natural light

Early Favorite Sneak Peek Photos from Jannette’s Wedding at Log Haven

I recently photographed a beautiful wedding at Log Haven up Millcreek canyon, just above Salt Lake City, Utah. The location was the perfect spot to create these gorgeous images, and I’m excited to share some early favorites with you. I’ve almost got Jannette’s wedding album finished, but until then, I wanted to share some early sneak peek favorites from her wedding because these are absolutely stunning!

Before the ceremony where the groom saw the bride, we did some portraits of just the bride and her bridal party. Here’s one of my favorites of her, standing beautifully with the waterfall behind her.

Many photographers talk about “natural light,” but that approach gives people dark eyes, muddy skin, and a washed out background. Compare that to these stunning images of this bride using my custom lighting style that sculpts her and makes her skin and eyes pop, while at the same time making the background into this deep, luscious green – even though she’s standing in broad daylight. I love these!

And children make weddings extra fun for me. These two little kids were the flower girl and ring bearer. Here they’re showing me their pedal and ring boxes before the ceremony starts.

I’ll share Jannette’s final album design when it’s finished being printed so that you can see the ceremony. But right now I want to share some of these alone portraits with the bride and groom. After the ceremony I took them around for a few minutes to get these beautiful images.

After dinner, people danced under the deep blue of the mountain sky.

One of my favorite images from the night, this little boy was sad because no one was dancing with him. He went off and sat sadly on some steps. I followed him, talked to him about why he was sad, and then got this cute photograph of him, head in his hand.

But very quickly a group of kids came and got him and brought him back to the dance party to dance with him.

And here’s one of my favorites from the end of the night, showing the dancing and reception party.

I can’t wait for you to see Jannette’s entire wedding album. Every page is amazing.

If you’re getting married, give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something amazing for you for your wedding.

And until next time, America.

Early Sneak Peek of Rebecca’s Wedding at the Salt Lake Temple & JSMB

Rebecca’s wedding was beautiful! These two are great together and the weather worked out wonderfully.

While I’m working on and designing her album, I wanted to share some of my early favorites as a sneak peek for you all to see. Here framed in the nook, we have her veil blowing in the wind. She had a beautiful, long veil, and it caught the wind many times throughout the day, adding a lot of fun to the photographs.

I love this portrait of the two of them – a nice, mid-length portrait of them leaning together, newly married.

We had a beautiful, sunny day. So with the right lighting, I was able to make them look beautiful while at the same time capturing this gorgeous and deep blue sky with clouds glowing from the sun. I love how the light of the sun comes through the clouds, down on them, creating a directional lens flare, all framed by the temple.

Here Rebecca is holding her veil for this wonderful kiss.

And some dancing in the wind to the delight of a full paparazzi crowd of Chinese tourists behind me. They cheered and clapped, and snapped a ton of photos during this dancing sequence.

I love these long tall lines mixed with the diagonals of her veil and dress.

Then just before the reception, these dark clouds started rolling in. I got low to look up to show these deep storm clouds. Then during the reception while we were all inside the JSMB, we got a rain storm for a bit.

And to end the night, we came back outside to capture this amazing sunset to end the day. I love warm colors surrounding them, all while being framed by the temple.

If you’re getting married, give me a call at 801-728-3317. Let’s talk more about your wedding and what you’d like. I’d love to create something awesome like this for you.

And until next time, America.

Sneak Peak of Brittney’s Wedding at the Salt Lake Temple & JSMB

Brittney’s wedding at the Salt Lake Temple here in Utah was absolutely gorgeous. She had her reception at the JSMB (Joseph Smith Memorial Building), and those night images are also stunning. You have to see these early sneak peek of some of my favorites that are in her final wedding album design.

As you can see, these two are great together. The day was wonderful and emotional, and with some mobile custom lighting, the images have pop and impact. The colors and tones are deep and vivid, and the images are romantic and look wonderful.

This next image with Brittney’s hair blowing beautifully was our pick for the album cover image.

