The Pixelation

Facebook!

2009-06-26T21:44:00.001-06:00

So I've had a Facebook account since last year sometime but I haven't actually started to use it until today. SO, why do you add me?

Find me here: http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=681404086&ref=profile

Giving For a Cure

2009-02-10T21:51:00.000-07:00

Dear Friend,

Only 4 days left until Valentine’s Day! Send a valentine that shows you care AND supports the search for a cure by purchasing an e-gift.

These online cards have been specially designed by children with CF for Valentine's Day.

Mary Grace, 15 years old	Cayden, 3 1/2 years old	Wells, 8 years old

Purchasing a Valentine’s Day e-Gift is quick and easy at http://www.cff.org/Gifts/SendCard.

Select a valentine and personalize your message
Choose your recipient, and check out!

All Gifts for a Cure e-cards are 100 percent tax-deductible and fund life-saving research that is bringing us closer to a cure for cystic fibrosis.

Please forward this message and share this offer to give a gift that funds CF research and care!

Sincerely,

Cystic Fibrosis Foundation
6931 Arlington Road
Bethesda, MD 20814
(800) FIGHT-CF
info@cff.org
http://www.cff.org/Gifts/SendCard
Find your local chapter

P.S. You can also support the CF Foundation by making a general donation right now!

Free Desktop Backgrounds

2009-02-03T15:13:00.000-07:00

This is something I've been wanting to do for some time now but just haven't ever put the time into it.

On the website there is now a section dedicated to FREE desktop backgrounds for your computer. All images are original photographs that are from my personal collection. I will slowly add more to the list as time goes on and I hope to have a large selection eventually. Suggestions are welcome!

Take a look at the available backgrounds here: www.deepfocusstudios.com/desktops

Deep Focus Studios Blog

2009-01-22T12:09:00.002-07:00

It's long over due... posting here that is... But ALSO, Deep Focus Studios now has it's own blog. You can find it here http://deepfocusstudios.blogspot.com/

It's also syndicated through Feed Burner http://feeds.feedburner.com/DeepFocusStudios

And soon also syndicated on the Deep Focus Studios website (www.deepfocusstudios.com)

Happy reading! I promise, there will be more postings in the future!

The Taste of Salt Lake - Cystic Fibrosis Foundation

2008-11-10T10:24:00.004-07:00

On Saturday November 8th we photographed at the Annual Cystic Fibrosis Taste of Salt Lake. This is a charity event where several fantastic local restaurants bring their food to share with the attendees of the event. While the food is being served there are silent auctions and socializing, after there is a live auction. This night was amazing and there where more people there than I personally expected. It was great! The best part is that 90 cents of every dollar raised will be used for research of CF.

Photos Coming SOON! They will be posted on my website www.deepfocusstudios.com sometime Wednesday this week.

Utah's Finest

2008-09-03T09:22:00.006-06:00

Recently Katy and me were able to photograph at an important event that recognizes people who've helped raise a significant amount of money for Cystic Fibrosis research. The event is called Utah's Finest, held at La Caille on August 22, 2008. Here are a few photos from this event:

La Caille Planted a "Sixty-five Roses" Garden for CF.

I've been offering special discounts since the beginning of the year to anyone who donates to CFF.org. If you need any type of services that I provide please make a donation so that you can help find a cure. Details can be found here.

Moab Moonlight Series

2008-08-06T08:16:00.007-06:00

Seven photos in in a series "Moab Moonlight",

All photographs were taken in Moab, Utah. In or around Arches National Park. Although the series is "Moab Moonlight" there are two photographs that are actually sun sets, the rest that are Moons and stars.

Blue Desert Moonrise
(Blue Moon of June 30, 2007)

Twilight Moonrise at Arches National Park

Stars and Silhouettes

Starlight, Starbright...

Peeking Light

Desert Blue

Moonlit Skies

Seven photos in in a series "Moab Moonlight", See or purchase them at www.jprasmussen.com

Buy Prints Online!

2008-07-10T14:27:00.000-06:00

New to www.jprasmussen.com is a shopping cart. You can now purchase selected prints in the store.

Check it out here: http://jprasmussen.com/shop/index.php

Fireworks Celebration at the Canyons Resort, Park City

2008-07-05T15:46:00.001-06:00

$25 Portrait Sittings!

