Classmates & Headshots

As we work through this quarter of portraiture for class, we have the opportunity to often photograph one another.  I actually enjoy being able to capture our classmates; I love to see who they are when they aren't behind the camera.  This contradicts everything I do though, I don't like to be the one in front of the camera, I would much rather "hide" and be the one capturing these fantastic humans I get to learn alongside.  

This most recent assignment required that we photograph both a male and a female.  I brought in a high school senior for my team to photograph for the female portion of our headshots.  We had one of our classmates, the talented and kind Cristobal, for our male model.  He's so photogenic which makes making images of him pretty easy.

I have several images of our girl model to post, but that one will be for another day.  Go check out my friend, Cristobal's images on instagram.  

 

I have been learning a lot about branding and various marketing strategies.  One of those was a project we created in InDesign for an ePub document that can be used for portfolios.  I really enjoyed this assignment; it totally made me think of scrapbooking and I love that! 

For this project I chose to showcase some of the family photo experiences I have been working on recently.  Let me know if you would like to book your session with me before Christmas, I would love to be able to help you capture some great memories with your loved ones.

Click here to view my interactive Family Portfolio.

Grandma and her sweet little granddaughter

 taking a walk while I made images of her cousin.

I had the pleasure yesterday of photographing someone I have known for about two years. I haven't seen Vonna in quite some time, but it was so nice of her to book her photo experience with me.  She has quite the lovely family and they were so much fun to photograph. I didn't feel like I was working at all.

I am so blessed to have worked with her on this overcast, cold fall day at Finch Arboretum in Spokane.  The colors were beautiful and the perfect backdrop to her gorgeous family.  The babies, one who just turned one year a couple days prior, and the other 15 months, were so easy-going. Not a single whimper out of either of them.  I loved watching these two cousins interact with one another and it was super adorable when little H fed cheerios to sweet baby C.

Thank you, Vonna, and family for a super experience.  I look forward to making memories with your family again.

Photographic Media Field Trip

I love how we are learning to see light differently; the way it mottles the ground as the sun streams through the leaves, the texture it adds, or takes away, from a  surface, the shadows created as someone walks through your light source.  I love the beauty that light brings to the world around us.  

It was a great afternoon of class where we were able to go downtown to Browne's Addition and wander and just photograph things as we saw them, trying to focus on a few different things/techniques in our environment: lights, mottling, panning, reflections, shallow depth of field, etc.  I love shallow depth of field so I often do have my camera set to a wide open aperture so that I can focus directly on my subject and letting the rest fall off so they can shine.  

I tried a few different things for reflections, but didn't have as much success as I thought I would.  I tried to capture the clearness of the apartment buildings in Jadyn's sunglasses, but it wasn't nearly as clear as what I though it was to my naked eye.  The wine glasses in the restaurant window as we walked past were lovely and you could see some of the building from across the street and a few trees if you look closely enough.  I also stood to the side as Shae tried to photograph Sarah from inside the copy shop window as she was reflected back through the window that was close to me.  While they aren't the clearest of photographs, it was fun to try and capture these images.

As Elizabeth and I walked along we walked under a chestnut tree.  I had never really paid attention to how large the pods for these chestnuts were.  They are huge!  Elizabeth loves these as they remind her of her childhood and picking them and reaching inside after cracking them open so she could see the fruit of the nuts inside.  As she squished it, it started to crack.  She reached down, picked it up and began opening it to reveal the goodies inside.  Excitement arose as she discovered that not there were three inside, not the more common two!  Chestnuts are lovely as they emerge from their pod; all shiny and lovely brown-red in color.  Chestnuts are simply beautiful!

It was a great day - one that I am not only grateful for the opportunity to photograph the beauty around me, but to also be able to do that with friends and classmates who can share this beauty from their point of view and to remember it in the form of a photograph.

Girl cracking up walnut pods to reveal the three chestnuts inside on October 5, 2017 in downtown Spokane, Browne's Addition, Washington.

Girl cracking up walnut pods to reveal the three chestnuts inside on October 5, 2017 in downtown Spokane, Browne's Addition, Washington.

Girl cracking up walnut pods to reveal the three chestnuts inside on October 5, 2017 in downtown Spokane, Browne's Addition, Washington.

Braelynn - Class of 2018

Braelynn is so fun!  We had a great time with her senior session, even if the smoke from the forest fires still lingered in the air.

I have learned a few things from this session that will be good to keep in mind from here on out.  One, don't use the gold reflector that comes in the 5-in-1 kit (why do they even include one?); it make skin tones so much more orange and a chore to remove.  Two, smoky days are NOT for photographing in.  Unlike cloud cover the smoke also contributes to a more orange skin tone.   After trying to remove those colors, these are the images I was able to share with Braelynn and her family.

Carson - Class of 2018

I had the opportunity to make some fun senior images with this young man.  He's very polite, respectful, and a pleasure to work with.  Carson has high hopes for his future after high school and I look forward to seeing him grow and become all the wants.

Film Noir (cont'd)

During our shoot-out event I also took the opportunity to make photographs of the girls individually.   These were some of my favorite images I made.

In this first image I used only natural lighting.  This was a hallway on the outer wall of the event center that had light streaming in from a few different areas.

In this second photograph I was using a friend's speed light in a completely dark room.  I was pretty impressed with how well my model was light with the speed light. 

This photograph was also made in the outer hall stairwell utilizing only the natural light that was available.

In my image of my modeling singing I did use studio lighting to light my model.  

More natural lighting on my model in the outer stairwell.