Category Archives: New Work

Recent images taken by Jay during his travels and explorations while at home in between trips.

  • Mountain Biking Galbraith Washington by Jay Goodrich

    Owen Dudley takes it easy on his first ride after reconstructrive knee surgery in Bellingham Washington.

Speed Freaking Photographing

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I met and began photographing Owen not too long after I moved to Washington. He was the ski school instructor at Mount Baker Ski Area that my daughter Jade gravitated to on her first day of non-dad lessons. He was responsible for getting my well-opinionated daughter to listen and actually make turns while hauling ass over snow. I remember the first day we shot skiing photos together and I remember the first day he schooled me on the art of downhill mountain biking like it was this morning. I have seen him injure himself every season that I have known him. And if there is anyone out there that is a testament to the human’s ability to heal it is definitely Owen.

Yesterday, I had a couple of hours before having to pick my daughter up at school and was on my way out the door for a ride when Owen called. He had just been cleared to ride some mild trails and wanted to know if I wanted to shoot. I looked at the clock and hesitated, knowing how often I am late to pick Jade up. Okay let’s do it. There is a trail in Bellingham that I have come to love for its amazing trees, and you already know how much of a tree whore I am, so this was a no brainer with fall color beginning to set in around here.

By the time we actually found the parking area that I always ride my bike to, but never my truck, I realized we were screwed for time. Owen may have been cleared to throw a leg over a bike, but he couldn’t climb, and definitely couldn’t crash. That left me to ride his new Transition 29er into where we were going to take some shots. Just one more reason for me to be jealous. As I looked down at my phone when we started shooting I had 15 minutes to pull something from nothing. The song Ten Seconds to Love by Motley Crue came to mind as I fired off 371 frames. I almost made it look as if I knew what I was doing. It’s safe to say that Owen still knows how to ride. And, at least I am learning how to not be as late. Speeding always helps. As does the song Breakin the Law by Judas Priest. Allegedly.

  • Post-It Notes in a Cabin by Jay Goodrich

    Notes line the walls and ceiling of a guest cabin on the McConkie Ranch in Vernal, Utah.

Chaos Theory

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I wanted you to have a brief look inside my head lately. Complete Chaos. That is what it looks like to the naked eye, it’s safe to say that it’s a little bit of a chaos theory. I see complete organized disorganization. Ah, I think. There are places in our country that offer such unique perspectives, a photographer would be insane to walk past without capturing a single frame. Let alone making the drive to discover and visit, if only for a brief moment. Chaos that is. Notice the Donation Box. More soon.

  • Melting Ice Cave Mount Rainier by Jay Goodrich

    Winter snow melts from summer run off in Mount Rainier National Park, Washington.

Retract that Last Statement・A Contradiction of HDR

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“Do I contradict myself?
Very well, then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)” – Walt Whitman

Okay, so I know that I have been discussing my lack of exposure merging and use of any HDR software in recent posts and articles. Now it’s time for a little contradiction. I have been completely content with my results from graduated neutral density filters in the field. So have my clients. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction though. Right? Enter the snow cave from stage right. Now, can I retract all those previous statements about tossing HDR techniques to the wind? Unless they devise some kind of special graduated neutral density filter that can mask an irregular object, or better yet be adjustable in the field, I will need to do what is best for my vision. That would be some really cool James Bond type tool wouldn’t it though?

When I saw this composition, I knew what I wanted for my final image, I just needed to figure out how to get it. Once I was back in my office, I quickly performed a few trial and error solutions in various softwares, I came up with this final workflow. I merged four of the exposures that I shot in Photomatix 4, then I took that composite image and hand blended in the sky and the Tatoosh Mountains beyond in Photoshop. I wanted my viewer to see a hint of the streaming water that was blowing in the light breeze, feel the coolness of my surroundings, and finally visualize the color coming through the thinner areas of the snow roof.

This final, final image was then mastered in Photoshop accounting for contrast, dodging and burning, color saturation, and vignetting. I think I was successful?

