MudEyes

Sorry I haven’t been able to do official posts guys! We have been really feeling the rush, and have 3 weddings to finish before we are off to So Cal for the second week of august. In the meantime if you aren’t my friend already hit me up, I am still putting up some pictures here and there.

Ryan Richard Gauper | Create Your Badge

Upcoming Blogs:

Video blog for The Maternal Lens about what other then lenses! Primes of course =)

Video blog about the time money and stress we take on for potential wedding clients, and why we are worth the money!

And maybe even some 52 updates since we are on like week 24

Check back in a while, don’t lose us!

As you have seen from my previous post (Calling all motorheads) I have been getting into automotive photography and it’s been really fun. Jim contacted me because he saw justin’s bike that I shot (the black Z1000) So we set something up and it’s my first paid motors shoot. I think it went really well and I hope I get more opportunity to do some more stuff like this.

So if you have anyone you know that loves their car enough to let me give them some sa-weet photos of it, let them know I am the man for the job =)

Meet Jim and his custom built harley he did himSELF! Super cool dude.

Super cool bike!

Lots of cool details. Looks like he really obsessed over making everything look great.

Amazing paint job

I wanna do more!!! You can even tell me some names and I will chase down the lead! Let me know thanks guys!

EVERYTHING MUST GO! SUNDAY SUNDAY SUNDAY!! WELL NOT EVERYTHING! WHY AM I STILL YELLING?????

IN ALL SERIOU…Sorry, in all seriousness, we have a buttload of stuff to sell and now we have some more motivation (as if we didn’t have enough)

The Image is Found announced a ‘shootshop’ the day after we arrive in LA this august so we decided we HAVE to go to… They are going over a lot of the stuff we need the most and also we basically want to BE them. They are way creative and awesome. They were kind enough to let me pay for one spot and give me another week to pay for our second spot (since they fill up in like a day)

Soooo here’s some great gear that we would love for you to have… I mean pay for. I am a photoshop novice and didn’t spend hours on this so go easy on me =)

First up are the biggins. I have been holding on to my D700 because I just love it and didn’t feel like giving it up for butt-cheap so here it is now for butt-cheap because I have to =( I am going to be pretty firm at $2,100 for this thing. It is in very nice shape and was used for about 6 months before we made the switch. It IS a US model, there is nothing at all wrong with it. This is the best Nikon option period. You can read my review side by side with my new camera the Canon 5D mark II here but seriously this camera rules… feels so much better in your hands then my camera.

It comes with everything you see… I dont have the screen protector but there is no scratches miraculously enough. I also dont have the strap but if I dont sell the one below and you need one I will throw it in. The battery still reads new. I charged it after every use to keep it happy. The sensor is pretty clean as far as I can see. This thing is spotless.

The fisheye is the last lens I have with it… It’s a DX lens but it still looks really great even with the reduced resolution. Pretty fishy fisheye and it was one of my favorites… it is a great lens. Pretty much flawless as far as I see. Never dropped. I am asking $525 for this one and I don’t have the cap. Lost it at a wedding. Adorama retails it at $700 so I think thats pretty fair. If you want one you can get the cap here. It comes with a soft case that I never took out of the bag.

My last Nikon item is the Battery grip for either a D300 or D700 This is a must with this camera if you are holding it for any amount of time. It feels great and matches up with the build quality of the D700. You can even get 8fps with this grip and the right batteries. It has a little bit of paint rubbed of exposing some metal but otherwise never dropped or anything. You can buy it new for $260 so how about $185.

Another biggin is our basically brand new Canon 70-200mm f/2.8 IS L Telephoto zoom. It is just too expensive for us. We have too much to buy to make it worth it. But if you are in the market for one you know how great this lens is. For a zoom lens the sharpness doesnt get much better then this. The IS works amazingly at 1/20th of a second my shots are consistently sharp even at 200mm. This lens is also flawless and retails for $1,800. So I thought $1,400 would be very fair especially since we have used it about 2 times.

I wouldn’t be selling this if I didn’t have a second, nor would I if I didn’t want a TS-E so bad! So I am selling this amazing lens for $375 as it retails for $500. Again this Sigma is mint. We have used it since early this year and since we had 2 it stayed in the bag most of the time. We had no problem shooting this lens wide open for a whole wedding. I actually prefer this lens to the Canon version. Sharp focus every time unlike the canon. If you have a f/1.8 50, trust me this is worth an upgrade. you would have to shoot at f/3.5 to be as sharp as this lens, and you get a lot more background blur and speed. Check out all my images I have made with this one! flickr w/ 50mm

Since Holly and I bought the same computer right before we met we have always had 2. Now that we have a MacPro, iMac and 2 MacBook Pros, it might be time to trim down. This one is mine.

You can see the stats but it is a 2.16GHz dual with 2 gigs or RAM and 120gb HD. I used it for all my editing until we got the iMac about a year ago. Now if we do use it at all it’s when we travel. It shows signs of wear as you can see but really besides the battery needing to be replaced there’s not much wrong with it. Everything is cosmetic. It does not have any AppleCare and it runs with the Leopard OS. A new battery is like $100 bucks and I am asking $900 for this. Still runs very well and is completely capable (especially if you are upgrading from PC) 😉

Next I have an older surround sound system that I bought a few years ago. I didn’t use it a ton and the speakers sound great and the sub sounds well if you are fairly nice to it. I am not sure of the wattage and don’t have a box but it gets pa-ritty loud and sounds great with action movies and music. I am asking $75 for this.

Last is a few random items.

