Michael Sasser Photography

All done in AZ

Sun, 21 Mar 2010 21:36:36 -0600

Alright, another four days of shooting and I’m spent. We shot at the Big League Dreams complex where I photographed some promo stuff for them last year. This week, there were tears, cheers, and any other kind of a emotion you can imagine 8-14 year old boys having. Now its time for a little break from baseball and back to denver. Here are some picks from this week.

Spring Training in Arizona!

Wed, 17 Mar 2010 11:26:37 -0600

On my day off yesterday, I decided to join some co-workers to a spring training game of the Colorado Rockies against the Chicago White Sox. Now, the score doesnt matter, because the Rockies got rocked. It was a beautiful day, and I really enjoyed justing laying out and getting a tan while watching, but I couldn’t resist taking my camera to get a few photos. Here was an exciting play at second base.

Baseball in AZ: Part 1

Mon, 15 Mar 2010 22:32:58 -0600

A little vacation time is always relaxing, and when I travel with a youth sports photography company, we usually get a few days to enjoy ourselves when we aren’t photographing sports. Its spring training down here in Arizona, but we are shooting a youth baseball tournament that has three tournaments within it. This past weekend I took pictures for the second section of the tournament, and had a blast. The kids were just excited to get out and play in the great weather, and I was excited to photograph them. I will be in Arizona for another week to capture images of the final event, but until then, here are some of my favorites from part one.

Soccer Soccer

Fri, 12 Mar 2010 21:11:07 -0700

Last weekend, I took pictures at a soccer tournament for a youth sports company. The weather had its ups and downs, and so did the light, but overall, everything went well. They were all youngsters at this event. I didnt shoot anyone over 11 years old. Here is an assortment of the better action shots from the tournament.

Headshots on a Cloudy Day

Wed, 24 Feb 2010 17:37:42 -0700

I would like to personally thank the weather here in colorado. 2 days ago it was a high of 30 degrees, and tomorrow it is supposed to show. However, today was a beautiful 50 with the soft light of the clouds evening out my light. Jeanne is vocalist at Lamont School of Music. We tried to get a variety of smiles and ambitious looks, indoor and outdoor. Here are three of my favorites from the photo shoot.

Modeling

Tue, 26 Jan 2010 18:56:58 -0700

Alicia come over today to add some fun things to her portfolio. We decided to try to get a few totally different looks, but we could only fit so much in the allotted time. We started out with the concept of blue. Blue eyelashes, blue lipstick and a blue tie. Then, to counter that, she put on warm colored sweater dress. Those I am not completely sold on the concept. A dress… that is also a sweater… I don’t know that is supposed to keep them warm, but it looked nice so I will stop complaining. These are two of the contrasting photos I chose.

Wedding in Breckenridge

Sat, 23 Jan 2010 17:08:46 -0700

I had the chance to shoot a wedding in Breckenridge with Justin Edmonds earlier this year. The bride and groom had blast, and so did we. I covered the groom getting ready while Justin hung out with the bride. Here are just a few shots from the day.

Purple, the color of fun?

Wed, 23 Dec 2009 19:04:26 -0700

Amilia was a blast to shoot. She just moved from New Mexico to study here in Colorado and do theatre. For this photo shoot we went back to downtown Denver to find some great backgrounds, and a few worked out just fine. We photographed a variety of stuff from all natural light, to reflectors, to speed lights into reflectors, and shot with a variety of lenses to give us a medley of possibilities for her to choose from. These were three of my favorites from out photo session.

Headshots Downtown

Sat, 19 Dec 2009 09:37:28 -0700

It was another beautiful day here in Denver. So for these headshots, Shannon and I went downtown. I rarely take pictures out here, but after this session, I think I am going to start doing it more. We started out near Commons Park, But there were so many wind tunnels around the buildings there, it made it hard for her hair to stay in one place. Every headshot from our photo shoot was made with only natural light. A large white and gold reflector was our other light source the whole day. People often get caught up in strobes and trying to control the light too much, when often, the natural light is the most beautiful. Here were three of my favorites from the shoot.