This truly proves that there is a tool for every occasion in photography. My goal is to never fall into the rut of shooting one or the other, but allowing for my scene to dictate which direction and approach I need to take in order for my vision to shine through to my viewer.

So what is your take? How do you feel about HDR and image blending? Do you regularly achieve the results you were looking for when you utilize it?

  • Mountain Biking Forest Bellingham Washington by Jay Goodrich 1

    Original RAW capture untouched.

  • Mountain Biking Forest Bellingham Washington by Jay Goodrich 2

    Mastered original.

  • Mountain Biking Forest Bellingham Washington by Jay Goodrich 3

    Mastered Black and White Favorite.

A Midday Sun Battle

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There are many that believe you can only create a superb image at the edges of the day. The reality is, that even during the long days of summer, during midday sun, you can come up with creative ways of expressing your vision. Weather and schedules don’t always collide to provide you with the best situations. Sometimes you have to make it collide. You have to make your vision come through.

This is exactly where I was last week. When Heather and I left the house, we were enshrouded in clouds. The hillsides were covered with that misty drama that I love to shoot in. This was going to be the day that I was going to be able to get mist and mountain biking in the forest near my home. We dropped the kids off at day-care and proceeded north to the trail that we decided to ride on this day. It was only fifteen miles from our house as the crow flies and as we got closer and closer, the clouds began to dissipate. Before I knew it, we were in full-blown sun. This is where the words that can insult many of you begin to come out of my mouth. My favorite begins with the letter F. It was safe to say that I was generally aggravated with my choice to go further instead of staying where I knew we could succeed. A classic concept of the “grass is always greener” illustrated right in from of my face. At this point in my life and my career, I should know better. Learning experience number 2,546,300, some review of my life may be necessary again.

As I finished kicking the dog, the ground, myself, and my bike, I finished my coffee and decided to just simply go for a ride. I may have returned with something different and I may have not. My images may have all gone into the trash. Heather reminded me that this was all okay. I completely disagreed, but I cleared my head so I could be open to what the day sent me. We agreed to ride a bunch of trails that we have never ridden before in order to see what else was available for future image making. Climb after climb in the sun and heat, I passed by opportunity upon opportunity. The light just wasn’t right. It was high-noon after all.

Just as we came to the finish of our ride, I found what I was looking for. I wasn’t really sure how great the finished product was going to be, but I spent a few minutes having Heather ride my composition numerous times. I varied my exposure and my framing slightly for each image and gave her instructions on how I wanted her to tweak her body position and at which point on the trail. The beauty of digital is that I have the chance to see what I am creating as I create it, so I know when the moment is complete. Usually, it is that last sequence. As I shot the final photograph, I was pre-visualizing it as a black and white, but I wasn’t really sure of the technique that I was going to apply to it. After some trial and error, I ended up using the over exposed highlights of the backlit maple leaves as the whites in my final conversion and then added light to my shadows. I am really happy with the results and the final image, even though it was created in midday light it represents something unique and different.

Maybe the grass, or should I say the leaves, are greener on the other side of the fence if you go beyond those standard expectations?

  • Wildfire in Eagle, Colorado by Jay Goodrich

    In a moment a stray lightening bolt ignites a wildfire near Castle Peak in Eagle Colorado.

The Hotbox

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We were getting ready to head out to the local Thursday evening concert. There was a charge in the air. As the hottest summer on record continued, we watched a thunderstorm create nothing but lightening in what we deemed the hotbox. A few specks of rain hit the ground and my arms like I was in the line of fire for a spitting competition from the heavens. The drops were cold, but there were so few of them they felt like acid, messing with my nerves and my senses. I wanted to be home, even though I was kind of already there. Virga was all around. Winds were howling. Then a solitary crack! Instantly, flames erupted like the reef break at Teahupo’o. Fueled by wind and the surrounding ultra-dry landscape, we watched the fire grow into a monster, multi-acre burn in mere minutes. A general “whoa” resonated from everyone. I grabbed a camera. I recorded stills and motion as the fire just plain exploded.