2008-07-01T12:06:00.002-06:00

During the entire month of July regular portrait sittings of up to 6 people are only $25! Contact Deep Focus Studios for more information.

City Weekly Recreation Festival

2008-06-15T21:46:00.004-06:00

Yesterday I participated in the City Weekly Rec Fest in downtown Salt Lake. I was lucky enough to get a booth through one of the festival sponsors, Buy Local First.

I took advantage of the booth and decided to try and sell my personal photography. Since I've never done a show of this kind I had to scramble to put this together. Fortunately I found an artist and framer that was willing to help me out. We put together a nice collection of images.

It went very well. At the show I got a lot of fed back on "the public's" favorite photos and here they are for you to see.

"Lighting Out West"
Loc: Salt Lake's West Bench

"Hummingbird"
Loc: Red Butte Gardens, SLC, UT

"Moon Rise over Arches"
Loc: Arches National Park, Moab, Utah

"Night Sky at Starvation"

Loc, Near Starvation Reservoir, Duchesne, UT

"Tabasco"
Loc: Salt Lake City, UT

Cystic Fibrosis Awareness

2008-05-03T16:07:00.003-06:00

This month is Cystic Fibrosis Awareness Month. Cystic fibrosis is an inherited life-threatening disease that currently does not have a cure. In the United States alone there are approximately 30,000 people who have CF and are lucky to live to their mid-thirties.

Cystic fibrosis research is definitely a team effort. Scientists across the world are working to understand and better combat this complex disease, with the hope that one or more of the many approaches to therapies will lead to a cure.Donate to Save!

People can help advance the research by making a donation to the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation.

This month Deep Focus Studios is offering half off or free regular portrait sittings for those people who donate $25 or more directly to the Cystic Fibroses Foundation. All you need to redeem this offer is show a recent copy of your donation receipt.

To donate go to www.CFF.org and click on the "Make a Donation" link at the bottom of the Quick Links list OR click this link: https://www.cff.org/GetInvolved/ManyWaysToGive/Donate/

After you make the donation print an extra copy of your donation receipt to present to Deep Focus Studios.

Remember you can make a donation the the foundation even if you don't need any portraits

We Have a Puppy!

2008-04-30T21:05:00.003-06:00

Last Friday we adopted a 2 month old puppy from the Humane Society of Utah. We Love him so much... he's a Labrador Australian Shepherd Mix.

Fairy Photos!

2008-04-16T13:53:00.000-06:00

Part of a new series of photos that I'm working on. I'm also looking for fresh models who want to take a crack at being a fairy! Contact me at www.jprasmussen.com, www.deepfocusstudios.com OR www.modelmayhem.com/jprasmussen.

Model: Kenzie Ahlstrom

New Website Design!

2008-03-01T13:31:00.000-07:00

It's been some time since I've paid any sort of attention to my personal website (www.jprasmussen.com) but I have just created a new design using some of my own images. This website still displays mostly my own personal work from pet projects and road trips. The redesign was motived from a recent decision to change the direction of business. Deep Focus will continue as is however the more creative and "fun" projects will be done under my personal name. Anyway, enough reading... go look now www.JPRasmussen.com

More is better?

2008-02-05T18:09:00.000-07:00

Lately I've been getting a number of inquiries from brides looking for a CD with all their images. Which in the outward appearance might sound like a great idea, however there are a number of things that people don't consider when they demand for a product like this.

Let me explain what you generally get from a photographer when you ask for a CD like this. Often what you get on the CD will be all the images straight off the camera, there will not be any touch ups, color corrections or editing of any kind. The photographer simple does not have the time to correct several hundred to thousands from your celebration.

Sometimes it’s difficult to understand what exactly the photographer does to the images before they are printed until they are compared side by side. So I have done that exactly for you below, the image on the left is just off the camera and the image to the right has gone through my normal editing process (aka touched up).

Okay so you see the difference but maybe that’s not enough. Let me tell you what I’ve found to be the motivation for getting the CD. I find it varies from person to person, but most reasons seem to fall into one of the three following:

The want to own the copyright of the images
Don’t want to pay the photographer's print prices
Freedom to print the images anytime, for archival purposes

First let’s talk about the copyright... Federal copyright law indicates that by the act of a person capturing an image to some type of medium (film or digitally) they are the owner of that image. The owner of the image is free to sell the copyright of the image to someone else however most photographers will not do that. It’s more likely that you are actually getting a “license” to use the images for personal use. What a license does is grants you permission from the owner of the work to do certain things with the images, in my case my license given with every CD grants the client permission to make reproductions of the images for their own personal use for the life of the CD. There is no ownership of the images given there.

