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Updated Studio Portrait for Spring

I’m being featured in a magazine and needed to turn in a headshot, and realized the latest image I had of myself was a year old. Now a year is not that long when you’re an adult. Still, I believe we should all have updated portraits to fill both our business and personal needs.

I’ve talked before about how nobody really likes getting their portraits taken, including me. But that’s also exactly why I focus on creating great portraits of people. And if I want my clients to update their images, I should lead by example and make sure my portrait is always current.

I think it’s important to have current and professional portraits of yourself for business needs and for personal needs too. It wasn’t too long ago when our ancestors would get one or two professional portraits in a lifetime, and they’d save up to do it. Now we can easily come to the studio to get professional portraits regularly, be we often don’t. Instead I see some professionals using the same photograph for what seems like 10 years. Instead of looking “younger” by using old photos, it appears as if they’re sad about their age, or yearn for a distant youthful version of themselves. Rather I think it’s better to be happy and confident about our current stage of life and who we’ve become by having a current and updated studio portrait that reflects that.

And because no one likes being in front of the camera, my biggest job as a photographer is to read people and connect with them, helping them feel comfortable to bring out their real emotion in a portrait while also deciding the best angles and ways to light them. I make it painless and easy. And because business portrait sessions are short, we often have time to look at the images right then. You can see how it went, how good you look, and if you’re concerned about your hair or something, we can shoot more while you’re here. I’ll make sure you get something you love and are proud to use.

So with all that in mind and being the first day of spring, I took some time to photograph myself. I try to change up the ways I light myself. I don’t want to use the same angles and lighting that I know have worked in the past. I want the entire look to be current and new. Here are my three favorites. I’ll live with these for a while and see which ones I use more, but now I’m ready with three current options to send to magazines and speaking events: a color image, one with my toned color nouveau, and a high-contrast black and white, .

 

If you’re a professional and need a great new portrait, give me a call, 801-728-3317.

And if your entire office needs new portraits, I can come to your office and set up a mini studio. That way each person only has to give me 3 minutes of their time, and they’re done. I’ll even pick and retouch the best ones and send the finished images over. No hassle for anyone.

Give me a call. If you’re in the Ogden, Salt Lake City, or Provo areas of Utah, spring is a great time to get some updated portraits.

And until next time, America.

Early Favs of KUTV News Teams

I spent a jam packed last two days at KUTV 2 News photographing all of their news teams and staff. They’ve all become friends from not only the years of doing their professional photographs, but also from shooting many of their individual personal events like family, children and weddings. So this commercial shoot becomes a great time so see everyone.

As you’d guess, they are a great group to work with. And when I’m there we photograph everything we can: various combinations of groups, individuals, and in multiple locations. I bring in a couple loads full of lighting equipment, and we shoot away. This way they’re set for all their photographic needs for billboards, promos, and prints. Next time you’re driving through Salt Lake City, keep your eyes out for their beautiful billboards.

We needed two images turned around quickly, so I thought I’d share these early favorites of the morning and evening news teams. I love the clean, beautiful lighting, the great smiles, and the overall impact of these images.

As I was finishing up yesterday, I was looking through their Instagram feed and saw these fun behind the scenes photos. This collage below is linked directly to their Instagram so you can click it and go through their slideshow from our shoot. Click their group photo and then swipe left and right to see all the others. There’s even some fun boomerang videos in there too.

 

Once the project is all finished, I might share a few more favorites. But I thought it’d be neat for everyone to see these today.

If you’re a business and need some photographic work like headshots, product images, or even commercial architecture photos of your building or entryway, give me a call. 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something amazing for you.

And until next time, America.

Windy Winter Mountain Shoot with Nicholette in Utah

The wind was bitter cold as we hiked up through the snow to a small overlook in our nearby Utah canyon. The climb was slippery and full of tall new powder that went well past my knees and nearly to my waist at one point. Once at the top, the wind was stronger and even more frigid so we worked fast, also because we needed to beat the setting sun. The entire shoot was maybe 20 minutes long before we headed back down the mountain, yet in that short amount of time we got some great photographs. Here are some of my favorites.

Utilizing some specialized lighting techniques, I punched up background with more blue tones to enhance the cold feeling, while simultaneously adding warm light to the model. It makes her stand out dramatically, while also creating a visual separation between her and the background. And with her beautifully dramatic features, I used a more sharp, commercial/fashion style of lighting too to really enhance her cheekbones and eye shape. I love how these all turned out.

For this one, I also created an animation with slow motion snow that falls around her. Notice that the snow falls around her, some in front, most in back.


