Washington

Early Favorite Photographs from a Guest Ranch in Washington

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

Yesterday was Utah’s Pioneer Day, the day the pioneers and settlers first arrived in Utah. When I was a kid, everyone I knew would wear their cowboy hats on Pioneer Day and go to the local parade to celebrate. So in deciding what fun shoot to feature on my blog today, I thought of these cool images from a recent job at a guest ranch at the top of Washington State. The ranch is called K Diamond K, and the event was a birthday weekend for Kirk with his group of friends. He had me up to shoot some photos and video of their adventure. Here are just a few of my early favorites.

After arriving and getting my gear unloaded, I saw these guys coming back from the barn. This first photo was a great way to start off the weekend.

Kathy owns and runs the place and I created this quick portrait of her the last night I was there, using some custom lighting and the twilight sky as our backdrop.

It rained every day we were there, more though the first few days. I did this selfie with my wet camera and lens and really love the dramatic sky from the storm.

This place is wonderful. It’s a working ranch, and guests are free to get outside and help each day, or just relax at the ranch house. These guys of course were all for helping and getting as much riding in as possible. The ranch needed to bring in some cattle to process (brand, castrate, and vaccinate), and that meant riding out through the canyons to find them.


This wasn’t a “nose-to-tail” horse ride where the horses are trained to take the same route every day for city slickers despite what the riders do. This involved teamwork, and what I’d consider a more expert style riding involving going up and down steep inclines on your own.

We had a number of defiant cows and overall difficult circumstances in rounding up the cattle, and the ranch hands wanted to give up on the second day. But instead this group of guys stuck it out, overcame the various problems, and ended up bringing in an unbelievable amount of cows. It was an amazing moment.

And throughout the weekend, we continually had beautiful country around us, with amazing and dramatic weather.

I ended one of the rides with some individual portraits of each guy using some custom lighting. I won’t share them all, but here’s some to show how they look.

I was really liking how these were looking so I of course got in one too.
I had a great horse named Wyatt, which I thought was a perfectly appropriate name for a horse. And these stormy skies were amazing every day. They added a lot of drama to each photograph.

The K Diamond K Ranch is a beautiful place. Here is Kirk and some friends fishing on one of the last days.

And here’s a drone selfie with everyone on the bridge to close out.

This was a great group of guys and I am grateful for my chance to meet them and hang out with them for the weekend. It made for a wonderful adventure. I’ve still got a lot to do on the video, but working on this project continually brings back a lot of great memories.

If you’ve got an event that needs to be captured and documented, give me a call at 801-728-3317. I’d love to create something wonderful for you.

And until next time, America.

Photographic Workshop in Tacoma, Washington

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

I just got back from speaking in Tacoma Washington, and judging at the state’s convention for professional photographers. It was a great event and very inspirational.

I spoke on lighting women specifically, and on just how to get everything right in the camera so that there is no need for retouching, color correcting, or even having to make adjustments later using software. Everything should be manual, including your flash, and angles and poses are specific. When everything is done right, images should look amazing right out of the camera.

Cox_LSharpe-S-112---edge

That was the first half of the day, then after lunch I was going to demonstrate my fast digital workflow using some images I already had on my hard drive. But during lunch I was getting a lot of questions about lighting and exactly how to do what I was teaching. So at the end of lunch, I asked an attendee named Lexi to be a quick model for me outside the hotel. It gave me a chance to demonstrate what I was teaching, and also game me some demo images to use during the second half of the day, that everyone knew were not prepared earlier for the event.

A photographer friend I’ve gotten to know over the years who was at the convention, Rich Breshears, took this image of me and Lexi outside in the parking lot. It shows me shooting with my light pole that I have built so that I can really control light even better as a model moves. I like to hold the light so that I can move it as I need to, putting the highlights and shadows exactly where I want them, not leaving them to chance. The parking lot had this big bush which I used as a background because it complimented Lexi’s red hair and also gave me a dark, low-key background that was mostly solid with a little texture, that way there was interest without distractions.

Cox_LSharpe-Washington

After getting a few images, we went back inside and started up again. I spoke on my fast workflow system, which is made even faster by not having to correct any images. I also showed that with images already looking great out of your camera, your computer time should be fun and creative, coming up with some cool ideas for the client rather than correcting problems. Here I added one of my new custom edges I’ve made.

