Sunny Outdoor Session!

This past weekend I had a Master Photographer come to assist me with some professional development. One of the things we worked on was tough lighting situations. These Environmental Portraits were taken at 10am - not your best time for outdoor portraits! But we worked with the light and added some fill flash and/or a reflector to make these spectacular portraits! A special thank you to Judy and Sam for helping us out on this beautiful day!

It is hard to tell in these small samples (as Environmental Portraits are meant to be printed BIG!!) but there is a twinkle in Judy's and Sam's eyes in each portrait and they look great!

Now in Ella Bella!

I now have three large prints displayed in Ella Bella! The store is located in the same shopping center as Tony Roma's on Gage Blvd, next to Costco. Please stop in to see the results as I think they look very nice displayed over some of Ella Bella's premeire cribs! These are the images that made it onto the wall!

Birthday Party Portraits!

Well, my daugther had her 4th birthday party the last weekend in February! The theme was a makeup party and each girl came in a pretty dress then we painted nails and applied a "light dusting" of makeup. As one of my thank yous for the parents I took a couple pictures of each of the girls and will print out a few images for them to have. I think they turned out super cute and here are some of the results!

Unfortuately with all the shuffling of kids into the studio I didn't even notice my own daughter didn't make it in for a portrait. (Big sad face!)

Boy Baby Session!

And here is Mr. Little Man from last week. He was a mover but I managed to catch him in a relaxed pose and looking at the camera - double bonus!!! His mom thought he should have lasted longer during the session but he got cranky quickly. Well, it turns out he was coming down with the current flu bug and spiked a rather high temperature later that evening!

This image and the image in my previous post have a special purpose - they will be featured hanging in Ella Bella, a local childrens' botique, sometime in early February! I am very excited about this and will post more later on this topic!

Girl Baby Session!

This little sweethart had a pretty big audience "egging" her on. Mom, sister, great-grandma and an adult cousin! I don't think she knew quite where to look at first, but she definitely liked my flashing lights!!! She would look up and grin at those lights and then look back at her audience and be all proud of herself! But I think my favoite of the session was when I got her attention in a moment (if possible for a baby) of quite contemplation! This image was processed with a "Half Sepia" technique to give it a little more of an antique feel but also retain some of the warm colors. Check back soon, I will be adding more from this session!

PUBLISHED!

In addition to my portrait photography, I have been doing a little Commercial Stock Photography over the past several years. I submit mainly to a microstock agency called Shutterstock and have mostly just done it for fun, submitting some of the many shots I take of my kids, or non-people shots. In a microstock setup a photographer will rarely find out where their images are being used, but last month I got a nice surprise when a friend e-mailed me after seeing a photograph of my kids playing by the edge of the Columbia River in the American Rivers calendar sent to its contributing members. My kids landed the month of August and it just goes to show that sometimes all you need to have fun is some water and a bunch of rocks!! For more about the American Rivers organization go to www.americanrivers.org.

Professional Education!

Well, in November I went to several Photography Seminars to further my photographic education! One of these seminars featured a renowned digital retouching artist named Jane Conner-Ziser. After studying her methods of eye enhancement I decided to put the techniques to the test and used this image of a friend's daughter as my sample. I think the eyes turned out great (although she had pretty amazing eyes to begin with) and I can't wait to use these new methods on more images in the future!