Last Monday I went out with a friend and shot some landscape photography. I generally don’t shoot landscapes at all and it is my friend’s passion so it was fun to get out with someone with a different mindset and see how they work. I tried pretending I was a landscape photographer with setting up my tripod, framing a shot and tweaking a bit after seeing the image on the back of the camera. After working like that for a bit it just wasn’t for me and I resorted back to using my fun fish-eye lens and just shooting what I saw. Below are some of the results from that day. I hope to get out more often and shoot like this.

These were all shot on the frozen shores of Lake Superior just west of Sault Ste. Marie. Even with the mild spell of weather we had come through there was still approximately two feet of ice on the lake.

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The sneak peek of our engagement shoot received some great feedback so I worked a bit harder and got these shots ready to go up sooner than later. I think the shots in the sneak peek are some of my favourites but these ones also stand out to me.

I’m going to get this under way with a dance party first. After going through the shots I think I can make an outtake post of just times when Jes and I broke out in dancing instead of posing.

We walked all the way to what we thought was the Welcome to Las Vegas sign. However after approaching the location and being able to see what was written on the sign all we found was this Drive Carefully one. In protest we decided to sit on the fake grass and take some shots from there.

After being disappointed about not finding the famous sign we headed back toward the strip and stopped off at the Mandalay Bay and its awesome entrance for some shots.

We were having a nice quiet time minding our own business and then we had to break out into full ninja mode to protect the hotel and casino from evil doers. Maybe we should moonlight as body guards or secret service or possibly even professional wrestlers.

Later in the day we headed to the Venetian as we knew there would be some great architecture there and after I saw these doors I couldn’t resist them. As a fun side note the first time we were in Vegas we did go for a gondola ride while wearing jogging pants. Take that fancy hotel!

The next day we did some quick shots around our hotel the New York New York. You may remember the setting of the first shot from the sneak peek post, the second shot was taken on the Brooklyn Bridge replica.

On our last night we checked out Jersey Boys which we both highly recommend and when we got back we took a few shots around New York New York. We kept putting the night shots off as we were doing other things from checking out shows, taking a 60 minute bus ride to downtown Las Vegas while being entertained by an intoxicated (not intoxicating) old man and just crashing in the hotel room after a long day of walking around.

It was definitely a fun trip and we’re happy with what we came back with. And for those of you screaming at the computer screen saying that the Vegas sign is on the other side of the drive carefully sign – we know. We have some shots from there. I was just testing to see how many people we could fool. Hit up the comments to let me know what you think.

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As you may or may not know Jes and I headed to Las Vegas last weekend to shoot our own engagement shoot. I’ve had some people asking me how the shoot went and they want to see some of the shots we got so here is a quick sampler of what we were able to get on our days there.

This first one was shot at the entrance to the Mandalay Bay. Some crazy ninja action broke out and this is me showing off my patented ninja / Super Mario jump. I wouldn’t mess with me.

Next up is a shot from our last day there. Saturday in Vegas is busy, very busy. We set this up outside of the Paris Hotel and Casino. Right behind the camera location is the sidewalk going down the strip and adjacent to that is a bus stop. As we were setting up this shot and taking it people were stopping on the street and staring at us – I actually have a shot with a guy standing behind us looking at us. We stole the pose from my photography friend Bobby Earle – the only difference is he did it with the real Eiffel Tower.

The last sneak peek shot is a single one of Jes. We set this up outside of the New York New York casino. The wood barrier is what you see when you exit part of the hotel, on the other side of it is the Brooklyn Bridge replica. Once again we had people watching us while shooting. You would assume when you are in Vegas there are enough sideshows going on that people with a camera wouldn’t be that big of deal. As an afterthought we should have charged a fee to observe and maybe we could have paid for the trip.

There will be a lot more to come. Let me know what you think of these. Don’t be shy.

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Okay you didn’t win a chicken dinner but just possibly the second best thing – a photo shoot with me. And yes the line in the subject is old and overused but seeing as I just came back from Vegas I couldn’t help but to drop some cheese onto the site.

After a week long process of answering a very simple question all correct entries were put into an ordered list based on when they commented. I was in a nice mood so I even included the entries who referred to the Pillsbury Doughboy as the Phillsbury Doughboy (more than 1 and less than 4) and even allowed the entry in who referred to my basset hounds as beagles. From there I sent Jes to the random number generator and she entered the range of 1 to 42 (number of eligible entries) and came out with our winner.

The winner of the free shoot is lucky #10 – Joseph G. I have sent an email off to Joe to confirm his winning of the prize. Thank you to all who entered. The response was unbelievable.

I’m hoping to have some shots up of Jes and my eshoot that we did in Vegas. It was me shooting us and was a bit more difficult then I had imagined.

Congratulations Joe!

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The last couple of nights I’ve been shooting Jes and myself for a top secret project that I cannot name or tell you about. The fact that I’ve said this much may have already put my life in danger. Seriously. But I’m a risk taker so below is a teaser (outtakes) for the project. But shh, don’t tell anyone.

Now if all the ladies will stop staring at my fabulous pectorials and the guys can stop drooling over my absolutely awesome beard we can continue on.

Jes and I getting ready to head out on our big Vegas vacation which starts tomorrow. It’s not really big and not really a vacation but a quick get away for us. While there I’ll be shooting our own engagement pictures – how fun is that going to be? Anyway, it is going to be great to get away from the deep chill happening here and get to sunny Las Vegas for a few days. I will be throwing the shots up on to the site when they are ready.

If you haven’t already checked out the contest, be sure to get your entry in for a free shoot. If you do not see your comment appear right away don’t worry, I will have received it and have to approve them first.

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