Jason and Taunya 2017 Yakima WA

My whole life I have enjoyed art and the creative process.  When I was younger I enjoyed producing works of art in the mediums of pencil, pen and ink, prisma color oil based pencils and acrylic painting.  Great photographs have always intrigued me.  I have fond memories of sitting in a dark living room with my family, for a slide show of the photographs my Father had taken of us kids and the trips he had taken for work. 

My first camera was purchased by my parents in 1989, in preparation for my missionary service for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Johannesburg, South Africa .  It was a Ricoh point and shoot film camera that I loved.  As an adult, and due to my Father’s interest in photography I wanted to continue with this hobby.  My first film SLR (single lens reflex) camera was a Nikon N65 with two sigma zoom lenses, an 18-55mm and a 70-300mm.  A large “photo shoot” would consist of 2 to 3 rolls of 36 count film.  Because I was training myself through trial and error, and lots of reading, I was never really good enough to improve with 35mm film.  Fortunately, the digital era came along and saved my passion for photography.  The ability to have instant feedback and to take hundreds of photographs at no cost, helped me to improve my photography skills.  I purchased my first Digital SLR in 2006, a Nikon D80 with the then awesome 18-200mm Nikon lens.

Photography, like any other skill, passion or hobby requires practice and study to improve.  It also, like many other endeavors, is much easier and enjoyable with the right tools.

I love great landscape shots, and admire masters like Ansel Adams.  So my initial attempts at photography involved landscapes and other inanimate objects.  This was also a comfortable and easy place to start because they don’t complain about how long you take on a shot or if you mess up the shot a hundred times before getting the settings right!  In the fall of 2012, I was lucky enough to go on a landscape photography workshop with Nasim Mansurov of Photographylife.com fame.  These few days photographing fall colors in the San Juan Mountains of Colorado with instruction was immensely helpful in learning composition and hyperfocal distance focusing.  My initial portrait, sports and family photographs involved my own children in their different activities.

As you branch out into different types of photography you realize that there are specialized cameras, lenses and a myriad of other cool tools and toys, to make each type of photography better and easier.  

Thanks for visiting my website, it has always been a goal of mine to create a website for my photography business and as an outlet for my creativity.    I love to teach and share what I have learned over the last 25+ years doing photography.  I am currently living in the Yakima WA area, if you are interested in shooting and learning together on a photo-shoot please contact me!  

Jason