And I especially love this one of them dancing.

On the evening of the reception, we did some night portraits outside, and here are some of my favorites. 

The final album looks amazing, and I’ll share that entire design soon. But for now I wanted you all to see these. If you’re getting married or know someone who is, send them my information. Or you can give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something amazing for you and for your family history.

And until next time, America.

Janet’s Vacation Family Portraits at Texas Lake House, Part 1

It’s family portrait season, and I wanted to share this beautiful and extensive family shoot. I was flown to Texas to photograph this wonderful family while they would all be together on vacation at a gorgeous lake house. I’ve done a lot of work for this family over the years, and I loved seeing them all again to create these wonderful art pieces.

Here’s a video showing their wall canvas and family album. It’s best viewed full screen and in HD. 🙂

Here’s a shot of Janet’s gorgeous album, black leather with a black leather briefcase to hold, carry, and protect the album.

Kids seem to grow the fastest between family portraits, and these kids were no different. All of the children had changed, and were so adorable and fun to work with. This image below was our favorite big group where everyone looked their best.

This Texas lake made for a wonderful backdrop.

And as you can see in the video, I spent time photographing each family, creating various groupings and ideas and even made some into paintings. Here are some of those.

After each family, I focused on couple and individual children’s portraits too, getting great expressions and capturing personality in each child.

When I was done with one family, they’d go off to play and enjoy their vacation, and I’d begin again with another family.

This beautiful little girl was getting baptized, so we created these images in her white dress to commemorate this time in her young life. I really love these images and her beautiful expressions and poses in them.

And finally, I created this trio of her funning to capture her youthfulness.

I’ll share more from this extensive shoot soon. But in the meantime, if you’d like some family portraits, give me a call at 801-728-3317. Let’s talk about your dream portrait and get something scheduled before the weather gets cold.

And until next time, America.

Cox Fall Portrait Event – Special Salt Lake & Ogden Canyon Dates

Fall is here and the leaves come and go so quickly. This year I’m doing some special dates for families in two different canyons, Salt Lake and Ogden areas. And because I’ll be shooting in the same area each day, the location fee will be drastically reduced. Plus get free Christmas cards with your wall portrait purchase too.

It’s a great time to get a wonderful location shoot in the Utah leaves. We can photograph just your kids, your family, a little of both, or even block out time for your larger extended family where I can also shoot smaller individual families too.

I make family portraits painless. I work quickly, get your kids to smile and look wonderful, and we’ll get lots of variety too so you’ll have great images to pick from.

  • Salt Lake canyon on Saturday October, 14th.
  • Ogden area canyon on Friday October 20th.

Limited time slots at each location. Call me at 801-728-3317 to schedule the best time for you.

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I specialize in emotionally powerful wall art, the best heirloom canvas portraits, paintings, and other gorgeous pieces that change the feeling in your home.

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Let’s photograph your family or kids in the beautiful Utah fall leaves, and make up some custom wall art for your home for the holidays. Call me at 801-728-3317.

And until next time, America.

Abbie’s High School Senior Portraits

It’s high school senior portrait season, and I wanted to share Abbie’s gorgeous shoot. Seniors appreciate and love my extra creative shoots that show their personality, and that’s why I love taking their artwork even further by creating pieces like this multi-image collage.

I individually photographed Abbie, her scoreboard, even the “D” in the grass at the Davis High Field. I then created dust for the background and put this all together digitally, creating custom shadows and other effects to make it all come together perfectly. These custom art pieces are great on the wall.

Here’s a short video showing behind the scenes of the entire shoot. Notice how nothing is haphazard. The lighting, the angles, the details – they’re all measured and carefully controlled for the best possible photographs.

Here’s a shot video showing Abbie’s album and collage.

Abbie’s wall collage is stunning with this mix of wonderful images, all showing different parts of her personality.

These action shots on her field really add to her album design and collage. These deep blue skies, wonderful skin tones, are all created on the spot with custom lighting that also make her eyes pop.

