Sandpoint Photography – Jason Duchow Photography

Favorite 100 Portraits of 2016

January 3, 2017/in Family Photos, Senior Photos, Sports Action Portraits, Sports Portraits, Video, Year End Favorite 100 /by Jason Duchow

A difficult but rewarding task

It is that time of the year where I have a fun but almost overwhelming task. It is the time that I go through all of my finished images of the last 365 days and narrow them down to my favorite 100. This starts out feeling like a daunting task and I experience sorrow as I have to eliminate images that I love. Sorrow, however, is always overcome by joy as I get to be reminded again of some of the fun moments spent with my clients. I relive the excitement of being able to show an athlete the back of the camera when we nailed the perfect sports action portrait. I have the opportunity to experience again the awe of one of those amazing inland northwest sunsets.

Yes, it is a big and difficult job but it is always worth it! I will say a bit more about the past year further on, but for those of you that are just here to see the photos I won’t keep you any longer!

Partnership with Interfit Photographic

One of the big changes in 2016 was a new partnership with Interfit Photographic. As a sponsored pro I made the switch to using the new S1 strobe and have been very pleased with it’s performance. A large majority of the images that you see in the above video were taken using these lights. I hope you would agree that these tools did their job well. One of the best parts of working with Interfit is that I am able to offer the photographers that follow my page a 10% discount on all their products. If you want to know more about this check out this page: http://www.jasonduchowphotography.com/interfit-sponsored-pro-interfit-s1-discount-code/

Past Favorite 100 entries

This favorite 100 portraits post is something I have done at the end/beginning of each year for the last couple of years. For those interested in seeing my favorite portraits of years past you can check out those entries here:

2015 100 Favorites Portraits

2014 100 Favorite Portraits

Having such great clients is what makes all of these images possible. I want to once again thank all of my clients!

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work. Jason is also a Sponsored Pro for Interfit Photographic (http://interfitphotographic.com/)

2016 Sandpoint High School Graduation

June 13, 2016/in Graduation /by Jason Duchow

This last weekend I was honored to once again have the opportunity to be the official photographer for the Sandpoint High School Graduation Ceremony. I have had the pleasure of getting to know quite a few of these graduates. For many I had the pleasure of capturing their style and personality for their senior portraits. For many of those clients and others I have been able to be there on the sidelines of their sporting events, capturing images of them breaking records, winning championships as well as holding back my own tears as they endure the pain of defeat. I have a lot of memories of the class of 2016, way too many to share here. Ultimately my memories is not why I do what I do, it is their memories that I am so very grateful to be able to preserve and capture. Thank you to the Class of 2016 for a great year of creating memories together. Here are just a handful of photos I captured at your graduation. These, along with about 1,700 other photos from graduation can be found on my website at this link: http://bit.ly/1UraaXx

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work. Jason is also a Sponsored Pro for Interfit Photographic (http://interfitphotographic.com/)

2016 Sandpoint Prom Photo Booth

April 25, 2016/in Photo Booth /by Jason Duchow

Yesterday I had the pleasure of setting up my photo booth for the 2016 Sandpoint High School Prom. The event was held at The Hive in downtown Sandpoint, it was the first time I have been in the music venue since they remodeled and I have to say they did an outstanding job of transforming the building into a pretty amazing place for a live show or event. I set up my booth in the upper balcony level where they have their VIP seating, it was a tight squeeze but I made it work. As a gift to the Class of 2016 I am offering any and all of the photos from the booth as a FREE digital download or 4×6 prints for only 0.99 cents. To download your prom photo booth pictures visit the link below, click the buy button on the photos you want and select the free digital download option. You can screenshot the photos if you want, but you will get a much higher quality version if you use the built in download features.

I have one favor to ask . . . please use the built in Facebook and Twitter sharing buttons to let your friends know about the photos! Below you will find a handful of photos from the evening, the full gallery with over 1,700 photos from the evening can be found at this link. Enjoy!