This whole event, put an already uneasy town, into complete unrest. It was currently 106 degrees in Denver and the most destructive wildfire on record was burning everything in sight near Colorado Springs. At 6pm in the evening and only June the whole atmosphere was shrouded in the haze from fires throughout the west. This never happened before. At the concert rumors spread as fast as the fire. Eagle Ranch was burning. Abrams Creek. And the list went on. I watched the helicopters flying up to the locations where I believed they were getting water. I understood their flight patterns, because I myself had flown in and out of the Eagle Airport hundreds of times. I put my friends at ease. We continued to watch and consume cold beverages. Within hours Army Sikorsky Chinooks covered the blaze with thousands of gallons of water and there wasn’t even a glow to photograph after sunset. The devil inside me wanted more, but I was glad that it all faded into the darkness of the night. We would mountain bike through the leftover haze in the early morning hours.

  • Stars Above Castle Valley by Jay Goodrich

    The stars above one of the tower formations in Castle Valley near Moab, Utah.

Discovery

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Some of the best mistakes in life come completely by accident. Kids, jobs, clients, and even education. If we are to truly learn from our mistakes we shouldn’t repeat them right? It’s the repetition portion that seems to be the hardest part of the equation to strive away from. Once we make that discovery though, our life, mission, and careers take on a building block mentality that allows us to reach the pinnacle of our existence.

I could sit here and highlight pages of quotes from those famous and not, about continuing forward, learning from mistakes, taking paths less traveled. And you can be inspired and you can move forward with whatever strikes you as important from those ideals. The cold hard truth is that at some point you are going to have to sit back and realize that you fucked something up. How you handle the breakdown when this occurs is where you fail or succeed beyond the common naysayer.

Risk. Realization. Forward motion. Learn. Adjust. Succeed. Adjust. Fail. Continue. Success again. Year in and year out. Then you can look back see the valley way below you.

“You can’t connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something – your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.” – Steve Jobs

The image included here was a fluke. A complete mistake. Half way through the darkness of night I realized that I did not set my lens to infinity. A quick turn of the dial during the exposure and a head shake that believed the shot was completely flawed. I moved on to the next image that fixed the condition. What I didn’t realize at the time, was that a new creation was writing to the card in the background as I re-shot. Realization. Learn. Success. Connecting the dots forward. I will try this again for sure. The road continues.

  • Air in the Mist by Jay Goodrich

    Owen Dudley catches air in the mist of the Northwest Rainforest near Bellingham, WA.

Adventure is Most Definitely a Journey

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Or is the journey an adventure? I think the two are so interconnected and interrelated that you cannot have one without the other. I have been living an adventure for a very long time now and it is has definitely been a journey. An experience. Life like in all respects. There are those sayings–Life is like a journey…With age comes wisdom…etc. Full of twists, turns, ascents, and descents.

The whole concept of adventure and journey can fit into any aspect of life. Or life itself. Think about it. Creativity. Those who seek it regularly, discover it is full of twists, turns, peaks, and valleys. Life is the same way. Growing older. Peaks, valleys, twists and turns. Exploration. Peaks, valleys, twists and turns. All of it, every complete part of it is connected to the ideals. It doesn’t matter where, when, or how you are at any given point in your personal life, professional life, or creative life. You will encounter journey and adventure and life. Symbiosis. Very much like the relationship of aperture, shutter speed and iso.

The key to your success in any aspect of whatever is very simple and very hard. Recognize how to rise from the valley. How to prolong the peaks. To lean into the turns. And continuously grow and progress. The reason it is difficult is because the clues along the way may not be placed right out in front of you. Hence the reason the journey is an adventure and the adventure is a journey and it all corresponds to just about every scenario you can place in front of it.

