Whew, this was such an incredibly busy weekend that was equally as epic and awesome. Alyssa and I have both been out with the Flu and dealt with it a little bit over the weekend, but we survived! Saturday we ventured down to Larkspur to photograph an amazing wedding then quickly jetted up to Loveland for an amazing stylized wedding shoot.  I guess I just love being a Loveland, Colorado Wedding Photographer!

Some quick notes, the vendors (which will be listed at the bottom) showed up in amazing fashion and were, in no short supply of words, incredible at bringing their talents to collaboratively work together to create something beautiful and different. The Embassy Suites in Loveland is the real deal and their friendly staff, amazing amenities definitely made it a place we’re staying on the regular. Lastly, the models were absolutely GORGEOUS! (as you can tell).

It was such a relaxing and fun day, and I hope you enjoy the images as much as I do!

Vendors:

Coordinator: Chelsey Penoyer, Embassy Suites, Loveland

Gowns:  Dora Grace

Stylist: Fixx Hair Studio

Floral: Hana Style Designs

Cupcakes: The Cupcake Cruiser

Photography: Stebner Photography

We’ve been using our Alien Bee strobe kit for a little over 6 months and have been just loving the results we are getting from it. We’re buying some new goodies soon and can’t wait to write about them. But in  he meantime, we’ve gotten a lot of questions about how we lit these two images from a session we did a few months ago, so here ya go.I wish I took a few pictures on the lighting set up, but a description is just going to have to do. So from one Denver Senior Portrait Photographer to another photographer, here’s how we did it.

Image 1:Canon 5Dmk2, 24-70L, f9 @ 1/200th at ISO 100

This was one of our last photos from Matt’s Senior Session at the old Sugar Mill in Sterling, Colorado. I noticed the sun was just about to set during the “golden hour” and loved the look of the sun peaking through the window in the upper right and how it shined on these barrels. I knew I wanted the sky to be a little on the moody end of things and for all of the clutter on the right to be darkened without having to do it in photoshop. So I placed my Paul C Buff Octabank about 3 feet from Matt’s face to the right and up and shined it almost completely away from him towards image left so only the softest of light would be hitting his face. I knew this would accomplish a few things, darken all of my space to the right. Secondly, since my light source was so close to the subject, I knew my background would be less affected by my soft box and more affected by the warm sun rays you see on the windows and the grass behind him. Lastly, I wanted to create some subtle shadows and light on his face, and knew by using the softest part of my 52″ Octabank that I could achieve the look I was going for.  I chose a very wide angle lens which gave a little distortion to his feet and legs, but I wanted that “layered” look you tend to get with wide angle lenses over more telephoto lenses. Plus, since my light was so close to the subject, it allowed me to get in where I needed to. This is pretty much how the image looked right out of the camera. I boosted clarity in Lightroom 3.0 to 8 and dodged the window subtly, but it’s an honest image right out of the camera.

Image 2: 5Dmk2, 24-70L,  64mm, F8, 1/200 , ISO 200

Matt is a super cool kid and we wanted to be really different in his senior photo session and incorporate some unique lighting, posing, and locations in his shoot.  I really wanted to play on some shadows with this image to give it a lot of attitude. I put the main light about 5 feet from him to give a little more contrast and that way the hottest part of the light would be hitting his face and hopefully creating some cool shadows. Below is the image right out of the camera

I overexposed (in my opinion) the image just a little bit so I brought the exposure down to -26 to bring the sky, shadows, and general lighting and introduced fill light of +7 in Lightroom 3.  I added clarity of +10 and brought down the blue channel luminance to -58 to darken the skies as well as the green channel saturation. Lastly I cloned out the distracting telephone pole.  All of this resulted in some slight tweeks that I like a little more.

If you have any questions, please let me know and I’d be glad to answer

Contact Me: 408-440-6281

Scott Stebner of Stebner Photography is a Denver Senior Portrait Photographer specializing in edgy, artistic, and non traditional senior portraits.

I was so happy we were able to fit a shoot in while we were vacationing on the Central Coast of California.

Clemente has been a long time friend of mine that I have known for years. Thank you for being such an incredible family to work with. Your daughter is precious.

The only thing you really need to know about the Bochmann family is that they’re awesome. Plain and Simple.

Alyssa worked with Robyn at Starbucks for a year before we moved out to the country, and since then I’ve had quite a few coffee’s at their Starbucks and have really gotten to know Robyn as a great, fun, and hilarious woman. So when Robyn asked us to photograph her family, we were ecstatic.

We approach family photos a little differently than most. Yes, we do the normal posed shots, but especially for young children, we really want them to be able to play, have fun, and be themselves. I mean seriously, how many 5 and 7 year old children stay still? Right? So we had a great time with the girls looking for magical dandelions and searching for Tinker Bell amidst the grass while I stood back with my 70-200 lens and took some more true to life shots. I just HAD to blog the series here.

We then ventured downtown to the Denver Performing Arts Center to capture some beautiful light in some more non-traditional portraits….loved it.

Thank you guys for being such a fun, entertaining, and genuine family. We had an absolute blast!

Camera Geek Info: Lighting used was an Alien Bees 800, 54″ Octabox, Vagabond 2

Scott Stebner of Stebner Photography is a Denver Wedding Photographer based out of Sterling, Colorado. He is available for weddings, engagements, senior portraits, and family sessions. His portfolio can be viewed HERE

Well the end of 2010 didn’t quite happen how I wanted it to, snowed in our house with most of the roads impassible with ice, but 2010 was seriously an amazing year.

Some Personal Highlights

I got Engaged (Wohoo!)

I got Married (Even bigger Wohoo)

We moved to a small town but we’re still super close to Denver

Found a Church I love

Realized just how much I love being a Denver Wedding and Senior Picture Photographer

Visited my parents in Sunny San Diego and finall had REAL Mexican food again

Met tons of new people in Colorado with many awesome photographer friends

Went on a great Cruise to Mexico

Alyssa shares the same name as my wife, so I knew she rocked! We met in downtown Boulder, Co to do her senior session and she brought with her cupcakes, great outfits, and a whole lot of awesome! Alyssa, your passion for life and dedication to your studies will make you go far in life!!! Congrats on graduating this spring and wish you the best as you go off to study dermatology!

I can’t say enough awesome things about Tyler and her family. I had the chance to meet them at my old work just as Tyler was finishing up her Junior year in High School and when they asked me to shoot her senior portraits, I was so excited. Not only did we have amazing light, but some other situations we had no idea would happen…like the garden sprinklers turning on in the middle of our portrait shoot soaking all of us and making me very thankful I shelled out the extra cash for a camera that is water sealed.

Tyler plans on going to NCU and

The thing I love about photography is you can always mix-up the subject that you photograph. I love weddings and those will always be my favorite thing to photograph, but I also love those times where I can spend some quality one-on-one time without a deadline or time frame to stick to.

Nathaneal’s senior shoot was just awesome. We knew we wanted something edgy, something cool, and something with his guitar in it. I hope we don’t get in too much trouble at the Denver Performing Arts Center for taking these photos and was only stopped by a security guard once…but kept shooting. Then we went to the Santa Fe Arts District in Denver and finished it up by the tracks near REI and my favorite starbucks downtown.

Nathaneal, you rocked your session and good luck and blessings to you and your future.

Scott Stebner is a Denver Wedding Photographer. Visit Stebner Photography HERE