Morgan Petroski 4/15/15 Morgan Petroski 4/15/15

Game of Thrones Season 5 Premiere - Santa Fe

In Santa Fe, the city different, at George R.R. Martin's personal theater, the Jean Cocteau Cinema, HBO and GRRM hosted a Game of Thrones Season 5 premiere with a tiny red carpet on Saturday March 28, 2015. Now I just might be a Game of Thrones fan... so needless to say I was excited to shoot the event for the Albuquerque Journal. This also meant assistant arts editor and UpFront columnist Adrian Gomez and I were able to watch the first episode of the new season a few weeks early. High five! George R.R. Martin is a very cool cat and extremely generous. I even overheard him tell some fans that were passing by and stopped for a photo with him to wait around to see if any seats opened up so they could come in and view the episode. I don't know if they made it in or not, but for an invite-only event that was fully booked that was very kind of him. He and the theater also had earlier screenings in the morning for locals willing to wait in line. It was so popular they added an extra screening at the last minute.

Santa Fe is a great place for a celebrity of any caliber to live or visit. The city and state are so laid back that celebrities can really just be part of the community. During the after party a group of actors currently in Santa Fe filming "The Ridiculous Six" stopped by and mingled with party goers and of course took some time to pose on the red carpet, but more importantly, pet and pose with Flurry, an Arctic wolf that was visiting from the Wild Spirit Wolf Sanctuary for the premiere. By the end of the night it honestly felt like the wolf was more sought after for a photo than any of the celebrities.

George R.R. Martin has lived in Santa Fe for many years, before the Game of Thrones empire took off. The theater he now owns, the Jean Cocteau Cinema, closed down in 2006, and he bought it, renovated it, and reopened it in 2013, much to the delight of many New Mexicans. It's a neat little theater and he pretty much shows whatever tickles his fancy.

Overall the premiere was quite laid back, heck the red carpet was all of 10 feet long. Whereas the season 5 premiere in San Francisco appeared to be what you would expect from such a popular TV show, with a much longer red carpet that stretched past the piles of media waiting to interview and photograph the show's celebrities. I watched the red carpet portion live on meerkat a few days before our own Santa Fe premiere. They were completely different experiences and I wouldn't trade ours for anything.

Read more about the premiere in Adrian Gomez's UpFront column: "Hollywood comes to the City Different." See more photos on our Albuquerque Journal photo page: Game of Thrones Season 5 Premiere.

Game of Thrones Premiere Santa Fe Jean Cocteau

George RR Martin Game of Thrones Premiere

The Ridiculous Six at Game of Thrones Premiere

Morgan Petroski 3/31/15 Morgan Petroski 3/31/15

Santa Fe Vintage Engagement Session - Aaron & Laurel

Meet Aaron and Laurel, two of my best friends. I've known them since I moved to Albuquerque almost eight years ago. They have been together even longer than that and are finally getting married! Wahoo! Together they make up such a strong team that nothing, not even cancer, stands a chance at weakening their relationship. They are both vintage aficionados so naturally a vintage engagement session was right up their alley. We decided that the train depot in Santa Fe was the place to start. It was a FREEZING cold Saturday in late February but you can't tell from the photos. They were troopers and really didn't let the cold bother them. We did make sure to bundle them up in between shots. Luckily (for us) the Santa Fe Southern Railway service is currently suspended (perhaps because it's winter?), which meant the beautiful teal train that can be ridden for tours and events, was parked in place and not going anywhere. It made the perfect spot for their photos. We were very lucky. Laurel even brought along a vintage suitcase as a prop! We really hadn't planned everything so down to the detail, but everything fell into place better than we could have imagined.

During the shoot we all needed a break from the cold and wind and wandered into the Sanbusco mall nearby. There I spied a local bookstore with piles of books. Laurel is a constantly hungry book worm, so I knew this would be a great spot for some photos. With the store's permission we did a few quick photos in there too. Thank you op.cit. books! We made a few more stops around the area after we had thoroughly defrosted, including outside the Jean Cocteau Cinema and an art gallery with a beautiful blue LOVE art piece out front. Our final stop was to Kakawa Chocolate House for some hot chocolate to warm up. It was a great afternoon with some very dear friends.

Congrats again to you two and can't wait for your big day! Love you both so much! ♥

Morgan Petroski 3/30/15 Morgan Petroski 3/30/15

Why I'm a Fujifilm fangirl

Disclaimer: This is a post that is at least a year overdue.

The last camera to have the privilege of me hauling it around everywhere I went was my Canon 5DmkII, with my 50mm attached when I wasn't on assignment. This all changed almost two years ago. My co-worker and staff photojournalist at the Albuquerque Journal Roberto Rosales had purchased the Fuji X-Pro1, I borrowed it and then couldn't get it out of my mind.

