Everyone has New Year’s resolutions. Updating my blog more often is one of my resolutions. So today I am updating my blog with a few photos that I came across as I was backing up the last years worth of pictures on my multiple hard drives. This isn’t really intended to be a “best of 2010″ collection of photos or anything close to it. Just a random smattering of some of the good stuff I’ve come across so far.
Hopefully this will be a resolution that I stick to beyond next week and if so, I will get a lot more pictures up and posted.

“How can I help”, you ask? Well, if you see something on the blog you like, don’t like, agree with, hate, etc. then be sure to leave a comment. I know people click on and visit the blog, my site statistics tell me that much. But if I see that people are engaged at all then I will be more motivated to keep it up.

Enjoy the pics, I sure enjoy making them!

A few months ago I posted a cool little video that showed some really cool timelapse photography by a really cool guy named Dan Eckert. I thought maybe people would thing I was really cool too if I could make a really cool video like Dan Eckert. It would make me even cooler if I talked a little bit about how I made this video rather that just show it. This way if anyone else wants to be cool like I have officially just become, feel free to shamelessly mimic me shamelessly mimicking someone else. Here is the video, be sure to make it full-screen.



You like that stuff right there? I hope so. Leave a comment if you did. If you didn’t like it, uhh, just quietly grumble and move along, thank you.

If you’d like to find out exactly how to make this kind of video there is a great tutorial over on AdoramaTV by my buddy Mark Wallace . If you are only mildly curious how this was made, it is pretty simple. You take a bunch of photos of the same thing over a long period of time, then you play them all back really fast.

I’ve always wondered what it would be like to be a parent of twins. Double the diapers, double the feeding, crying, sleep deprivation, and did I mention double the diapers? I have three wonderful, amazing kids of my own and readily admit that after the first month having each I have decided not to have any more. Obviously that hasn’t worked for us so far.

After hanging out with these two little dudes I have decided that if you are going to raise twins, you had better hope they are as awesome as these little guys. Seriously, I have never seen babies that fuss so little. It made photographing them really easy too, all I had to do was look at them and they would smile at me. Like this one below, my lovely assistant and wife, took the picture because when my face popped out from behind the camera he would grin like he was looking at a clown, okay maybe something less scary than a clown. We’ll just say that my goofy face was working better than anyone else’s so you get to look at the back of my head a bit now.

Arizona summers bring a lot of cool things: gorgeous sunsets, monsoons, barbecues, 4th of July, summer break from school for the young ones and even the occasional vacation. All those cool things aside, summertime typically isn’t very cool here. Take yesterday for example, it was only about 105 degrees outside when we started this senior portrait session. Doesn’t sound too bad does it? Well, I’m not a meteorologist or anything but I saw that the heat index was more like 116 degrees out there. That’s just downright nasty, gross and definitely not cool. Anyway, now that everyone knows I’m not a fan of the heat let me show you something that is cool, a few frames from the portrait session.

… just thought you’d like to know that. You know, in case you were wondering you could just look at these pictures and see how cool sleeping babies really are.             

Have you booked your high-school senior’s portraits yet? Come on now, they are going to graduate and move away, like, tomorrow. What are you waiting for?
Call or  hit me up on facebook, twitter, or email. =)

facebook.com/chad.westover
twitter: @chadwestover
chad [at] chadwestover [dot] com
602-456-CHAD (2423)

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Here’s a few cute pictures that I took a few weeks back in up in Snowflake. I love blue eyes.

Do you know an outstanding high school student that is graduating this year? If so, how would you like to give them (or their parents) the gift of senior portraits?

For the month of January you can nominate the high school senior of your choice for a free senior portrait package from Chad Westover Photography. Read below for all the details.

You can submit your nomination by doing one of two things. Go to the Chad Westover Photography Facebook Page ( <- click right here or on the link over on the right of the page) and post the name of your favorite senior or you can simply post their name in the comments at the end of this post.

Nominations can be submitted for the entire month of January and during the first week of February a winner will be announced. We will be choosing the winner based on two criteria.

1. Random selection – we will put all the names in a proverbial hat and choose on at random.
2. Best Reason for getting the free pics – if you can tell us why your favorite soon-to-be high school graduate deserves it more than anyone else it might give them a little better chance of getting picked.

Free Senior Portrait Package includes:

• 2-hour photo session
• 2 changes of clothes*
• You can choose the location**
• Free prints***
  - 25 wallets
  - 8 – 5×7
  - 4 – 8×10
• CD with internet-ready digital images for sharing in email, on facebook, personal blogs, etc. ****
• Password-protected online gallery to share with friends/family where they can view and order their own prints *****

Ye Olde Fine Print:

* Bring your own clothes, I don’t think mine will fit a high school senior and really will not look good on a girl.

** The location must be within one of the following AZ counties: Maricopa, Pinal, Gila, Yavapai, or Coconino. Travel charges of no less than one meeellion dollars will apply for other areas. Just kidding, if you live further away we might be able to figure something out.

*** Additional images are available for a reasonable charge. C’mon, I can’t give everything away for free!

**** These images will be tastefully branded with a small Chad Westover Photography logo just like the images above

***** This one is pretty self-explanatory. I just wanted to put another line with 5 asterisks