A neoprene strap $10
A couple Lens pouches you can strap to your belt. $8 (each)
Legal Forms $10
And a Gary Fong Lightsphere Cloud P2 or C2 it fits the bigger 580EX $30 and I will include a stofen or whatever flash diffuser.

Sooo hopefully you guys wanna give us all your moneys so we can go and learn how to get even better so that we can feed the fever for the Gaupers =)

Please email me at ryan@GAUPERphoto.com or call me at 269.929.8777

All items will have shipping tacked on if you arent local so we can work that out when you contact me. Thanks guys!!

When we met Bre and Mike in Battle Creek they brought along both parents and Bre’s best friend who also came to the lead meeting. Normally that would worry me because our couples really need to be focused on each other and not worry about everyone around but they did juuust fine

A mini rainbow even came out for us!

I was loving the 135mm f/2L on this shoot

Even managed to get an up-shot with it!

Bre was a pro!

Even their dog Bear tagged along!

I am pretty pumped about their wedding… Their family was really a pleasure on the shoot and I think it was great they came along for the event. I love tight family =)

A while ago Jarrett emailed me about doing a shoot with him and his girlfriend with their two dogs for her birthday. We normally haven’t done things like that in the past but it sounded really fun! I know pets can be difficult to capture sometimes so i just had to shoot shoot shoot! It ended up working out really well and we had a great time doing it.

Not to mention they are a great looking couple

The fisheye worked really well when I was lucky enough to get close

I like to think these dogs had a lot of fun too =)

We could let this glorious light go by without some good couple shots

We have been having some good luck with nature but it has to be in the exact right time of day… but hey, when it’s good, it’s great!

This last wedding was a crazy one! Lots of personality and lots of fun in a unique venue, and getting ready in the swanky Westin Hotel downtown. Sooo fancy MC Hammer had to come see whats up! We got him to take a picture with us… I didn’t even know it was him until he walked away… I just thought they wanted to snap a shot with someone.

HAMMER! I had your tapes when I was 8 years old!!!

Yeah he is way 2 legit 2 quit still =)

I have been loving this tilt/shift trick that Jay Eads showed me

Great Bride and groom!

I about pooped when I saw the vision in my head for what I wanted to do with this neon… It was scrumtrillecent

Holly really brought the awesome color out of this one… who knew a rainy night would be so sweet!!

More to come soon!

Thanks to my Buddy Nick for telling PJ and Maggie about us when PJ was wanting some engagement pictures. The day before when PJ was confirming the session he said, “she said yes so we are all set!” That made me laugh =)

We had a ton of fun!

One of the first shots we did ended up #1 (!!!!!!!!) on explore for Holly!! Explore is basically the best pictures on flickr. They choose 500 out of hundreds of thousands each day and she was lucky enough to be number 1!! I have only gotten up to like 20 something so it’s quite the big deal! Great work wife 😉

Maggie was a natural

PJ did pretty well too =)

They had the looove

We don’t do nature much but this is the time of year to do it!!

Unfortunately we are booked for their wedding which will be in Memphis but we really want them to have good wedding photography so let me know if you would be interested! They are a great couple that would make it very easy on you!

This was one of our very favorite weddings and I don’t have a ton of time to spend on a long blog post because we still have 2 weddings to edit before the serious wedding season roles around THIS weekend! So here is a few new shots of this wedding… I dont have a password on their full preview that you can see here

Amazing couple… Had the love for SURE

Super fun bride =)

Super fun DAY!

It happens to the best of us.

We are hoping to get this wedding done real soon and I will let everyone know, because it’s a good one!!

As you may have noticed for some reason I have kinda been on a cars and bikes kick lately. I have always been a serious motor-head at heart and I always love looking at the mags. with their awesome images of all these sweet cars!

So one of my buddies was telling me about getting a new Kawi 636 and I thought that would be really awesome to do some cool photos with that. So I did! I am thinking about starting to offer motor sessions but I am still feeling out the session prices and what would be good to offer so any feedback would be appreciated!

Here is some of my favorite images I have gotten to date:

And now that we have all the equipment we “need” (not want) We could finally afford to get a nice reliable car that would help us to look somewhat reputable when we have clients follow us to locations. Not to mention something that would get us to all these out of state weddings! So here she is our new[to us] Honda Accord LX! up to 35mpg on the highway and I have yet to get under 29 even all city driving. So we are very pleased =)

Of course I had to take a couple fancy shots today after a bath.

Hope you enjoyed them! Please let me know if you know of anyone that would be interested in this sort of thing, I can’t wait to do more!

Gauper out.

My next blog was going to be about our wedding in NY but I wanted to wait have have Holly edit a few fresh images that no one has seen so that gives me the chance to show you guys what I did last night! It was raining and I have been wanting to do some raindrop-on window bokah shots… But since Jay-Eads just showed me how to make a tilt-shift out of any lens, I thought I would try it out and see how it works!

It… was.. AWESOME!I have never ever seen Bokah shots like this so I am pretty pumped about them!!! So for all of these I am using a non-tilt/shift lens. just my trusty 28mm f/1.8 twisted off the mount

These shots are difficult to achieve because you have to manually focus while holding the lens off the mount, and it gives you a headache after too long but its so worth it!

It was a great light show moving about in my viewfinder, so I shot until my arms were tired from the task of twisting the lens around and holding it up to catch the light just right.

This one looks like the sun with flames exuding from it! amazing

You can see how the focus plain goes from front to back to top to bottom

It was great fun I am for sure going to have one enlarged! Which one do you like best?