J Thomas Photography

Teaser: 1st Birthday

Posted on November 17, 2011 by joel

Posted in Babies | Tagged birthday, cake, teaser | Leave a comment

Monday was a beautiful day, temps were in the mid 60′s, the sun was out, sky was blue, wind was gentle. It would have been a glorious day for outside photos. Then Tuesday came. Temps dropped into the 40′s, clouds overpowered the blue sky, a bitter wind showed up, and snow and cold rain fell randomly throughout the valley. It was not a good day for outside photos.

Sadly for us, Tuesday was the scheduled shoot day. McKell and I chatted over IM and mulled over some options, eventually deciding on shooting her engagements with Jeremy at the Salt Lake City Public Library. I called ahead to make sure we were okay to do so, and we met there at 5:30. There was a slight gap of pleasant weather so we decided to try and get some of the red trees around involved in the photos, but it was short lived and we soon found ourselves setting up on the 3rd floor amongst isles of books and study tables. The shoot was fun, challenging, and sometimes a little creative with some decent results. Check out the whole shoot over at Smugmug!

Posted in Engagements | Tagged black and white, fall, mckell and jeremy, red trees, salt lake city library | Leave a comment

The Reality of Family Pictures

Posted on October 27, 2011 by joel

The nice thing about working in digital is we photographers are no longer confined to trying to only capture the best moments of a photography shoot – sometimes we get to catch the bad, the blah, and the entertaining.

Meet my sister Calli and her family: Tyson, Sydney, Hope, and Zack. Just like typical kids, Sydney, Hope, and Zack love to throw tantrums. This particular location took several minutes to get setup, during which time the two girls ran around and had plenty of fun. However, when it’s time to take photos, the fun stops, and the frowns show up.

Sydney, the older of the two, decided that she was suddenly very bored and wanted nothing to do with family pictures. Hope, on the other hand, was still having plenty of fun but had no interest in trying to look at the camera. And then you add in Zack, who just wanted to cry, and we had the perfect storm for a perfect family photo.

Eventually, happiness prevailed and we did manage to get some great individual photos. For the main family shot though, we ended up heading back up Provo Canyon to try again and the kids were much more cooperative this time.

If you’d like to see what kind of family photo adventures we can have together, go ahead and send me an email to jj@joeljenkins.me and let’s make it happen!