To abstract? Maybe. Or maybe not? You be the judge. Think about it and think about every experience you have had to this date. Were the mistakes you made avoidable? If only one decision went a different way would have the whole thing turned out differently? Better or worse. With age comes wisdom, but does wisdom come if you are not open to experiencing all that life throws at you? If you don’t ride the mistakes and climb to the peaks, where will you be? And is the valley necessarily a bad place? Think about Picasso’s Blue Period. If you sit on the couch watching tv will you be a better person than if you make a mistake in the mountains and a death in your party results from it? All possibilities based on action and reaction.

I am hoping that this post forces you to think about your life. Your journeys and adventures. It may pose more questions than answers, but it is those questions that may have you realizing that at 2:01PM you have the ability to turn every adventure and every journey right around from whatever it isn’t to whatever it should be. The same holds true at 2:02PM, 2:03PM, and 2:04PM. Now stop reading.

  • Sunset over Mauna Kea by Jay Goodrich

    The sun reaches the horizon at the end of another day on the Hawaiian Volcano of Mauna Kea.

Well–We’re Back in the Plane–Again

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Hawaii in November equals RAIN. Then, more rain. And then, some more rain. What most people don’t understand is that the island of Hawaii has two massive volcanos that rise over thirteen thousand feet bisecting the landmass and thus bisecting the weather.  These peaks are so high that in “man bar speak” they would be classified as fourteeners. Everything grows when men get drunk, come on you should know that by now. These two volcanoes are so massive that they get snow year round. This is great for me as a skier, but even better for me as a photographer. You want unparalleled light, just head directly up to the dividing line and you will find the light that causes a true photography addiction.

During my recent Hawaii workshop with Gavriel Jecan it rained nine out of nine days, and out of those nine days, we only missed a spectacular sunset once. The sea was a bit angry on that particular day and almost the whole island had rain and clouds. Sometimes you win and sometimes you lose. Always remember though, weather equals drama and drama equals amazing photographs. Well, it’s time for me to board my private jet back to the mainland, re-enter society with the minions, and work harder to make enough money to pay my bills next month. Yes, I was fortunate enough to hitch a ride on a friend’s private jet into and out of Hilo for this journey and man that was an experience. Also remember, that reality can sometimes come crashing down upon you when you least expect it. God it is going to suck flying coach after this trip.

  • Riding the Pipeline by Jay Goodrich

    Jay Goodrich captures a self portrait while riding the Pipeline trail in Eagle, Colorado.

Just a Little Mountain Bike Porn

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I had dinner with friend and fellow photographer Jim Goldstein in San Francisco earlier this week and the conversation covered the full spectrum of subjects. Kids, blogs, work, play, friends, future workshops, everything had a go at one point or another. It was a wonderful evening. During our discussions Jim told me about a blog post he did on HDR titled, “Why I Hate HDR: Photo Technology Porn.” And within a second, the synapses, began firing. Ah, porn…wait sorry, different thought. Actually, that is what came to mind first, but in the split-second, official review of the tape, I was actually thinking about something another friend of mine said to me while I was in Eagle, Colorado shooting an article for Dirt Rag Magazine. Bike Porn. “So we need to go out and get you some photos for that article that will make the bike porn fools drool over. Not a problem can do.”

Now before you all go to your bedrooms or bathrooms (showers more specifically), bike porn is not having sex on a bike. It’s having sex with a bike. No, kidding, it actually refers to watching crazy videos of crazy riders doing crazy shit on their bikes. You sit their jaw agape, bit of drool hanging out, much like you would if you were…watching porn. You long for the locations, the ability to ride the lines, and/or the actual bikes the athletes are on. It is the simplest of marketing concepts. Create something that is sleek, shiny, and desirable and you will sell millions. True porn has it, most sport industries have it, hell even camera manufacturers have it. So here, with a little sneak as to what is coming (no pun intended) is one of the 5400 images that I shot while working on my upcoming article. A little teaser. An image of myself riding a trail named Pipeline. Yes, I am in fact riding the pipeline. An homage to me, a self-indulgent artist. Now it’s time for a cold shower. This is just the beginning…of the porn.

