Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Pre-Wedding Photo Sessions


Pre-wedding sessions are a great priceless for many reasons.  It is a great time to continue building your relationship with your photographer.  Brides and grooms have so many pressures on the wedding day and the more solid their foundation with their wedding photographer, the more relaxed they will be in their photos.



Pre-wedding photo sessions are often an opportunity to create engagement photos.  These images are often so natural and relaxed that they may be displayed in your home for decades after the wedding.  I encourage my couples to make a date of their session.  This enables me to capture their relationship authentically.  I also love to spend several hours with each couple so that we can visit several locations that have meaning to them or offer beautiful scenery.  



Even though many couples use their pre-wedding session for engagement photos, you can also use this time to create more fashion photography of the bride.  Photos like the ones shown here are often the result making time before or after the wedding for a bride-only session.  These sessions can also be used to do boudoir photography as a wedding gift for the groom.  Fine art books are a beautiful way to showcase these images.


Friday, February 20, 2009

School Project

This post is just for fun.  My son's third grade class recently created a YouTube movie using stop motion animation.  I am so proud of him so I wanted to post this movie on my blog.  He served as one of the photographers on the "set."  Big thanks go to Mrs. Jennifer Detlefsen for her vision in this school project!

Sunday, February 15, 2009

Studying with Joe Buissink in Las Vegas

I had the opportunity this week to attend a class in Las Vegas through WPPI (Wedding and Portrait Photographers International).  The two-day class was taught by Joe Buissink, an international photographer based in Beverly Hills, California.  I was exposed to Joe's work while studying wedding photojournalism.  Joe often works with celebrities in his area to create beautiful wedding and lifestyle photography - two great passions of mine as well.  His work is beautiful, emotional, and timeless.  He shared brilliant lighting techniques and demonstrated the importance of bringing your own soul into your photography and connecting with your subjects.  He is a master at relationship building as well as Fine Art photography.  It was a privilege to work with him and gain his insight to the images I created during our workshop.  Joe has photographed many familiar weddings including those of Jennifer Lopez and Brendan Fraser.  He is currently working on a lifestyle project with Steven Spielberg.  You can view his work at www.joebuissink.com.

Friday, January 30, 2009

PPA in Phoenix, AZ

I recently attended Imaging USA in Phoenix, Arizona.  It is an annual conference and trade show put on by the Professional Photographers of America, the world's largest nonprofit association for professional photographers.  It was a wonderful event, so full of opportunities to learn more about lighting, equipment, technology, and products.  I took notes like crazy and my head is still spinning a little.  It was also a great opportunity to meet some of the most accomplished photographers in the world and get tips that challenge me as a professional and encourage me to value my craft.  

Technology is really transforming this industry.  I sometimes hear photographers complain that the advances Nikon and Cannon have made in their equipment enable non-professionals to pick up a camera and compete with professionals.  That just isn't true.  The longer I work in photography, the more assured I am that it takes so much more than a good camera to create beautiful images.  It takes an artist's eye and a sense of how to frame an image.  It takes knowledge of lighting, depth of field, shutter speed and ISO.  It takes a sense of style that sets that photographer apart from his or her competition.  It takes a tireless devotion to creating art and pleasing clients.  It isn't a part time job.  A friend told me that once and I will always appreciate it.  Anyone can get a lucky shot, but a photographer is an artist and I believe that every person, every family, every business needs professional photography.  It doesn't need to cost a fortune, but it needs to be an investment.  It is art that takes time and money to develop and time and money to create.  I have yet to meet a photographer that was overpaid.  But I do think that we can sometimes improve the end product we give our clients.  I think as technology moves forward, so do our clients needs.  And if we are professionals, our ability to meet those needs moves forward too.

Tuesday, January 27, 2009

Girl Meets Guitar


This image of a young local musician will be featured in the One World Show.  I captured her guitar playing as a part of a recent family photo shoot.  I discovered that music shots yield themselves well to a wide variety of special effects in post production.

Saturday, January 24, 2009

For Love of a Horse





Another image for the One World Show will be this one a girl and her horse.  This photo came from a senior portrait shoot last fall.  We shot in several locations, but my favorite was this stable in the country where she grooms and rides horses.  The sun was beautiful.  In fact, I will post a few photos from the shoot.  The sepia image of her walking her horse will appear at the show.

Big Brother


The theme for the One World Show is love - partly because the show is in February and partly because my images often reflect that emotion.  I needed a theme.  Today I will post a new image that will be featured in the show.  This image is of two brothers.  This shoot was so much fun.  We used the master bedroom for the shoot and we had to turn the thermostat up to over 90 degrees to keep the room warm enough for the little guy.  We were all roasting but he was cozy.  It takes a little time for little ones to relax and fall asleep.  The are unpredictable and that keep baby shoots fun and exciting.  You have to think outside of the box (and all around the box and under the box and jump over the box) to make it work.  It is easy to keep each baby shoot unique because things never go the same way twice.  I love the soft colors of this image.


Friday, January 23, 2009

One World Show



One World Cafe in Peoria, IL will be hosting an art show of my images during the month of February.  Thanks to Bob and Sam Eid and Miriam Taylor for all their efforts on my behalf.  Please stop by and try their famous Cuban pork sandwich (I recommend the baked fries which are totally worth the $1 upcharge) and check out my work.  It has been a real challenge to choose images for the show.  Each time I work with a client (who often ends up becoming a friend) I have my favorite images.  But then each new shoot creates new favorites.  The greatest challenge was choosing a variety of images, because I feel my work speaks most as a body.  There was a part of me that wanted to feature 12 images from one shoot - giving more of a complete feel for a session and offering an example of the story that is often created within my work.  However, I also wanted to offer a variety of work and this required using images from multiple shoots.  The first image I chose was of my daughter.  She is holding a tiny toad she found last summer.  It is one of my favorite images because it really captures her awe with creatures.  She loves digging for worms.  I typically don't display images of my own kids with my work but I couldn't resist this one.  The next image is of a bride.  I love this image because it has a different feel from so many of the bridal portraits I see.  She is beautiful but she looks tough. That is sometimes a good thing in marriage.  This bride was so much fun to photograph.  At first my subjects are often not sure what do to, but after a little while they start to relax and really let themselves shine through.  This is when I get the best images.  More too come... stay tuned.