I love the changing direction, the wind, and how great these all look. This time of night worked beautifully for this deep-blue look. And the final images are captivating.

If you’re in need of a great set of images, either for work or commercial use, or for your own personal needs – give me a call. 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something amazing for you, outdoors in the Utah snow or here in the studio. It’s a great time to create some wonderful photographs.

And until next time, America.

Christmas Commercial Photos for Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand

It’s the Christmas season, and I wanted to share some commercial images that I’ve created for the band, Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand. These images were created completely from scratch here at my studio. We only had 20 minutes because the band stopped at my studio on their way to a gig. I had the lights set up for a particular look and I photographed each person separately. That gave me the ability to create a version of this of just Ryan alone for when he needs a different version.

I’ve learned to be very quick in the studio and during shoots. It’s easier on clients and it makes for better and more believable expressions on people. But being a commercial shoot, there was far more digital work to be done. So I created the composite of everyone together and built from scratch this cool blue background. I love how these turned out. They have a gritty band energy while also having a very appealing Christmas look to them. I hope these images work well for the band and their concert promotions.

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And here’s a version with a taller background to incorporate their logo, designed square for social media platforms.

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If you’d like some awesome images for your business that make you stand out, give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something wonderful for you too.

Merry Christmas, and until next time, America.

Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand

Warm weather and summer in Utah has been marked for many years for me by outdoor concerts by my friend, Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand. Last week he performed at the Sandy Amphitheater and I was there to capture some new and energetic concert pictures.

I know that tomorrow he’ll also be performing in Layton Utah and the amphitheater there, and his full schedule for Utah and out-of-state gigs are all on his website at Shupe.net. Whether you’ve been to one of his shows before or have never been, they are always great. The concerts have energy, are full of heart, and attract all ages.
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If your band or business needs some great photography to showcase your brand, give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something amazing for you.

And until next time, America.

Bry Cox’s Commercial Shoot of Death Valley

I feel honored to have been asked by a large corporation to create some artistic views of Death Valley. I shot for an entire day, starting early before sunrise and going until past dark shooting a variety of locations and places. I was accompanied by the company’s rep who took me to places I never would have been able to go without his unrestricted access to various areas off limits to everyone else.

I created more images than I expected during this full day of commercial landscape shooting, and even shot a number of bonus images – color infrared – which looked amazing and refreshingly interesting, especially in the middle of the day.

We started the morning around 5:30 am creating panoramas before sunrise.

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I found out that this was the spot where U2 shot their famous “Joshua Tree” album cover. After getting a number of images, the sun began to rise quite quickly behind us. I really like this image with the tops of the mountains in the distance being lit by the rising sun, and the various layers of color it created.

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And here is that area in full morning sun.

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In some areas there are some beautiful stretches of cracked earth. I liked these as abstract closeups.

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A lot of the areas required some vigorous hiking. At the end of the day I had logged a number of miles plus some big elevation changes on my watch – much more than expected. And these scenes we passed even as we hiked, were breathtakingly beautiful.

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Here, from one of my favorite lookouts, you could see a number of various rock formations which created bands of color and variety.

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This was also during the “super bloom” due to an earlier flood which caused a number of flowers to bloom, something very unusual for this area of the country.

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And in the more “civilized” areas of Death Valley, there’s some cool structures like this “Twenty-mule team” train, all part of the history of the Twenty-Mule Team Borax cleaner. I learned quite a bit about the history of the area as we drove around and hiked through the desert. It is all so much more interesting to me now, knowing some of the history of the place.

This particular train is surrounded by a fence to keep people from climbing on it, so some creative angles were necessary.

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And shooting it in color infrared also gave me some very unique ways of showcasing this local feature.

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Before shooting the Furnace Creek Resort up close, I wanted to get a long, distance shot of it to show how secluded it is, how tucked away in the middle of the desert it really is.

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Here it is up close. It was built on the site of a natural hot spring, and was famous for being the Hollywood hotspot getaway for celebrities. It’s an oasis in the middle of the hot desert.
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They have a beautiful pool, and here is the same angle but shot in color infrared.
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As the day neared an end, we re-hit some of our favorite spots to shoot them in completely different light. I love these vast landscapes, and the vibrant colors created by the evening sun.
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And here are a few more color infrared images from mid-day.

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And a few color infrared images created at sunset from a few of our favorite spots.

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This image below is one of my favorite color infrared images from the entire trip. It shows the sun setting in the distance, but the variety of colors created by infrared makes this such an interesting image to me.