Second some people feel that they can save money by buying the CD and then going to the supermarket where they can have their photos printed for low price. The thing is, they will end up paying about the same amount or more to get a CD and print them on their own then they would picking the favorite images and having the photographer deliver the photo as a finished product. Often the photographer will price the CD at about the same amount of money you’d normally spend on getting printed products. If that doesn’t make sense think of it this way… We will make the same amount of money off you either way. Yes, that's right... us photographers are in business to make money, just like every other business… mostly because we still have to pay the rent, loans, gas and of course for our daily meals just like everyone else. If we gave away our work there would be no way to pay the bills.

The last reason I’ve found to make the most sense and can relate to more than the others. Some people are just interested in holding onto the images for archival purposes. If this is the case then talk to your photographer because there might be a better solution to this then just buying a mess of un-edited photos on a CD. Because of this reason I’ve started to offer a CD for a reasonable price of only the images the client orders in prints. By doing it this way, they get a finished image and they get their CD with the touched up image on it. Everyone is happy.

So the point of this post is to hopefully educate people about this. Of course I’d like for you to purchase finished products in the future instead of the CD however you should consider yourself in the know and can make your own decision.

Happy Groundhog Day!

2008-02-02T16:39:00.001-07:00

MSN Live Search is a Joke...

2008-02-01T15:53:00.000-07:00

As a lot of my friends know I geek out about this whole internet thing and recently have been perfecting the search engine optimization for my websites.

One site that I have been working on was actually designed by someone else. I just do the monthly house keeping on it. The owner of the site was concerned about how certain keywords weren't bringing her site up in MSN's Live Search results which is her preferred search tool. **Let me interrupt here and say that I've never used MSN search, I've almost always relied on Google.** Well, after a little hesitation I agreed to see what I can do to fix the problem, after all I bill hourly so what's the problem...

So after a short little search I find a place that you can submit a site to Live Search and of course you would think that would do something... after submitting it and watching the site logs for about a week I saw no hits from the MSNBot crawling the site. So a I did some tidy work to the Keywords and page content to see if that helped any but nothing...

Finally I came across this link at the bottom of the Live Search page that says "For Webmasters" I clicked the link and followed the instructions of setting up a tool that is supposed to help improve your site listing with Live. And you know, after a week or more you would expect that something would happen but nothing did. Which shocked me because of course I was comparing everything to Google and how fast a site gets indexed by them. Well after looking through the links inside the webmaster's tools site I noticed some information that wasn't there before. It indicated that the last crawl to the site was back in November 2007, yes... over two months ago and when it crawled it only indexed one page. This was frustrating, so I submitted the url and a new sitemap and waited a few days, still nothing.

Well after not knowing what else to do I continued searching the internet for help with this thinking that maybe I had done something wrong until today. I found a forum hosted on Microsoft's website specifically regarding MSNBot and the webmaster tool I have been using and the first page of forum topics nearly every single post was someone having the same problem that I have been experiencing. Checking in most of the threads for an answer to to this problem it turns out that NO ONE knows what's wrong with it and there has been no official response from Microsoft about it, at least none that I can find. Go Microsoft, yet another successful waste of corporate money! It's as if there is no real logic to what sites it indexes and what sites it excludes, all I know is that I'm not the only one who can't get them to index this site.

As a result, I emailed my client explaining this situation and notified her that I will no longer optimize for Live Search. I also suggested that she start using a different search tool like Google or Yahoo... which is the whole point of this post today, to tell all you people out there in internet land to STOP USING LIVE SEARCH! It sucks!

Please use Google or even Yahoo but for the love of Peter Paul and some guy named Mike NOT LIVE.

Long time no post....

2008-01-20T02:03:00.000-07:00

Yeah, so I've really been slacking off on keeping up with the new posts... Around Christmas time I started getting busy with various things which kept me distracted most of the month. Then come January I found myself thinking, "I've got time, I should post something." but I never did.