The dramatic lighting and angles in these make them look straight out of a magazine or national ad campaign.

Adding a mix of studio images is not only a great look that adds variety to the album designs, but these images also allow for custom art pieces like this below.

 

And here at the studio location, we have a half acre of gardens specifically designed for outdoor shoots. These layers of green are unusual for Utah, and can’t be duplicated in images anywhere near here. It’s the perfect location for creative fashion shoots like high school senior sessions.

If you’re a high school senior, now is the best time to get in for a shoot for both weather and pricing options. Give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to talk more about your dream portraits and to set up an appointment.

And until next time, America.

 

Amanda & Brant’s Family Portraits

Amanda and Brant brought their beautiful baby boy to the studio for some family portraits. I love photographing children. I love playing with them, making a connection, and getting genuine smiles and laughs for their photographs.

This adorable boy woke up on picture day sick so he wasn’t his normal happy self. The family thought about postponing their shoot, but I convinced them to come anyway. Picture day always seems to be hard. Things come up, but no matter the problem, I can almost always overcome them in the shoot and get great results. Plus I know that I’m great with kids. No matter how they’re feeling, I can get them to smile and laugh long enough for great photographs.

And sure enough, when this little boy arrived, he was immediately happy. He laughed and smiled at my antics and the shoot went beautifully. In fact he smiled and laughed so much, we all couldn’t help but laugh with him. I really love this shoot.

These were all created outdoors right here in my studio gardens. I’ve designed the grounds to have layers of green, so that I’ve got lots of angles for outdoor portraits. So as another family option, I created this painting from one of the walking images. 

Here is a close up from that same painting to show more detail.

And of course we needed to get some individual portraits of this cute boy. This first one shows some size perspective so that later in life he can see how little he and his hands are in comparison to his parents.

And these are him hanging out, playing, and sitting outdoors, all with a huge, genuine smile.

These three images worked really well as a set, so we did this trio. It’s designed and framed, ready to hang on the wall.

Summer is almost over. It’s a great time to get in for some family portraits along with some of the kids. And if you don’t want to travel to distant locations, right here I can do inside or outdoors in the studio garden. Give me a call at 801-728-3317.

And until next time, America.

Chasing the Total Elipse

The total eclipse was absolutely breathtaking and inspiring. Words really can’t describe the feeling and overwhelming awe of being there, feeling the air on your skin dramatically change, watching the sky all around you go dark, and then suddenly seeing the sun’s white rays burst out from behind the moon in the darkness in an angelic way… it was beautiful!

I’m glad I made the last minute decision to drive the 3 hour route north to see the eclipse in totality. Here at my place in Utah it was going to be 91% which sounded pretty good to me. I debated if that extra 9% would really make much difference. It did.

The local news made a big deal about all the traffic and congestion that would be heading north into Idaho, and their daily talk of armageddon (gas stations dry and store shelves bare) made me want to avoid the crowds and just watch the eclipse near my home.

But the night before, some friends called me to join them on their drive up. They said there wasn’t any traffic and that they had a spot for me in their camp. So excited about the adventure, I loaded up my motorcycle with my bare essentials and some items of preparedness and headed out at 1:00 am to drive through the night. As I got further north, the temperatures dropped to the 50’s, which when going 80 mpg makes it feel like 25º. Freezing. I arrived shortly after 4:00 am, found my friends sleeping under the stars in a farm plot turned makeshift RV park, and I got out my sleeping bag for a few hours of warmth and sleep.

The rising sun in our eyes woke us up and we all greeted each other, made some food, and began setting up to watch the eclipse. I had a sheet of solar film from my friends at Pictureline in Salt Lake, and it was awesome. I had enough film material to cover my camera lens, my binoculars (which were an amazing way to watch), with left over pieces to give to a few close friends for their cameras.

Here a drone shot of us hanging out at camp, watching the eclipse.