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It was a very long day of shooting, but I like to make sure that people get more for their money than they expect. And I was surprised how many locations we were able to shoot and how many images I shot during this full day. It was far more than I expected which was a big bonus to the company. With so many beautiful images, I’m only sharing a small percentage here, and it was hard picking images to showcase. But I am grateful for the experience to shoot this job because I love the outdoors and I love creative photographic challenges, and making beautiful landscapes and images that people will appreciate for many years to come.

If your company needs some great photographs, give me a call. 801-728-3317. I’d love to chat with you about your photographic needs to see how I can help you out.

And until next time America.

Kendra Lowe’s Commercial Portraits & Website

Kendra Lowe has been busy, and we’ve been creating new photos to keep up with all of her projects. She released a song and music video to raise money to fight sex trafficking, she just returned home from a tour of performances in France, Jordan, Croatia, Serbia, Slovenia (in just the first part of 2016), and she’s been busy recording and arranging pieces for herself and other prominent musicians.

All of this means that she needs great photographs to send to various groups for printing and promo use as well as updating her website. So we’ve spent some time shooting images images of her performing and on stage plus commercial portraits in the studio.

Here are some of the images I’ve created of her recently. These first images are of her as music director of and while performing with David Archuleta.

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And between shows we created this series of images of her playing keyboards and piano. Stage lighting is always difficult. The lights are never aiming where they should for a great portrait. So I adapted the stage lighting with reflectors and other various means to create the right atmosphere while giving me some great portrait lighting. I really like how these look.
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© BryCox.com, Bry Cox

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And here are some of our favorites from the studio shoot. All great, and all showing different sides of her personality.

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I was happy to be able to use my piano in part of the shoot too. 🙂BryCox_KendraLowe_17

Not too long ago I created her a brand new website because she was being featured all over. She had just finished in one month doing Carnegie Hall, the Kennedy Center, a European Christmas Tour, and events with Mitt Romney, David Archuleta, Lexi Walker, and Lindsey Stirling. All of her free time was gobbled up creating arrangements and orchestrations for a number of groups like the LDS Church. Some of these gigs came as her role as the musical director, arranger, and pianist for Lexi Walker, a 12 year old singing prodigy who I photographed and posted about earlier.

That website is KendraLowe.com and we are in the process of adding even more to it now.

Some people are surprised to hear that I create websites, but I’ve been doing my own websites as well as sites for specific clients since the 1990’s. There are a lot of things I do as a photographer and designer to help my clients with their photographic needs. Most people need photographs for a specific commercial need, and many times I can keep the look and vision of the images throughout the entire entire process, which helps them save time and money. It looks extra professional when original design concepts are followed through from initial photography to final output.

If you are unfamiliar with Kendra, she plays the piano, violin, banjo, she sings, she orchestrates, she really does it all. You have to read her bio on her website. And here are a few more images we created before.

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I like websites that are engaging and are photographically and visually impactful. For her opening page, we did a full bleed page that’s responsive and adjusts to the device and computer screen you’re viewing on. I wanted a variety of images, so I pulled photographs from past events too, like this recent event where she played for David Archuleta and Lexi Walker.

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And this image where she sang with a full orchestra, …
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If you need some great photographs for your business, or just would like a new photo of yourself that is impactful, give me a call at 801-728-3317. And make sure you check out ideas on my main website too, at BryCox.com. Happy New Year, and until next time, America.

He Is Risen, Sun over Death Valley in Color Infrared for Easter 2016

Being Easter, I wanted to post something and it hit me today what to share. I have been working on this image and many others as part of a big commercial project I did in Death Valley. This image was shot in color infrared, a light spectrum invisible to the human eye. The bright colors are real, they are just not the colors or type of light we see.

So aside from the candy Easter colors, I like this for Easter because the sun is dramatically shining over Death Valley from the horizon as if rising. It says symbolically, “The Son brings light and life to Death.”

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And for a little more Easter spirit, I want to share a video with my little 4-year old nephew narrating it. He was an early reader and last year when my family showed him an Easter video he started reading the captions. My sister and brother-in-law stopped and recorded him and combined his voice with a new version of the video. They did it again this year, and this is it.

And here is last year’s video. More backstory on this in last year’s post.

Plus, here are some photos I did of him in my Utah studio to go with his cute voice.

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Happy Easter, everyone. And until next time, America.