Well, the last few weeks have been out of laziness but before that I had a real excuse. I was actually working. As you might already know in addition to Photography I do design, specifically web design. I ended up with three new projects toward the end of last month that turned out great! Now I tentatively have two more that will happen soon, just waiting on the clients.

Here are a few screen shots of some of the recent ones.... and a couple side projects also.

Thats one big snowman

2007-12-20T07:52:00.001-07:00

Bug catcher

2007-11-27T08:47:00.001-07:00

My niece loves catching bugs. There is a spider in that jar.

Boondocks

2007-11-17T20:04:00.000-07:00

My nephew decided to go to Boondocks for his birthday. It was fun....

Found a few extra balls playing mini golf

Laser tag with complete strangers
(That's right, i don't know those kids.)

Go-Karts are more fun when you play bumper cars with them.

Recent Photos

2007-11-15T09:28:00.000-07:00

Went to the park with the Josie Family

New web site video

2007-11-12T14:20:00.000-07:00

New video has been posted on deepfocusstudios.com.

The Pie...

2007-11-11T12:07:00.000-07:00

Went to the Pie for the first time for my family's November birthdays... there are 8 or so birthdays this month... The pizza wasn't as good as everyone told me it would be... might have had something to do with the bazillain high school kids out on dates....

Took these photos with my phone.

Fantasy!

2007-11-09T22:55:00.001-07:00

I’ve been working on this new style of photography. I’ve really wanted to start photographing more creative projects and I’ve finally been able to accomplish that recently.

The style is Magical Realism in photography. Basically that means there is a fantastic or imaginative element to a real setting. These portraits are a lot of fun, especially when the person being photographed really gets into the shoot. To see some images so far check out my personal website using the keyword Fairy Tale http://www.jprasmussen.com/index.php?x=browse&category=16

OnStar?

2007-11-09T22:42:00.001-07:00

I just wanted to make a comment about a commercial I heard last night. It was about the OnStar service you can subscribe to. They made a big deal about how this amazing service is useful for unlocking your car door when you lock your keys inside… then they continued to talk about how many people lock their keys in their car each year or something along those lines.

Okay, good for them for advertising, but it just sounded like they were really trying to say “If you’re dumb enough to lock your keys in your car then we have a service for you!”.

C’mon people lets be a little smarter than that…

I've been distracted...

2007-10-30T00:07:00.001-06:00

I haven't posted in a while, here are few newborn photos and a wedding from the summer:

Newborn baby Trinity

This wedding was from this summer.

Moab Birthday

2007-10-01T14:59:00.000-06:00

I took off for the weekend of my birthday to Moab. Here are a few shots from the trip... you can see more at jprasmussen.com

UPVA Awards

2007-09-14T10:50:00.000-06:00

This week at the UPVA Awards Banquet I received a couple of wall decorations to prove that I was on the board of directors this year and last year and a Gold Medal. Last year I received a Silver Medal and another one of those wall decorations because I've been on the board since 2005.

Recent Bridals

2007-09-12T12:18:00.000-06:00

Here's a photo from a recent bridal shoot. There were so many great photos but I think this one is in the top favorites. Maybe I'll post more after her wedding.

Hypnotized Bunny

2007-09-10T12:11:00.000-06:00

I thought this was funny, my rabbit was either completely hypnotized or just playing dead. Either way it was entertaining and lasted a minute or two so I took this photo with my cell phone.

Fun with wind and rain...

2007-09-04T23:55:00.000-06:00

Earlier tonight quite the storm passed through the neighborhood...

Here's your problem.... a big stick fell on your car!
Well, I guess I should explain. A huge wind storm came through Salt Lake and I when I looked out side to see what the weather was doing to the neighborhood I saw the neighbors out side looking at their car. I went over to see what happened (and take a picture of course) and it turns out that the "large stick" that is laying on this car came from someone's carport that was across the street and two houses away. This "stick" also knocked down a number of fences on it's way to land on this car. Talk about aim!

oh and I some of this out over the lake...

Self Portrait

2007-09-02T16:50:00.000-06:00

Yesterday I noticed this field and decided it was a good place to take my own portrait.

Deep Focus Goes Mobile!