As the eclipse progressed, I created a series of photographs that I later combined into this one-piece collage. Since the moment of totality was such a wondrous experience, that image needed to be much larger. And as much as I like this collage, it is just a reminder of the experience. It doesn’t do the real thing justice.

Here are all of the images I did during that procession.

I only took a minimal setup because I was on a motorcycle and hoped to enjoy the event too, not wanting to get bogged down in technology during the wondrous moment. I’m happy with my results, but we met many people at the camp who’d planned for months and years, even coming from out of state for this event. This California man shown below spent years building this elaborate setup, which included multiple computers and analyzers to track the sun and adjust for micro movements. And with all that equipment, he forgot to remove his solar filter to get a photograph of totality because he was so engrossed and blown away by the experience as it was happening. Only afterwards did he realize he forgot to photograph it.

I flew my drone around the area during some down time, and shot the nearby country side and the snake river running right past us.

Then to avoid the horrible traffic being funneled down the only road south to Utah, we instead went bridge diving with some other friends we met up with.

Here’s a video clip of us jumping, shot by flying my drone out above the water.

As it got later, I thought the traffic would be clear enough to go. Plus I wanted to avoid another cold night’s ride home. I packed my bike and headed out an hour and a half ahead of my friends. …and I hit horrible traffic. It took me 7 hours to drive the normal 3 hour route. There were no alternate roads, no turnoffs. Just one long 200 mile road in gridlock. I even got a ticket for what I consider normal motorcycle driving (i.e. passing gridlocked cars).

Nevertheless, I am so happy that I made the drive north to see the eclipse in totality. It was worth the photographs, but more importantly it was worth the experience. The difference in the last few moments (95%) when it just felt dim outside and the sun was still pretty bright without the solar glasses, versus that moment of totality when the sun burst out in a bright angelic way from behind the moon was spectacular. It lasted only a few moments, but it was an incredible experiment that is hard to describe with words.

I’m grateful I’m a photographer and lived close enough to be able to experience such a wonderful moment with dear friends.

And until next time, America.

Carly’s Gorgeous Mountain Engagement Portraits at Tibble Fork

Carly and her fiancé are somewhat new to Utah, and love the beautiful mountain ranges that are so close to civilization. For her engagements, she wanted a canyon with a view, so we shot at Tibble Fork. I love this area because you can see the back side of Mount Timpanogas in the background which has an elevation near 12,000 feet. The air is so clear and fresh in these canyons, and we started our shoot as the sun was setting. For the first set of photographs, I used Mount Timp as our backdrop, framed by the diagonals of American Fork Canyon.

I created a trio design based on these first set of images because they looked so great together as a set.

And with some easy, short walks we were able to get a variety of mountainous backgrounds for Carly. Here we used the trees to frame them, creating a vivid green background.

Or showing the water as the sun was setting, framed in by vertical tree trunks.

And as the sun set, the cool canyon air mixed with the water and turned a gorgeous misty blue in the distance. That lone tree in the background made for a great balance point for this set of romantic images.

And notice that no matter the time of day or angle to the sun, this couple always looks gorgeous and their backgrounds look gorgeous. Utilizing master lighting techniques means that they have great skin tones, eyes that pop, and the background is vivid and real.

Sadly, other photographers may use great locations too, but because they use “natural light” (which is haphazard), their photos turn out with blotchy skin, dark eyes, and their backgrounds and faces are often washed out (a modern trick to save poorly shot images). This is sad because photography is the one thing we keep from our wedding for our entire lives.

Hopefully you can see the difference. I work to create true heirloom quality photographs that your kids will fight over once we’re all dead. And the secret starts with great lighting, mixed with great chemistry and body language, to create a shoot with tons of wonderful images to choose from.

Before we left, we did a casual clothes change to get more images with their cute dog. This was one of my favorites. They look great, the dog is perked up and happy, the lines and colors of the background are awesome, and the mist is peaking through the trees creating even more dimension so that it feels like you’re there in the canyon.