Holiday Photos in the Park

Thu, 17 Dec 2009 13:55:08 -0700

My friend Serina and her daughter Gracy came out for a beautiful afternoon this December in Denver. Sometimes it snows, and sometimes it’s 50 degrees. We went to Westlands Park, where I have shot before with success. We did a combination of regular posed images and some candid photos of them playing in the snow, or playing itsy bitsy spider. We had a great time, and came out with some great photographs.

Alani Headshot

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:46:20 -0700

Yet another headshot. This is Alani, looking to make it big in the business. We shot mostly in the studio for her photos, but venture out a little bit to see what other pictures we could make. This was taken with one light, an SB-800 in a softbox to her right triggered by pocket wizards.

Violin and Harp Shots

Wed, 16 Dec 2009 10:28:07 -0700

A few weeks ago I was hired to shoot a musician playing both Harp and Violin. I had all these ideas on how I was going to photograph it, make sure I used different kinds of light, make sure I use a variety of lenses, and at the end of the day, both she, and I were very pleased with the results.

Cousin's Wedding

Wed, 09 Dec 2009 15:16:09 -0700

This summer my cousin Sara Roberts was married in Big Sky, Montana. It was fantastic to see everyone again, it had been so long. At family events I do my best to be one of the family, instead a photographer. However, it is impossible to keep a camera out of my hands at an event like this, in a place as beautiful as this. I decided to just snap some pictures here and there.

Family Gathering

Mon, 07 Dec 2009 16:55:56 -0700

A few weekends ago, I took a break from Colorado and went back to Texas for my Grandparents 60th wedding anniversary, congratulations to them. While we were being the family photographer, I took some of them out to the back to take some portraits. These were the results. Nikon D3, 85mm at f/2.5.

Headshots on a Beautiful Day

Sat, 14 Nov 2009 10:40:40 -0700

I think the most fun part of photography is looking at a scene, and using your camera and perspective to make it look different than it appears in real life. I think this is what yields the best photos.

Raquel is back from London having her life experiences and its time for her to get a real job. She is applying for a position at a few different radio stations, online music websites, and a variety of other cool jobs. There are the pictures we took for her to use when she sends in those applications. Hopefully she gets the job!

A Weekend Wedding in Missouri

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 15:44:35 -0600

While I have been in Park City, Utah shooting sports, my cousin had his wedding in Missouri over the weekend. I was finally going to get a chance to put my new Nikon D3 to the test. Still keeping to the train of thought that less is more, I decided to only take my Nikon 17-55mm f/2.8 (because i haven’t had a chance to get the 24-70mm yet) and my Nikon 85mm f/1.8. I didn’t want to go as the official photographer because at family functions, I want to enjoy myself and chat with the cousins I haven’t seen in a long time, in addition to having no pressure.

To start off I must say that I love the duel memory card feature on the D3. I plan on keeping them both filled, and then whenever I notice it go to the second card, I will just replace the card in the first slot when I get a chance. I think this is better than pretending I have an 8 gig card in there, because you can still get caught in the middle of something important.

I decided to keep quite during the ceremony, but quickly raised my camera for the “And I now pronounce you, husband and wife…” Wow they were happy. After doing a few family photos of our own, we headed to the reception, where delicious food awaited. The newly weds had a blast walking in, and even more fun cutting the cake. I love it when you can sit back and just snap photos, because their happiness makes the image work!

Looking forward to shooting many more weddings with this beast, maybe yours can be next!

Presents on 4th of July?

Sun, 05 Jul 2009 10:48:53 -0600

Well, I got one, the Nikon D3… and I know this is old news for most people, but this camera is really something else. Everything that has been said about this beautiful camera is true. Shooting with both a D300 and a D2X for over a year, I have been pretty lucky to use so great equipment. But the D3 really is a step above when it comes to focus speed/accuracy, depth of field, of course incredible ISO, and also dynamic range. I just love it.