2007-08-31T00:51:00.000-06:00

Well, recently I've been sucked into this mobile web trap. While using the mobile web recently I decided that since I've spent so much time working on the new web site design that I could easily make a mobile web version. So, I did.

The mobile web url is www.deepfocus.mobi. If you browse there with your desktop browser it will just redirect you to the .com. So make sure you check it out on your mobile device!

Right now it's fairly basic, mostly because of the limitations to mobile technology, but despite that I will be adding as much as I can to the mobile site.

Drive By Shooting

2007-08-29T16:48:00.000-06:00

I've started a new series of photos that I am calling the "Drive By Shooting" series. Here are a two images from that on going series. I'll continue to add more as I get them.

In case the name isn't descriptive enough these are basically shots that I have taken from my car. Some are driving others are at the stop light. Either way they are a lot of fun to look at after.

You can see more on my personal website here.

New Web Site Design.

2007-08-29T15:18:00.000-06:00

I've been working on a new web site design off and on for about two months now. I've decided that it's ready enough to launch this week. I most likely will launch the new site some time late late Friday night or Saturday morning.

Here is a screen shot preview of the design:

The front page now has a video player that will eventually host interviews and samples of work. For now it's just going to play a video to remind you of Family Portrait Month in October.

Some of the other changes include: better organized menus, a little more content (even more coming soon), and everything is written in PHP which will allow for site growth in the future.

Also a few changes to the proofing system have been made. When users log in they will be taken directly to their photos. The prices list has be organized again, I'm not sure what happened before but some how they got all mixed up, and now less obtrusive watermarks and proofing numbers on the photos themselves.

Change is good, anyone who's been a client with me for more than 6 months knows that I tend to re-design the website about that often.

Quiet and fun....

2007-08-28T15:04:00.000-06:00

Last Friday I was lucky enough to be a part of the most quiet but still very fun weddings I've been to in a while. There were a total of 9 people there even counting me. And that's exactly what this couple wanted. This ceremony took place up at the top of the glen inside Rose Sach's Gardens.

What to do in the passenger seat?

2007-08-23T08:51:00.000-06:00

On a long trip back home from a shoot I was in the passenger seat and found that it was very entertaining to take my camera and shoot out the window at the other cars and lights. Here are the results of it...

On a long trip back home from a shoot I was in the passenger seat and found that it was very entertaining to take my camera and shoot out the window at the other cars and lights. Here are the results of it...

Last Weekend's Storm...

2007-08-22T18:52:00.000-06:00

These lighting strikes were hitting somewhere north east of the Salt Lake. Yes, I like to play in electrical storms.

The Kemp Family

2007-08-05T18:10:00.001-06:00

Saturday I was able to enjoy the Kemp Family. Kids will be kids and it turned out it was easier to throw them around instead of getting them to sit down for the photos.

By the way, no kids were harmed in the photographing of this blog entry.

It's been a while...

2007-08-04T13:42:00.000-06:00

Well I've been such a slacker on posting new images and things. But I'm going to do better. I have a lot of great photos that I need to get on here.

Last weekend I went camping out near Starvation Reservoir. I had fun floating on the water all day with out the camera, but back at camp I got a few images.

Cactus in the desert... who would have thought.

One of the many hummingbirds flying around the campsite.

Nothing better than campfire by moonlight.
It was a full moon that night.

Believe it or not, this photo was taken after 10pm that night. The moon was very bright.

Beesley Family

2007-05-05T14:35:00.000-06:00

Miles Turner

2007-05-01T10:55:00.000-06:00

Here are a few images from a recent baby photo shoot.

Sandiegon Afternoon at Balboa Park

2007-03-29T23:14:00.000-06:00

Disneyland

2007-03-28T22:32:00.000-06:00

"Downtown" Toontown

Firehouse inside Disneyland

Jack Sparrow

California Adventure

View of Tower of Terror

Micky and Me

California Adventure

Road trip to Moab, Castle Valley and Dewey Utah

2007-03-12T22:28:00.000-06:00

Road trip to the Salt Flats and Wendover

2007-03-03T18:28:00.000-07:00

Here are a few shots from a road trip I took today with Raychel.

The Farmer and His Wife

2007-03-01T19:13:00.000-07:00

I just wanted to show you some images from a shoot I did with a young couple and their 6 month old son. Here are a couple of shots...

