculpting someone as they move. It requires knowledge and lots of mental work. But the results of doing so are powerful images like these – amazing portraits created in a normally impossible setting – long after the sun has gone down.

Pamela was so much fun. She had a lot of personality and I loved her choices in clothing. These photos with her hat made for a great set of images. I’ve had a hard time picking my top favorites.

Time was really flying and we were having a blast and didn’t want to stop shooting. So after Suzette had finished her shoot with the trailer (which can be seen here on her blog), it was completely dark. While her and the Chopstick Guys were packing up their gear and loading their vehicles, Pamela and I decided to shoot a bit longer. She had this awesome flowy outfit, and the evening desert wind was really howling.

So with a couple studio flashes on stands manually controlled, I used the wind to our favor and did one last series of images. I really like the dark blackness that surrounds us in these images. With blackness behind and the light illuminating the white salt floor, falling off, fading into the distance, it makes it feel like we’re shooting on a stage. And Pamela’s movements and expressions really make these images sing.

What an amazing shoot, and this is just Part 2. There’s Part 3 coming because the next morning we did a very early sunrise shoot with another beautiful friend of mine who came out to model for us.

Those portraits have a completely different look and feel because the sun was direct and coming in from a different angle, plus the color temperature was different too. As the sun rose, the color around us went from deep blue, to pink, to a warm golden color. The entire location glowed with the sunlight. Those images are incredible and I’m excited to share those soon.

In the meantime, if you’d like a cool photo shoot at an exotic location like the Salt Flats, give me a call at 801-728-3317. With my style of custom lighting, it can work wonderfully well for families, kids, even high school seniors.

Also, if you’re a photographer looking to up your game and get more training, check out my online and in-person courses at BryCoxWORKSHOPS.com.

Salt Flats Evening Shoot with Pamela, the Bubble Trailer, and the Chop Stick Guys (part 1)

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

This week my photographer friend from California, Suzette Allen kicked off her big nationwide tour in her Bubble Trailer. She’s a photographic trainer and we’ve known each other for years because we often speak at the events. She’s taking the next few months to tour the country in her trailer, visiting some of her favorite camera shops and photographer friends. Her first big stop was here in Utah. I drove out to meet her on the Salt Flats, along with the Chop Stick Guys, and I brought my beautiful friend Pamela to be our model.

While everyone was gearing up, I did a quick light-painting of Suzette’s beautiful Bubble Trailer.

The Salt Flats is a wide open area with no shade. The sun moves quickly and the light shifts dramatically. Sadly many photographers go there and rely on haphazard or natural light while using auto camera settings there. It’s all they know. They just end up with muddy faces and often washing out the background too. Instead, to really rock the location and the lighting there, all the details need to be controlled. These are the details that I teach and share with photographers in my training courses.

When you control the lighting and the technical details, you capture the deep tones of the background while sculpting the model with light, making her shine. From there you can be fully creative and let go, especially if you have a great location and model. And Pamela was a terrific model! She absolutely killed it! We had a lot of fun and have so many beautiful images to choose from. Here are some of my early favorites.

This outfit offered a pop of color on the cool tones of the background. The sun was setting, but the heavy clouds and distant storms were blocking a lot of the sky. So with some custom lighting, we get these deep colors in the sky and Pam and her outfit just pop.

She has a lot of personality and it really shows in these photographs. I really love all the images we created.

As the sun got lower, the wind really began to pick up. We used the wind to our advantage, and I love the movement that it created in her hair and outfit.

As it got darker, we did a change of outfits for more variety, and our model wore this flowy red dress. It was perfect for the wind and looked great with the trailer later. Her and I shot a lot of movement in this dress which I may post later, but here’s some of my favorite stand-out images in this dress.

Suzette is building a series of images of her trailer in different locations, and prepared a bunch of balloons for our model. Because she was switching back and forth between shooting video and photos, she was using continuous lighting. I saw some of her previews on her camera and I loved what I saw. Here are some behind the scene images of her working.

I really love the rain clouds as our backdrop to these photographs, and Pam really did a great job.

This is just Part 1. I’ll post more later because I continued to shoot Pam into the night with a couple more changes of clothes, even after sunset when it was pitch black. Plus the next morning we all got up extra early to shoot one more time on the Salt Flats at sunrise. I brought a different model for sunrise, and have lots of great images to share from that too. From both shoots, all the portraits are amazing, and I’m exited to share them with you.

If you’d like a cool photo shoot at an exotic location like the Salt Flats, give me a call at 801-728-3317. With the right lighting, it can work well for families, kids, even high school seniors.

And if you’re a photographer looking to up your game and get more training, check out my online and in-person courses at BryCoxWORKSHOPS.com.

And until next time, America.