Radio Personalities of Radio Station Z104 Country

We had a great time in the studio again during the shoot with the radio personalities of Z104 Country, Dave and Deb, CJ, and Gentleman Jim. And as this first image shows, Dave and Deb are a hoot together. We’ve done a number of shoots together over the years, and this shoot was just as much fun as the ones before. As soon as they arrived at the studio, the laughing started. And we created some really fun images for their billboards, website and other promotional uses.

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Going through our favorites, this one made us laugh each time we saw it. It was obvious that we’d be using it for either a billboard or some other commercial design. And of course we have a mix of different looks and outfits too.
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Great commercial images are always important for businesses, but radio stations especially need impactful and professional images of their DJs.Cox_DaveDeb_Aug2015-173 Cox_DaveDeb_Aug2015-191 Cox_DaveDeb_Aug2015-215 Cox_DaveDeb_Aug2015-269

Some of these are already up on Z104’s website and Facebook page. But if you live in Salt Lake City, keep your eye out for new billboards too. I’m excited to see all the ways they use these photos.

If you’re a business in need of some great commercial images, give me a call at 801-728-3317 and let’s collaborate and talk about your next project.

Until next time, America.

Commercial Portraits of Musician Ryan Shupe

How do you relate the visual story about a musician that plays multiple instruments, is changing up his sound, while matching the album title, We Rode On? Creative commercial portraits that tell a story are some of the most challenging and fun images to create. That’s why I love photographing musicians, they appreciate and want these types of dramatic images, understand the time and work that goes into creating them, and these images get used in print and promotion for some time. They need to be powerful, professional, eye-catching, while telling the story of the musician.

Ryan Shupe has been a long-time friend, and I have done his professional photography for so many years, that it’s crazy to think about all of the shoots we’ve done and all changes that have happened in both the photography and music industries over the years. But Ryan has also helped me push my creative boundaries to continually create new and innovative images that have visual impact and commercial appeal, and this latest photo shoot is for his new album, We Rode On, is no different.

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For more information on Ryan Shupe and his new album, visit his website at RyanShupe.com and If you’re a musician and need some killer photographs that you can use for posters, CDs, media, and web use, give me a call at 801-728-3317.

And until next time, America.

Underwater Snorkel SeaView 180º, Products Photos for WildHorn Outfitters

With more and more people avoiding crowds and doing their shopping online, how professional your products and company look online is key. Those images affect people’s perception of your quality and professionalism. Because of that and my skill in lighting, I’m regularly asked to produce images for companies large and small that want a strong online presence. I don’t post about these shoots very often because I’m normally sharing photographs of people (families, kids, and weddings), but today I thought I’d share some recent commercial images I created of the SeaView 180º Full Face Snorkel Mask for Wildhorn Outfitters.

Products are always difficult to shoot well, but the challenge to create something visually simple that tells the story of the item is a fun problem to conquer. These photos come from tedious and long shoots in order to get every light, angle, and product positioned perfectly. I’m really happy with how these turned out and am excited to share them with you.

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This particular product was really interesting to me, and I needed to show the design of the mask so that a viewer would be able to tell how it works immediately. So for the first introductory shot, I chose an angled side view with the mask and straps all suspended. And with three color options, I needed to create three exact versions in each color. BryCox_Seaview180_02

Once you see how the mask works, this next image gives you a straight on view. However if you hadn’t seen the first image, this image might be confusing. But mixed with the other image it helps you understand even more how the mask looks.
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Next, showing the packaging together with the mask shows the added value of a bag, plus it helps people know how they will carry their mask around the beach while keeping it safe from scratches.

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And finally I combined two ideas into this final shot, this shows both the back view as well as how the mask comes apart for storage. In a few simple photographs, the entire story of the product is presented. Multiple angles have been shown, the various color options, how it works and how it is carried and stored.
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For more information on these masks or to get some, visit http://www.wildhornoutfitters.com or Amazon. I ordered a few for myself because they looked fun to try.

If you’d like some product photos created for your company, give me a call at 801-728-3317. Let’s talk about the scope of your project and what you’d like created.

And until next time, America.

Concert Pics from Ryan Shupe & the RubberBand Show

I recently shot concert photographs for Ryan Shupe and the RubberBand, and here are some of my favorites.

Concerts are a fun and creative challenge for me photographically. My specialty is lighting, and I don’t like creating normal images. I want images that pop emotionally and artistically, and that means controlling the lighting. But during a concert I can’t use custom lighting techniques and set up a portable studio on location like I might with other type shoots. Instead I have to use the stage lights which are always changing. Making that work means understanding what’s happening with the light and the show, and moving to make it all work from the right angles.

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If you need some images for your business, give me a call. 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something great for you.