Cox_LSharpe-S-107-edge

And then I used that same image to create an abstract painting in front of the group.Cox_LSharpe-S-107-painting2-crop

I also used three images to create this trio, showing everyone how to create their own trios and composites. I love seeing images in threes, and having a trio design already made makes designing later even easier.

Cox_LSharpe-S-8x20-AnnaMarie-III

It was a great event and very inspirational. When I speak, it means that I study and go through all of my material to determine what to spend my time on with the group. I find myself being uplifted as well as everyone else when I share and give. I really appreciate the opportunity to speak in Tacoma for the Professional Photographers of Washington, and want to thank Lexi for being a model for me at the last minute.

If you need some updated portraits, give me a call. Spring is here and it’s a great time to get in. And if you’re a photographer and want to improve your skills and attend one of my photographic workshops, please visit my upcoming schedule on my workshop site at BryCoxWORKSHOPS.com. Until next time, America.

Lighthouses of the Seattle Washington Area, Part 2

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

Part 2 of my trip was spent in a little coastal town called Port Townsend. I was at Fort Warden which had it’s own lighthouse about a mile down the beach. I made it my goal to get some amazing shot of it, and I woke up most mornings that I was there around 4:30 am in order to walk down the beach, set up, and wait for sunrise. On this particular morning the sky was so socked in that I never got a sunrise, so I did a self portrait before going back and getting a quick nap before work.

Even though there wasn’t a directional sunrise, I still really liked the look of the Port Wilson lighthouse in the foggy mist. I photographed it various ways each morning.

One morning I also photographed this ship wreck on my walk back. I really liked the detail in this image, and split-toned the final piece so that the white would really stand out.

Each walk back was quiet and serene. Sometime there would be a sailboat out in the water, anchored for the night, and other times there would be a few fisherman out in row boats. On one occasion I ran into someone on a morning walk, but other than that I never saw anyone else on these early mornings.

On my last morning, I caught the sunrise. Once I could see the sun peaking, I set up in a different spot than in other mornings, and began to work trying to capture all the detail, watching for the sun rays to come shining in the image.

Once the sun peaked, all the little rocks on the sand lit up. It was really exciting to finally see the warm directional light and get something different than the other mornings.

I had to hurry and get different angles quickly, as the sun really travels fast. I really liked this one below, with the grass blowing in the morning breeze.

And here’s one last one from set up from the far side, with me very low in the grass. I wanted one with the sun lighting up the lighthouse with the warm morning light without any sun flares.

So which images are your favorites? All of these have such different looks and different feelings, it’s hard to pick a favorite but I’m curious what you all like.

In my next blog entries I’ll talk about some of the work I did while I was out there, but before I got to that, I wanted to first show you some of these images that I created during my free time. I really like to find lighthouses and photograph them. They’re beautiful and inspiring, and a real challenge to photograph in interesting ways. I hope you enjoyed looking at these.

Until next time, America. 🙂

Lighthouses of the Seattle Washington Area, Part 1

Posted by BryCox (Admin)

Coming home from the east coast, I went straight on over to the west coast to do a job in the Seattle area. I got there a day and a half early to relax and take some photographs. Upon arriving, I caught this sunset behind the Space Needle.

The next day I went into town to hang out at Pike Street Market and eat some fried fish and chowder.

I then took a ferry out to Vashon Island to find and photograph the Point Robinson lighthouse that I had read about. I got there early in the afternoon, and the sun was already setting on it. I made it just in time. It’s not just enough to photograph it, I really want to create something amazing and that means lighting it just the right way. Since I can’t move the sun I have to time my schedule around the sun to shoot it when it’s lit the best.

Here are some of the images I created that late afternoon, starting with this panorama with the shadows touching the bottom of the building.

By the time I set up for a straight-on shot, the shadows were already half-way up the lighthouse.

After getting that I just worked quickly to get a few more options. I switched to a Lens Baby tilt-shift lens and set up a shot with the tip still in the sun.

And then to another lens from the side catching one more with just the tip still in sunlight.

After that I hiked back through the woods back to my car, packed up, and called my girlfriend to chat while making my way back into the main part of Vashon to find some dinner. After eating I caught one of the last ferries off the island and headed back to my hotel to get ready for work the next day. Spending time on Vashon was amazing. It was a very fun and cool night. The air was perfect, the island was serene, and I met some very nice and colorful locals along the way, and the ferry ride in the cool dark air was invigorating.

Coming up in part 2 of Seattle, more images of another beautiful lighthouse. See you then.