NXTFoto » Professional commercial, event, and portrait photography based in Portland, Oregon

New Site Design!

John Van Boxtel — Wed, 16 Jun 2010 08:01:07 +0000

I have been reading quite a bit about what photo editors and buyers look for in Photography website designs and wanted to try and incorporate some of that research into my website. I decided I wanted to try and make a much cleaner site design that focuses on my photographic work. The idea is a clean simply site let’s my work speak for itself and should let the site load faster and look “sharper”.

So, here is my new site! Please tell me what you think, and let me know what things you like in the new site, and what things you think still have room for improvement. I know one thing I need to still work on is getting all my images and posts properly tagged so they are more search engine optimized (SEO). This should be happening over the next few weeks but shouldn’t change the look at the feel of the site much.

Portfolio Shoot – Chase

John Van Boxtel — Mon, 03 May 2010 00:23:36 +0000

Did another portfolio shoot for a local aspiring model. Chase was a lot of fun to work with and brought along his own entourage. I always encourage new models to bring along some friends as it helps them to relax and that is what allows the pictures to flow. Ended up with too many good frames, but here are my two favorites.

It’s official! Two day workshop with Joe McNally, July 31st/Aug 1st

John Van Boxtel — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 07:12:20 +0000

It’s official! Joe McNally is coming to Portland, Oregon this summer to teach a two day intensive workshop on July 31st, August 1st.

This workshop is going to be amazing, and is limited to just 15 people to give you a chance to have personal instruction and practice with Joe. Instruction will be split between working in a classroom setting and working at two on-location shoots.

Full details and registration available at:
www.nxtfoto.com/joe-mcnally-workshop/

Ryan Brenizer reviews new Nikon 24mm f1.4 prime lens

John Van Boxtel — Mon, 12 Apr 2010 05:46:26 +0000

Looks like Ryan Brenizer a wedding photographer in New York City has done a basic review of the new Nikon 24mm f1.4 prime lens. He seems to think it is a keeper if you are doing any kind of low light work professionally or need separation through depth of field at wide angles. What do you think? Does those two things justify over $2000 for a lens for your work?

AlterEgos

John Van Boxtel — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 23:09:21 +0000

AlterEgos is a “pub crawl” organized by AlterEgosSociety each year in Portland, Oregon where the city’s Heroes face off against the Villains with fun prizes, competitions, and of course lots fun and socializing. Participants don their own unique super-hero or super-villain outfit, complete with props and special powers. Some of the creations included, “The Red Menace”, “Abstinence”, “Empathy”, and “Professor Preposterous”. “Pluto’s Revenge” was an evil villain out to restore Pluto’s status as a planet, and “The Virgin Sister” was out to smack evil hands with her super-powered ruler. I decided to go down and take some photos of everyone participating this year. I will be posting a whole gallery from this event to my events section in the future, but here is a few of my favorites. What super hero or villain you would be? What would be your super-power? Let us know in the comments.

Dangers of Microstock Photography

John Van Boxtel — Tue, 06 Apr 2010 01:33:26 +0000

There is a pretty funny article about the dangers of Microstock photography over at Fair Trade Photographer.com. They do a pretty good job of visually displaying what can happen when you let yourself decide to use inexpensive stock images to represent the people of your company. This is probably also an excellent time to point out the NXTFoto can usually do a basic portrait of the people at your office on-location in about 1 hour (up to 10 people) and have the images touched up and back to you in a day. Licensing for use on a website for a one year period is also very reasonably price. Here is a recent image that was one for a real estate agent that need a headshot for business cards and their website. We were able to do the photography on-location, and get back edited images and a business card draft in about 24 hours.

Mobile Edition

John Van Boxtel — Sat, 03 Apr 2010 07:24:32 +0000

NXTFoto.com now has a mobile edition of the site. Now any time you come to the site on your mobile phone you will see a simplified version made just for your phone. You still have the option to see the full site too.

Fight Club!

John Van Boxtel — Mon, 22 Mar 2010 23:25:10 +0000

This weekend I helped to organize another meetup for the Portland Strobist Group (www.pdxstrobist.org) with a theme of “Fight Club.” It was a great event where I found them an abandoned looking building and we were able to cram 40 photographers, 2 makeup artists, and 6 models into its expanses. It is always fun working to help teach lighting to new people as well as getting to play with new ideas myself. Here are a few of my frames from the shoot.

Salton Sea

John Van Boxtel — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 23:43:50 +0000

Being a night photographer I have to admire the work of Troy Paiva of Lost America fame, so when I got a chance to visit a place that I had seen in some of his photos I jumped at it. The Salton Sea is a lake that has no drainage and at one time was attempted to be made into a resort community for people from LA and San Diego. Unfortunately, the fertilizer from local agriculture would drain into the lake in later years and kill all the fish in the lake creating a giant smelly crusty coast around the entire perimeter.

Luckily for me the lake was not in such a condition when I went out to see it. The bad part for me was that many of the old abandoned and failing apart buildings I had hoped to shoot at night had been torn down or bulldozed. I was able to find a few old trailers at the lake and get a couple good shots. Here are my two favorites:

Speakeasy Lingerie

John Van Boxtel — Mon, 22 Feb 2010 00:40:41 +0000

Had a quick shoot with a couple of the girls from Speakeasy Lingerie this past weekend. Was lots of fun and was able to play with a couple of cool ideas including going for the “bad girl” look with a motor cycle. Also got to play with high-speed sync (1/8000 sec) to drop the ambient exposure at least two stops for the bike shots.