I had a lot of fun and even saw something that made me laugh a good while. Where we were shooting there was an old red velvet stage curtain that I really wanted to use some how. I came up with my own version of the Farmer and His Wife. Bret and Liz were good sports about it and allowed me to use them.

New Albums

2007-02-26T21:53:00.000-07:00

I am very excited about a new set of sample wedding albums that I received today. They are difficult to describe however they are very impressive. The best part, in my opinion is that they are "Made in Italy"... Everything great and and romantic comes from Italy. Okay maybe not everything but a lot...

I'll have to photograph these albums to show them off here.

Interstate I

2007-02-24T22:59:00.000-07:00

A while back I was able to do shoot a local band, Interstate I. They needed some new promotional photos for some upcoming events. Here are a few images from that shoot.

I took a road trip over the weekend...

2007-02-22T19:11:00.000-07:00

And I found the old town of Thistle which used to be on the way to Manti

New Business Cards!

2007-02-19T16:26:00.000-07:00

I'm now setup to offer printing solutions for people and businesses. I can do anything from business cards to poster in a number of options. Anyway I am really excited about my new cards that I recently made. Ask me for one when you see me! They made with a special material that feels really different, the best way I could describe it is soft plastic. Anyway they are neato!

John F. Kennedy Jr. High School

2007-02-15T18:02:00.000-07:00

I was recently contacted by a school administrator asking for help with their auditorium.

"But why would they ask you for help?" Good thing you asked!

For several years of my life, not that I have a whole lot under my belt, I have been some how working in an auditorium, theater or for some type of performing group. That's where I learned a lot of my lighting skills and a lot of my knowledge on building random stuff...

Anyway the point is that I was contacted because they needed someone to help with their theatrical lighting, it's in bad shape. I have been able to take a look at what they have and it looks like someone never went up on the catwalks to replace burnt out lamps (stage talk for "light bulb") or do maintenance on the equipment. So that's what I get to do for them. I'll be getting all the necessary lights working again, hang and aim them so they have something usable for all their future events taking place. I enjoy doing things like this so it's not so bad even though it's a big mess.

eBay and art

2007-02-12T18:14:00.000-07:00

So I have recently had the opportunity to sell some valuable art pieces on eBay for, who I could now consider, a friend. She had four pieces that she has owned for some time but recently all they have been doing is taking up space. She recently redecorated and apparently the art does fit in any of the rooms in her house. So I was enlisted to help her get rid of these. I ended up selling all but one on eBay, the fourth didn't sell, and to my surprise one of the pieces sold for over three times the price we listed it for. It just so happened to be the one I liked the most, "Angel Affair" by Michael Parkes.

Anyway if you happen to be interested in selling some art work or you know someone who is let me know! I've decided it's kind of fun.

UPVA

2007-02-08T17:52:00.000-07:00

I have been on the board of directors for the Utah Professional Videographers Association (UPVA) for the past two years and now going into my third year. This year my task on the board is Secretary. I'm excited about it this year because there are some great goals each board member has and it looks like we are all on the same page with where we'd like to take the UPVA.

In case you were wondering the UPVA is a professional organization aimed at raising the standard of video production in Utah, specifically event and wedding videography. You can visit the website here. Yes "videography" is a real word. Even though you can use photography in the same way as videography but videographers will probably be offended by that because their camera shoots more frames a second... anyway. Me personally, I will stick with photographer.

Happy February

2007-02-01T23:26:00.000-07:00

Start of a new month and a new billing cycle. :)

If you don't know already you can visit my personal website at www.jprasmussen.com, soon I will be updating that website with more photos and a little bit more about what I do/can do.

Lately I've been working with Lauren at Hugs and Bugs helping her get a new website up and getting some of the designer clothing online in her new shopping cart. I just redesigned her website so make sure you take a look at it!

Giving this internet fad a try!

2007-01-27T00:32:00.000-07:00

Hiya! Welcome to this new and fantabulous blog. Let me introduce myself... I'm Jeremy, I work full time as a photographer and designer (www.deepfocusstudios.com) and I have decided to make a blog for myself. Really I'm going to try to post here frequently and mostly about photography and post a few portraits. I would like to think I could keep my random complaints to myself but those might pop up here and there too.

Anyway enjoy your visit I hope to be blogging soon.