Happy Birthday Leia

Leia's senior portrait session is finally complete. We spent 3 hours shooting in 3 locations. Her themes are 'classic/traditional', 'natural/romantic' and 'cool/edgy'. I am pleased with the results and can't wait to create prints and press products! A perfect model on a perfect day, wish all days were like this! 17 years ago was the best day of my life. She has brought some serious joy to my life and I am truly blessed to have her as a daughter. Happy Birthday sweetie!

Contimplating copyspace

So I've been behind my camera(s) a lot lately and the more I shoot the more I am aware of my surroundings. Photographing is all about involvement. Utter engagement. Total focus(sorry about the pun). And some SERIOUS deep thoughtfulness. I am ultimately creating a piece of art that will eventually be displayed on a wall to just simply look at. That's what art is. You dwell and just look at it deeply and soak it in to figure out (sometimes) what the hell was that artist thinking when they created that piece? Good or bad. You love it or hate it. It has feeling and moves you. Okay, enough deep crp. Sorry. What I am trying to say about this particular image is copy space. Yes, for stock art. I am building a portfolio of stock art to sell to people and business's across the world who need photographs for their projects. Big or small. Copy space on an image is crucial. It's that negative space on an image so the business can add their logo/lettering/info- seen in brochures. If you can pull it off nicely-it's beautiful. And this image has it (except I need to clone out the lettering on the bridge-oops) no problem though. Easy fix. I like the sweet and summer look she has. Teenage summer fun.

Olympus Featured Photograph of the Month of June

leia's junior portrait 2010

Olympus chose this image and found it worthy to be a winner. She is front and center on their photo gallery website which is soooo totally coool! It's a beautiful summer portrait-even though it was shot in the month of October- (of a beautiful model-thank you Leia for putting up with me) and I am ultra proud of it. It's certainly an honor to be chosen by Olympus-I truly love their products and will forever be using them to create amazing photographs! And I am humbled. But most importantly a super boost in the confidence area. LOL!

Happy 4th of July!

miss beautiful leia

photograph best viewed at full size-click an check it out!

Spending time with family and friends and blowin' up stuff is what it's all about. I'm spending a lot more time behind the camera when I go to social events. (is that kinda anti social?-I don't care, this in NECESSARY. If it's family-it's gotta be documented. I tend to focus on the kids though. I seriously find their sense of innocence mind blowing. Kids are always photogenic. They don't mind at all to be photographed and I LOVE that. Give them some fun and a full belly of food and they are perfect! Check out that bonfire. It's pretty small compared to previous years (really)! At the end of the bonfireworks 'event' bushes caught on fire and fireworks sprayed and shot out towards the crowd. Classic. Luckily, we have a family of firemen and women to control the chaos. No one was hurt.  LOVE it.

Ruff and Tuff guys from Nebraska

These 2 boys were focused on playing together ignoring everyone until I approached them and instantly they listened without any hesitation. They were completely agreeable when I simply asked if they could sit on the porch, hold a prop (ball) and just be a kid. Well mannered and never threw a fit. I created these images to tell a story of simply being a kid. I'm interested in creating a vintage look to some of the photographs. I love it more and more. They are ruff and tuff, but totally adorable!