It was like the first time I held my medium format Yashica 635 and knew that camera was going to be attached to me for a long time. However, with that love affair I was dealing with film. Which I love. But didn't have the time and energy to keep up with the developing and scanning. I still have undeveloped rolls from it in my desk, more on that another time. But that camera went with me everywhere at the time. I hauled it around on many of my assignments for the paper and snapped one frame every once in a while. It was magical. It made me stop, plan, and focus.

This Fuji was in that playing field. The realm of "magical" cameras. I don't believe a camera can make you a better photographer, oh no, but sometimes when you hold a camera you realize it has the potential to be a bigger part of your life than just a small piece of (often expensive) equipment. I jumped in and bought the Fuji X-E1 with a 35mm lens, right before hitting the road for the summer in 2013. I also packed my Canon 5DmkII, not yet convinced I would be completely devoted to using the Fuji. I used my Canon twice on that road trip. Once for long night exposures and once because I needed a wide angle lens. Other than that, the Canon was buried way in the back of the car under camp equipment and my new Fuji was glued to my hand.

Maybe it was just the thrill of a new camera you say? Almost two years later I've since upgraded to the Fuji X-E2 and added two other Fujifilm x-mount lenses to my bag. It's still glued to my hand. Sure there are some small limitations and I do occasionally still drag out my Canon 5DmkII, but my Fuji is always with me. The color profiles, the size, the un-intruding nature of it, the built-in wifi, and the quality of the images SOOC are all amazing. I could gush more, but there are more technical reviews for that. When I shoot an assignment or an event with both my Fuji X-E2 and my Canon 5DmkII, the Fuji wins every time in my book. The Canon has been retired to the huge camera backpack I leave at home. I only use my Canon for shooting dance events, and even in that case I'm starting to use it less and less and trying to rely solely on the Fuji. The Fuji's auto-focus system has improved leaps and bounds in the past two years, but for fast action it's still not quite perfect. I hear word the Fuji X-T1 can keep up in fast action situations, so I have high hopes for future software and camera upgrades.

Updated 4/15/15 : I realize I completely forgot to mention one of my other top reasons for loving Fujifilm. The amount of firmware updates for the cameras and lens are astonishing. Unlike Canon and Nikon, both which I've shot with extensively, Fuji releases updates more often with great new features and bug fixes. So even if you've had your camera for over a year and they are releasing a new camera with new features, often (not always) those features will be available to your older camera as well through a firmware update!

For last summer's travels I only used my Fuji X-E2 and I couldn't have been happier. I drove out to California with my fiancé and then had many short weekend trips to California to visit him throughout the summer. When traveling so much, the Fuji didn't weigh me down. And I didn't feel limited. By then I had added the 18mm to my bag and could get the wide angle shots that I had wanted my Canon for the year before. Not that I really needed the 18mm by the way, one can always walk backwards to get a wider shot, unless there's a cliff behind you.

The camera doesn't make or break photography for me, as I'm sure another camera will come along and make me just as happy. Practically speaking, it has also helped me eliminate the back pain I was having from carrying my DSLRs everywhere, so there's that too. In the end, a camera is a tool and this tool is a great match for me.

Photos from summer 2014 travels.

Zion National Park Yosemite National Park

Morgan Petroski 3/6/15 Morgan Petroski 3/6/15

Southwest Snow - Albuquerque

During Feb. 26-28, 2015 Albuquerque received the most significant amount of snow since 2006. My main concern throughout the two nights of snow was to make sure our photo staff at the Albuquerque Journal did a great job covering the storm in photos. So my days were filled with planning and anticipating what was going to happen across the city that needed to be documented. The only times I got a chance to take some photos myself were at night right before crawling into bed. Both Thursday night and Friday night, my fiancé and myself ventured out into the cold falling snow. We hiked from our house down to Central Avenue. Both times were really just excursions for myself to snap some photos. I grew up in Florida, so to some degree snow still excites me even though I've experienced it many times by now. And I love night time landscape or cityscape photography. Things just look different at night and I love that. Anyway, here are some photos from our excursions on both nights as the snow was still falling. I shot them with my Fuji X-E2 that I really wish was weather sealed. I may have to grab the X-T1 next, as my Fuji has become my camera of choice and I obviously don't fear shooting in extreme weather conditions...

For more snow photos, check out: Southwest Snow. It's my most recently edited Exposure piece for the Albuquerque Journal, featuring the collective hard work of Journal staff photographers.

Morgan Petroski 1/28/15 Morgan Petroski 1/28/15

Chuck Hawley Group - Albuquerque Band Portraits

A few weeks ago I shot some quick portraits of the Chuck Hawley Group around the Albuquerque Museum. I was hoping for some nice late afternoon light, but of course it ended up being one of the few overcast days we've had in the past month. Eh, soft overcast light? I'll take that too. Just goes to show, you can plan everything else, but not the weather.