It’s like between the constant crushing need to brand yourself, adapt to a radically changing market (as in what the hell market am I in anymore), and shoot a lot of images under a lot of pressure, there is a brief time when you say this to yourself, “I’m working my ass off and having fun, while sailing!“ Last month, was one of those in between times. I got to go shoot for  San Juan Sailing  shooting marketing stills and video, while taking a week long course to get my bareboat charter certificate. (more on that later)

In preparation for the assignment, Sebago, sent me a pair of sailing shoes to put through the ringer.  I’d never heard of Sebago, until my friend KC Guyer, their fit model, turned me onto them and I’ve got to say that they are way cool shoes with a slight European feel.  They were instrumental in clambering up a metal pole that rocked side to side and back and forth.  They also had a badass draining quick dry system that actually worked.  Here are some pics of me on the boat hanging cameras from the spreaders and a portrait of me I had setup for one of my fellow sailors to take.  Sweet pick Julie!

Climbing the mast on the Botswain's Chair.

Assignment: Photograph the sailing school

The cameraman Jade is over the top!

I just finished shooting one of the most fun, energetic and pretty much over the top projects I’ve ever done. And the great thing was that it involved kids, families and my great friend Todd Davis. Todd is the author of the Handy Dad series of books published by Chronicle Books and this is his second book. As a sequel to the best selling Handy Dad, Todd talked me into (in about 3 sentences) shooting the hero shots for Handy Dad in the Great Outdoors.

Background on Todd:  Extreme skiing, snowboarding, wing suiter, with his own TV show on the HGTV network called Room Crashers. Check out the article here.  He also owns  a very cool design business www.epic-spaces.com

Well, I worked around Todd’s insane TV production schedule which was about every day for the last year (acutally we tried to shoot kids in the outdoors about 3 times in the winter, which was kinda dumb) we shot in San Francisco and finally finished it up last week in perfect weather here in Oregon.

It was an epic adventure of laughter, energy, late night editing, dusk to dawn shooting, and me going “is that a little over the top?” and Todd going “that’s perfect!”  In about a week we pulled off about a years worth of crazy, cool images of kids having a hell of a lot of fun.

I thought I’d share some of the out takes with you over over a couple days.  This shot is a long exposure where I framed the Golden Gate and SF (Todd lives in the city),  he took a red flashlight and light painted the word Handy Dad and then stood over on the left and I popped him with a softbox.  Looks like a bunch of photoshop, but it wasn’t.  Enjoy!

Our studio took on the pre production, location scouting and talent casting with an absolute dream team of talent, locations, and crew we pulled off a heroic shoot All tin less than two months from initial concepts to capture and delivery!

On January 1st, www.yaladesigns.com officially launched. The site has seen an incredible amount of activity and now Yala is starting to see all kinds of press. Check out this article written for The Oregonian‘s business section.

With this new image, Yala can now extend themselves further; beyond the DreamSacks moniker and reach out to a world of buyers and supporters. Congratulations to Yala Designs.

You can look forward to more great Jared Cruce Studio/Yala Designs collaborations in the coming months.

Coming Really Soon!

Adventure Photography Workshop  May 13-15

Rafting / Photography / Lodge Stay

Also, we are again offering one of the coolest photo courses available – a white water rafting trip / lodge stay / photo workshop on what many consider to be the premiere multi-day wilderness river in the US, the Rogue River.  Check out the Rogue River Workshop for more details.

Last year many of the workshops sold out so book early to insure your spot.

Ashland, OR    A hidden Gem of a Place!

Ashland, Oregon is an amazing vacation spot with the mountains, Crater Lake, the coast, rivers all right there!  The small town is nestled in the mountains, has all qualities of lodging from B&B’s to inexpensive motels, quaint shopping, awesome dining, Lithia Park and the prolific and award winning Shakespeare Festival.  Best of all most of the courses are held in Ashland in or near our studio, so pretty much you can walk from your hotel, to class, to dinner, to a play and to bed!

Workshop Schedule 2011:

Adventure Photography May 13-15
Location Lighting June 24-26
Rogue River Workshop September 16-19
HD DSLR Video Workshop  October 7-9

Discount for Multiple Classes and Professional Associations

We offer a 15% discount to students who take multiple courses *  See our About the Workshops page.  We are also offering a 10% discount to ASMP members as well as members of Southern Oregon Film and Television  – SOFAT.

Please contact us if you are a member and we’ll hook you up with a discount code!

Professional Screenwriting Workshop

Coming up this Month!

Jared Cruce studio is hosting a screen writing course with “Calvin Marshall” Director and Writer Gary Lundgren.

Spaces are still available but we recommend you make bookings quickly as space is limited.   Register and Info here >>>Reserve a Spot for Screenwriting Workshop.

UPDATE 2: For those that didn’t get to see the footage, here’s another version cut with an already released song, “Long Way Home”. The more I listen to these guys, the more I love them. Can’t wait for the new album to drop in April.

UPDATE: We accidentally jumped the gun a bit. The band and the real video shoot were so sweet but we just need to give the band time to release the song properly. We will have an altered version of the snippet up soon with a different sound track, until “Hands of Time” can be properly introduced. I guess this makes for good propaganda and viral marketing. Check back soon to view the footage.

A couple weeks ago my friend Gary Lundgren (writer /director – Calvin Marshall starring Steve Zahn) and his long time DP Patrick Neary (dp on Calvin Marshall) shot a video for a ridiculously cool band from LA  “The Janks.” The video was a 1930′s sort of speak easy concept and Patrick shot it on his 1940′s hand cranked 35mm camera.  I’ve never seen anything like it.  Gary invited me down to hang out with the crew as “2nd AC” and I was able to shoot a few stills and some motion clips I thought I’d share with you.

Pat is an amazing DP and I really was impressed with not only his skill as a cinematographer, but how calm he was shooting a world war II era camera, with limited stock on hand and no budget or room for errors or screwups.  I’d of been totally gripped.  There were about 70 people including crew and cast and everyone had a blast.

The band, a super talented and fun group, is releasing their first album and Gary and Pat are producing a few videos for it.  I can’t wait to see the footage.  I’ll pass it along when it’s out.

I recommend checking out the movie Calvin Marshall – it’s a great coming of age baseball movie and was shot in Southern Oregon in 2008.