Priest River Photographer – 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/)

Senior Portraits with Cody

March 28, 2016/in Senior Photos /by Jason Duchow

Cody was one of my Class of 2016 Senior Models from Sandpoint High School, she is an extremely talented softball player. One of the things that always stood out to me was Cody’s dimples, but as we started working together I realized she does not have dimples . . . . she has a single dimple on her right cheek. We worked together on three different occasions, first we had a studio session which was followed a couple of days later by a fun road trip session. We worked together a third time when I needed to test out some equipment that I received from Interfit Photoraphic, those photos will be posted on the blog later. To start out, here are a few from our studio session.

To start off our outdoor session we were at the Sandpoint High School Softball Field.

After the softball field we loaded up in the car and took a road trip to Montana. The final destination was the Ross Creek Cedars and along the way we kept our eye out for some interesting spots. We found a great spot along side the highway with a nice patch of lupines.

A little further down the road we found a great spot along side the river. There was a thunderstorm moving in quickly so we hustled to get the light set up and it was certainly worth it, the look of the rain falling in the distance made one of my favorite landscape portraits of the 2015 portrait season.

The rain came down very hard, but thankfully it did not last long. We continued down the road and endured some light sprinkles to get some photos at this location.

When we got to the Ross Creek Cedars it had started to rain again. We covered my strobe with some plastic to protect it from the water and thankfully the thick trees helped with the light rainfall. With the overcast conditions the area was fairly dark but we were still able to manage to get a handful of good shots.

As we left the Cedars the combination of the sun peeking through the overcast sky and some low level clouds in the distance made for a very cool scene. The only angle we could get at it included a guard rail along the road, but we made use of it and captured the scene.

We debated about where to go to try to capture the sunset, in the end we decided to back track the same way we came and as luck would have it the best spot we found was the same spot on the Clark Fork River that we had been when we had the thunderstorm roll in.

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.

One on One Lighting Workshop in Sandpoint

June 4, 2015/in For Photographers, Models, Workshops /by Jason Duchow

05/08/2015 IML Regional Track Meet

June 3, 2015/in Track and Field /by Jason Duchow

I was on hand to cover the second day of the 3A IML Regional Track Meet held at Timberlake High School. Results from this meet can be found at Athletic.net. For the complete galleries from this meet and to order prints visit my website at this link: http://bit.ly/1GRnq1J

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.

Winter Senior Portraits with Taylor Ann

March 28, 2015/in Senior Photos /by Jason Duchow

This winter in North Idaho ended up being a total flop when it came to doing winter senior portraits.. We had a little bit of snow early but then, in the heart of the winter when it was time to actually start doing some sessions with my senior models there was not even snow to be found on Schweitzer Mountain Resort. I even ended up traveling to Glacier National Park at one point to see if I could find any good winter conditions there, I was able to find a bit of snow up high, but there was still a lot less than I would have expected.

Thankfully there was a day when we got a surprise snow storm so I contacted Taylor Ann, my Class of 2016 Senior model from Newport and she just happened to not be in school that day. I quickly gathered up some gear and headed out to meet up with her. Of course the weather was par for the course and as soon as we met up it had warmed up and started raining in town. Since we we were together and had the time we thought we would see if we could find any snow at a higher elevation and the search paid off. We found just enough snow to grab a few fun shots and call it a day. We had nice overcast conditions, falling snow and some nice white snow on the ground so for this shoot we worked completely with natural light.

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 2014

January 1, 2015/in Family Photos, Senior Photos, Sports Action Portraits /by Jason Duchow

The job of narrowing down all of the portraits I have taken the past year to only my favorite 100 is so very difficult, I have great clients and every one of them have photos that I love and want to include in my final Favorite 100 portraits of 2014, but alas I have to narrow it down to only 100. 2014 was a great year for me. I added new photos to my portfolio that I have had in my mind for a long time, I learned new things and I pushed myself to try new things. For the first time I entered photos into the Senior Style Guide Hot 100 contest and was thrilled to find out that I had an image selected in the urban category, check it out here. This was a hard job, but now I can present to you a short video featuring my favorite 100 portraits of 2014!

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/)

Winter Senior Photos with Corinne

February 1, 2014/in Senior Photos /by Jason Duchow

Corinne is one of my Class of 2015 Senior Models from Sandpoint High School. She is an outstanding soccer player for the State Champion Bulldogs and she has one of the biggest and most infectious smiles you will ever see. Here are some photos from our winter session on a snowy day in January.

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.

July Bobble Head Portraits

August 1, 2013/in Bobble Head Portraits /by Jason Duchow

When you use a wide angle lens, like my Canon 17-40, you have to pay close attention to the distortion that is created when you shoot the lens at the wider settings. The distortion is especially prominent when you shoot with a full frame camera body like the Canon 5D III. It is usually recommended that you try to avoid the distortion, especially when taking portraits but instead I have decided to start embracing it to make some fun, intentionally goofy portraits during my senior photo sessions. I have been calling these portraits my “Bobble Head Portraits”, the reason will be blatantly obvious as you view the photos!

The main goal of my senior sessions is to make sure that my clients look great, an important part of achieving that goal is to make sure that we always have a fun time working together and these Bobble Head Portraits are sure to bring a laugh or two. Here are the Bobble Head Portraits from my July photo sessions.