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work. Jason is also a Sponsored Pro for Interfit Photographic (http://interfitphotographic.com/)

Behind the Scenes – Softball Action Portraits

April 1, 2016/in Behind the Scenes, For Photographers, Sports Action Portraits /by Jason Duchow

Cody, one of my Senior Models, and her sister Brianna met up with me to do some softball action portraits as a test of the high speed sync capabilities of the Strobies ProFlash 360 by Interfit Photographic. Unfortunately the dirt on the infield of Sandpoint High School’s field was not the softest in the world which made sliding a bit more difficult (and painful) than I expected. I have to give a big thank you to Cody who definitely sacrificed her body for these photos, the hard dirt near home plate ended up giving her a little bit of road rash . . . sorry and thanks Cody! Also a big thank you Cody and Bri’s dad who came out and put down the lines on the field for us so we would have more of an in game feeling to the images.

For this shoot I used three ProFlash 360 units, set on full power high speed sync. The photos were shot with a Canon 1DX with a 17-40 f4 lens with a circular polarizing filter on front. I could have achieved a faster shutter speed without the filter but I like the deeper blue I get in the sky when I use this filter.

The first shot that we set up was at third base. We tried it at first with Cody wearing a helmet but in every shot it was too hard to see her face through the protective face mask so we cheated and placed the helmet in the frame to make it look like if flew off of her head during the slide. We also did another cheat, before we had Cody do any sliding we threw the ball to Brianna and took a photo of the ball flying toward her mitt. Unlike capturing photos during a game when I can shoot 12 frames a second I only get one take per slide so rather than risking having the ball be in the wrong spot or worse yet hit Cody during the slide we photographed it separately and added it in with Photoshop. It is always my goal to get the shot in the least number of attempts and these two cheats helped immensely to limit how many times we had to have Cody slide. Here is the final image, shot at 1/2000 and f4:

Next Brianna put on her catching gear and we set up for a play at the plate. Like before we started with a clean shot of the ball without Cody sliding to use in Photoshop later. Here is a pull back shot of our lighting set up, you can also see out setup in the behind the scenes video at the bottom of this post.

Here is our final image shot at 1/1000 and f5.0:

Now, as promised here is a quick behind the scenes video from our shoot. You can watch it here or on YouTube at this link: Cody and Brianna Softball Action Portraits

Since doing this testing I have receive the latest strobe by Interfit Photographic, the Interfit S1, which I will now be using as my go to for all of my on location portraits and action portraits. Like the ProFlash 360 these strobes have high speed sync capability to be able to do actin portraits like this one. They are bigger than the ProFlash 360 units but they have a built in battery instead of an external battery and they pack a bit more power with 500 watt seconds as opposed to 360 watt seconds. Through my partnership with Interfit my readers and social media followers can save 10% on all of their products. Just order directly from InterfitPhotographic.com and use the coupon code “DUCHOW10” (all caps) when you check out.

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work. Jason is also a Sponsored Pro for Interfit Photographic (http://interfitphotographic.com/)

Favorite 100 Portraits of 2015

January 1, 2016/in Family Photos, Senior Photos, Sports Action Portraits /by Jason Duchow

Every year at the end of December I have the extremely difficult job of going through all of the photos I have taken for the past 12 months and picking out my favorite 100 portraits. With such great, talented and creative clients this is a job I mostly look forward to, but with a hind of dread as I know will have to eliminate from contention many portraits that I really love. I readily admit that I do have an biased connection to some of the photos that I choose as I know the challenges that went into making them. It may be that someone else might choose a very different top 100 list, but then it would not be MY favorites 100 portraits of the year. With the number of jobs and clients I have every year narrowing this list down to 100 unfortunately means that not every one of my clients or subjects makes this end of the year video, I wish they all could be here but then I would have to have a top 200 or 300 portraits video and that would double the play time of the video and with attention spans what they are these days keeping things shorter is often sweeter!

One of the photos featured in this video was selected by Senior Style Guide to make their yearly Hot 100 issue featuring the best senior photo artists in the country, I am humbled and honored to have been selected for this honor a second year in a row. You can check out the winning entry on this blog post. I think that is enough words, now on with the show!

Thanks for taking the time to check out my video. If you want to see my selections from last year you can check out my Favorite 100 Portraits of 2014 here.