I left for Cincinnati for some family business when purchasing this bad boy, so I wasn’t going to be home for when it arrived… neither was my roommate. So I had to call friends, have them leave notes for the postal guy, get them to pick up the camera, and jump through hoops to make sure I could have it for the holiday weekend, and my upcoming trip to Park City, Utah for the softball tournament I am going to be covering for the next three weeks. I returned to Denver on the 3rd, late, but my friend who had the camera was in Breckenridge, so I had to wait till the following day to get it. I shot softball with my D2X that morning, and continued to dream of my soon to be D3.

Upon receiving it, we all went to a 4th of July BBQ, which I took pictures of pretty much everything I saw, using only my 50mm f/1.4. The steering wheel, cars on the road, chips and salsa… It was out of control. (this was at 5000 ISO btw.)

Then the festivities began, and I started to shoot real things.

After the BBQ, I was dropped off at the CO Rapids game with some friends for soccer and fireworks, taking my 17-55 f/2.8 DX lens to prepare for the show. Too bad they had technical difficulties and prolly only shot 25% of the display they had planned, but I still got something usable out of it. I cant wait to shoot some weddings and really unleash this sucker.

Headshots are fun.

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 17:06:33 -0600

Two posts in one day? Get used to it over the next few days, I have been pretty behind posting my stuff.

Shoots like this are why I love my job. Beth is a student at Lamont School of Music here in Denver, and she’s quite the oboe player, let me tell you. Anyways, she is going to Milan, Italy over summer for a music program and needed a headshot for their website. Instead of shooting this in the studio, where everything is easy and controlled, and can sometimes get repetitive. We decided to shoot this in the music school, which is a beautiful building with lots of opportunities for interesting backgrounds. I met her in the lobby, and when I saw how busy it was up there, we went downstairs where there wouldn’t be too many people to distract us. Through a cracked door I saw some lockers lined up across the wall, so we ventured in there to get a better look. I visualized the locks out of focus, and thought it would be a good place to get something interesting, so this is where we set up.

The light in there was terrible, but dark, orangey, grossness is the usual for this building. My setup for this shot was a Nikon SB-800 into a small chimera softbox, triggered by Pocket Wizards. I use this for most of my headshots.

To balance out the color of the ambient light, I did the first 6 shots with a full CTO gel on my SB-800, and had my model hold a grey card so I could color balance the pictures in post. After getting a look at the images, I decided to add another CTO so that there would a difference in color temperature between the flash and the ambient of the background. We took another 6 shots and were done in less than 30 minutes.

www.michaelsasser.com

Use all the tools you have.

Thu, 02 Apr 2009 12:47:25 -0600

I know it’s been a while. Some of you missed me, and probably some of you didn’t. But either way, I am back to tell you a little bit about HDR (High Dynamic Range). You can get it here. I used to think this was just some effect people got carried away with. If they were really good at it, they could sell their pictures of sunsets and pretty buildings and whatever else casual photographers took pictures of. While I was in beautiful Arizona shooting baseball, I also got the job to shoot some images of the Big League Dreams complex where the tournament was being held. It really is an incredible facility where they replicate pro parks like Yankee stadium, Fenway, and Wrigley field that you can play on. The kids just eat it up.
Anyways, this software can come in extremely handy when you have two areas that have more than 3 stops difference in exposure. And that is exactly what I had. The inside of the restaurant read ISO 640, f/5.6, 1/25 sec. The field outside read ISO 640, f5.6, 1/1600 sec. That’s a six stop difference. After combining the images using the software, and tweaking a few things in Photoshop, they were very happy with the result.

Arizona, Week 1

Tue, 10 Mar 2009 13:34:51 -0600

Its been a while since I last posted. Probably because I have been working in arizona. There is a big three week long baseball tournament that goes on down here during spring training. The kids get to come play baseball in the morning, then go to spring training games during the day, then come back and play some more at night. But yesterday on my day off I took a walk around the complex where I am staying to see what I could make of the surroundings. It’s always fun to try to make something out of nothing, which what photojournalists do, and I have a lot of respect for that. The buildings here are very beautiful, and have a very deserty feel, which makes sense because its Arizona. This shot was taken with a co-workers D3 and his 200-400mm f/4 lens.