Grand Junction Coffee Roaster

If there's one thing in this world I love more than photography(not counting family), it's coffee. So, you can imagine my excitement when I move to Grand Junction Colorado a year ago and found that there's a coffee roaster right here in town. And this amazing place is called Colorado Legacy Coffee.

After following them on Facebook and Instagram for a while I asked them if they did tours, Chad, their roaster, told me which days they roast on and to stop by sometime. The idea of going to watch a roaster in action was very exciting. I've always enjoyed shows like How's It's Made and looked forward to seeing something like that in person.

As soon as I had some time, I went down to Colorado Legacy Coffee and met with Chad, he invited me to the back where he was getting ready to roast some coffee beans. Now, if you love coffee, and have never been somewhere where they roast coffee, you definitely should, the smell alone is totally worth it.

Chad started talking about the process, and honestly I could have listened for hours. I love learning, anything new is just fascinating to me. I wont become a roaster anytime soon, but listening to him talk about it, you could hear how passionate he was about his craft and that resonates with me as a creative myself. 

When it came time to open the roaster, along with the beans came out bellows of smoke, and it was then that I knew I had to photograph Chad while he was roasting. After we talked some more, I asked him if it would be possible at all some day to photograph him, and after speaking with the owners, Dan and Roni, to my excitement, they said I could. 

So, we planned the shoot for a couple weeks out when they had some time and would be roasting dark roast, which would yield even more smoke than I had seen that day.

2 weeks later, the day of the shoot arrived and I couldn't wait to get started. I unloaded my gear and set up, but before we got to work, I had to get a photo with Chad :)