2015 Senior Style Guide Hot 100

December 2, 2015/in Behind the Scenes, How'd You Do That, Senior Photos, Senior Style Guide /by Jason Duchow

Every year the the folks at Senior Style Guide put on the Hot 100 photo contest. This contest consists of 10 categories with 10 winning images selected from each category and the goal is to feature the very best of senior portraiture. This year 6,315 images were submitted from some of the best portrait artists around the globe and I am so pleased to announce that one of my submissions made the cut! It is truly an honor to have been selected for a second straight year. Last year my photo of Preston Cole was selected in the “Urban” category, you can find the blog post about that contest and how that image was made here.

Now, without further adieu I am glad to reveal that my sunset image of Class of 2016 Lake City High School Senior Grant Wade was selected in the “Off Camera Flash” category. Here is the final image:

Here is what the photo looks like straight out of the camera:

This image was made using four different strobes. The main light was camera right with a 47″ gridded octabox set to a position to give a Rembrandt style lighting pattern. The remaining three lights were used to light Grant’s Jeep which he restored himself by the way! I used two strobes with strip boxes camera right and camera left to light the front and sides of the jeep. Then as I always like to do when I photograph seniors with their automobiles I added a strobe to the inside of the jeep with a colored gel. Blue seemed appropriate as it would be a complimentary color, matches Grant’s shirt and also is one of his school colors. This image was captured with a Canon 1DX and 17-40 f4.0 lense set to 1/200 at f5.6 and ISO 100. Here is a behind the scenes look:

I want to thank Vickie Black, the crew at Senior Style Guide and the judges for the opportunity, I am truly honored and grateful! Now it’s time to get ready to make another run at it with the Class of 2017!

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work for www.idahosports.com, The Coeur d’Alene Press, The Bonner County Daily Bee, Priest River Times, Newport Miner, Living Local and a handful of other newspapers and publications.

2015 Chafe 150 – Behind the Scenes

June 30, 2015/in Behind the Scenes, Bike Racing /by Jason Duchow

2015 Sandpoint Graduation and Grad Night Photo Booth

June 7, 2015/in Graduation, Photo Booth /by Jason Duchow

2015 IEL Regional Track Meet

June 2, 2015/in Track and Field /by Jason Duchow

2014 Senior Style Guide Hot 100

December 2, 2014/in Behind the Scenes, How'd You Do That, Senior Photos /by Jason Duchow

Every year Senior Style Guide accepts submissions from senior photo artists throughout the world. The contest has 10 categories and they choose 10 winning images per category for a total of 100 winning images. This year I entered the contest for the first time and was pleased to find out that I had a photo that made the final cut!

The image that was selected was of Sandpoint High School senior Preston Cole. The category for this photo was “Urban” and it was taken on the backside of an old warehouse near the loading docks. This was a slightly tricky photo to make as you will see in the behind the scenes photo of our lighting set up. Here is the finished image of Preston.

Here is what it looks like straight out of the camera:Now the lighting set up. This image was made using two strobes, one boomed directly above Preston with a 7″ reflector and a 30 degree grid. The point of this light was to light his shoulders and hair as well as the rail, stairs and a little spill on the door. The idea here was to mimic a light on the building above the door. For the main light I used a strobe with a 47″ gridded octa, the light was positioned to create a lighting pattern right between Rembrandt and Loop when he was looking at the camera. The photo was shot with a Canon 5DIII with a 24-70 f2.8 lense at f10.So now let me explain what was tricky about making this photo. If you look closely at my assistant Mark you will notice that the lip on the loading bay was very narrow. It was too narrow to fit the base of the c-stand so we had to use one of the rubber bumpers for the third leg. The bumpers, as you can see, are not level with the loading bay floor so left to itself the stand would not be stable. To solve this we used all of our weight bags on the back legs and had Mark putting his weight on the stand and NEVER letting go! Here is a close up for you.To close I just want to say thank you to Vickie Black and the crew at Senior Style Guide for putting together the Hot 100. I am grateful for the opportunity to enter the contest and very excited to be selected. I am excited to work with the upcoming class of 2016 and look forward to making more great images for them. Who knows maybe one of those will make the cut for next year’s contest!

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington. Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work for www.idahosports.com, The Coeur d’Alene Press, The Bonner County Daily Bee, Priest River Times, Newport Miner, Living Local and a handful of other newspapers and publications.

Posts

A difficult but rewarding task

Partnership with Interfit Photographic

Past Favorite 100 entries