Thank you Jim and Chris for enlightening my thought processes a little more than yesterday.

The Road Trip

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The Truck Stop in Green River, UT by Jay Goodrich

I am sitting here reliving my youth. It’s the same damn nightmare I remember, just different. I am driving on Interstate 84 finally headed home from a two-week long trip to Colorado. And, I am in fact twitching like a patient in a mental rehabilitation center. Is that the politically correct way to say that? If not, Lord I apologize.

Do you remember that nightmare? I don’t think there is an adult in their mid-forties that didn’t have the same nightmare as I did. A dark green metallic station wagon, simulated wood grain side panels with dark green metallic vinyl upholstery. Windows sealed tight. Air conditioning off. Dad chain smoking Parliaments and on enough coffee to kill a small horse. Mom reading a book or taking care of the whining kids in the back. Kids almost in tears to the point of twitching themselves. Those kids were me and my sister. My father trying to break the land speed record that he apparently held from last year’s trip to Yellowstone, Yosemite, or Disney Land. It doesn’t matter. I remember the chatter on the CB radio. And the whip antenna on the back chrome bumper of the green machine. “We’ve gotta Kojak with a Kodak at mile marker twenty five.” “Breaker one nine, breaker one nine.” The CB was the size of a large toaster. The car had an eight track with some kind of country-western crap playing over and over. Finally, at the breakdown point, my sister asks, “Are we there yet?”

Campfire Movement by Jay Goodrich

These road trips were a right of passage for most kids my age. I remember writing of them often when I returned to the school year, as did most of my friends. This was our little part of history. We stayed in hotels, motels, parks, campgrounds, and even in the metallic green monster itself. We snuck sips of Budweiser from our dad’s beers when they weren’t looking. Sometimes too many sips. We peed on trees far and wide. Ate hot dogs, hamburgers, and beans. Tons of beans. Then of course there were the s’mores. Hershey’s, marshmallow, and graham crackers. Not to mention the snacks that were full of sugar along the way. A bribe, to keep our mouths shut. Didn’t they realize the sugar was the cause of all of their problems?

Heather Goodrich Dropping into "Flushed Away" by Jay Goodrich

Am I hitting a chord within your soul yet? Enter 2011. Road trip rights handed over from our parents to Heather and me now . I am thinking of that line in the Matrix Revolutions, Morpheus looks at his ex-girlfriend Naomi as she asks him to dance, “Some things never change.” Then they hear her current boyfriend call her name, and he finishes with, “And some things do change.” Yes we have traded the green machine in for a Toyota Matrix on this trip, sometimes we take the FJ. We don’t smoke, we do try to break our personal records, knowing all too well that it will only be possible if we actually break the speed limits in larger quantities than previously. I truly now know why you try to break those records though. Because the faster you get there, the faster you get out of the car and away from the screaming kids. Heather does read. I can actually type on the laptop thanks to learning to fly an airplane in IFR conditions-that motion sickness thing kind of goes away. We both drink tons of coffee. We both drive. And we both argue with the kids and each other. The car gets trashed. The kids freak out. Although not as much as I did. Maybe it’s all the movies on the iPhones and soon coming iPads.

Jade Goodrich Giving Mark Kogelmann some Attitude by Jay Goodrich

Is it worth it? Well as an adult, if you actually take the time to look around while traveling, yes it is. You will quickly realize that those pieces of Americana that you remember from your youth do still exist. There are places in Idaho where the seventies never left. The worlds biggest frying pan is still in Kansas or close to it. And now you can beat your parents records because your car can actually travel faster on less gas. All this is contingent on the fact that you can put up with your kids and your spouse long enough to survive the journey. Yeah it’s safe to say that I wouldn’t trade any of this. What’s that saying? “Life is worth the journey…” Good feeling gone. I have to go, Jade wants to know if we are there yet.