Finally, I took some of my favorites to create this 9-up collage. I love the variety and personality in this design.

And of course at sunset I couldn’t help but shoot one photo of Mount Timpanogas off in the distance, lit by the setting sun. I love the mix of warm and cool colors in this.

If you’re getting married, give me a call. Let’s talk about creating some gorgeous photographs for you, 801-728-3317. We can do engagements (like this shoot), bridals, the wedding day, or any combination.

And until next time, America.

Amber’s Wedding Sneak Peek, Jeremy Ranch Golf and Country Club

I’m working on Amber’s wedding album design and had to share some early sneak peek images from her reception at the Jeremy Ranch Golf and Country Club in Park City, Utah. There are so many beautiful images of these two, it’s hard to pick favorites. But here are some that really stand out to me.

My specialty as one of the top Master Photographers in the country, is lighting people beautifully while capturing true emotion. As you look through these images, notice how the emotion of these two being in love and wanting to be with each other, shows in every photograph. And I hope you appreciate too how great they look everywhere, no matter the lighting conditions (shade, direct sunlight, overcast, sunset, even nighttime).

Starting off, I love these images under this stone arch. The warm colors makes for a great backdrop for these two.

And this natural light photo using direct sun causing dramatic shadows and implied angles is just killer.  

Here’s a fun trio showing Amber’s gorgeous dress, front and back.

These two are both great golfers and love to golf together, which made this location perfect for their reception. We had to go out to the green for some images of them.

Later at sunset we broke away from the party and went out for a few more fun images under the golden sky.

I love this dip just as the sun also “dips” behind the mountains at sunset.

And one final night image after everyone has left to close out the album design.

I can’t wait to share more images and the entire album. But until then, if you’re getting married, give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something amazing for you.

And until next time, America.

Matthew’s Wakeboarding & Senior Portraits

I love photographing high school seniors. I always try to make every photoshoot extra creative, but high school seniors appreciate the ultra creative shoots even more allowing me to push things even further. That means I can photograph seniors with a commercial fashion ad look, and Matthew was the perfect subject for this wakeboarding collage project.

Instead of just shooting seniors in a simple, minimalistic way, I in stead do big over-the-top shoots. We do high-end studio work at my Utah location, sometimes mix in outdoor portraits in the studio gardens, and can even go on location to relevant places that mean something to the senior. And I always try to design up a cool collage that tells a story about who the senior is at this point in life.

This video shows more about how this collage was created, as well as how it looks framed and ready to hang.

And here is the final wakeboarding collage.

Here are some of his other favorite images. We did a variety of clothing changes, along with a mix of lighting styles.

Matthew will be serving a religious mission for the LDS Church and so we also mixed in some cool pictures of him in his suit.

If you’re a senior, now is the time to get in. We’re finishing up with the class of 2017 and getting a head start with the class of 2018 who want to beat the rush. Give me a call at 801-728-3317.

And until next time, America.

Street Shoot in Carlisle Pennsylvania, Part 2

While teaching a photographic workshop in Carlisle, Pennsylvania we did a shoot on the beautiful street in front of our hotel. I had previously posted the high school senior that I’d photographed, but I shot a cute little girl who was the daughter of the photographer who organized the event. I wanted to share some of those images as well with again, no retouching. We have great expressions, great skin, eyes that pop, and our color is nailed throughout the shoot. I taught systems for doing all of this on a shoot and these images show how great it works throughout a portrait session.

This little gal had such a variety of expressions, that I thought a composite design was best to show them all off. I can imagine her older in a few years, looking back on this shoot, loving this design, and enjoying her young personality.

And this trio shows off another cute outfit of hers. I really liked her boots in this and wanted to show them off.

If you’re a photographer and want to learn more, check out my live workshops as well as online training at BryCoxWORKSHOPS.com. And if you’re in need of some great photography, give me a call, 801-728-3317. Spring is here and I’d love to create something amazing for you.

And until next time, America.