Seniors, Seniors, and... Seniors?

I'll be completely honest, when I switched to doing portrait work instead of just shooting for myself, there was one thing I feared shooting above all others... Seniors. In my opinion, senior sessions are just one step below wedding photos on the photo pyramid. Most people are only a high school senior once, and if they aren't their parents probably aren't celebrating it with photos. So, it's a once in a lifetime photo session for the senior. That's a lot of pressure to get it right.So, having this fear, I was assured of one thing my first year of doing portrait work... I would end up doing more seniors than anything. :(

Lucky for me, I've been able to work with some great seniors this year, not to mention some great senior moms as well.  They have definitely helped me conquer my fear a little bit. Also, I'm starting to understand how shooting seniors helps you become a better photographer. When you truly make an effort to personalize the images to the senior, you find yourself being more creative out of necessity instead of trying to force it. You can't get away with posing every kid the same because it just won't fit them.

 I think I had also forgotten that I am going to perpetually be a goofy high school kid. Thus, I think it's actually easier for me to work with seniors instead of adults. We'll see about that 10 years in the future, but for now, I get them and it seems to be making things go easier.

Recently, however, there has been one 'senior' session that meant a lot more to me than all the rest combined. That was the session I shot with my grandparents for their upcoming anniversary. I love them very much and I was happy to be able to give them their pictures as their gift.

Thanks for reading!

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New Photo Sessions: The Hutchisons and the McMasters

It's been a little crazy the last two weeks. Somehow I was able to finish up three projects in that amount of time and mix in some Christmas shopping as well. The first task was to finish the rest of Jake's session after the initial rush to get a picture to the school. After wrapping up his pics and slideshow it was on to my last two clients (presumably for the year).

The first was the Hutchison family. Unfortunately, we encountered one of the major predators of the "Natural Light/ Outdoor Photographer," wind... and lots of it. We did our best to find a place that might be shielded from the gusts, but it was next to impossible. Still, I think we ended up with enough good shots to make a decent session. Most likely we'll revisit this session in the spring... they are family after all. :)



The McMasters were the second family. They decided to brave the cold for their session. Thankfully for them, but to my disliking, the clouds parted for the last half of their shoot and warmed things up, but made lighting a bit tricky. They came ready with a lot of ideas and wanted a good amount of individual and couple/paired photos to go with their family pics, so it was a lot of fun and a nice challenge to come up with enough variety to keep the images interesting.



Like I said, these will most likely be my last photography jobs of the year. This first year has definitely been a learning process and I know I am starting to pick out what areas I am lacking in and need to improve on. I'm just hopeful that I will get more opportunities next year to do so. I've already got some equipment upgrades planned, so it should definitely be interesting to see what the future holds.

Thanks for reading!

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A Day (And Night) With the HPT...

Well, now that I have retrieved yet another left-behind piece of camera equipment, I can tell you about my great weekend working with the Heartland Poker Tour. Yes, that's right, I let a HPT crew member take production pics with my camera and I didn't check that the SD card was still in it. I'm an idiot, I know. Anyway, that still didn't take away from another great work experience.

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The Akins Family...

Wow! It's been a busy month already and the busiest part of it is still around the corner. One of the things contributing to the extra busyness has been the small surge in photo work I have been doing. My latest session was with the Akins Family of Pittsburg. Football is a big part of their life, so getting some family shots and individual pics of the boys on the field was a must. Hopefully they enjoy their pictures as much as I enjoyed taking them. You can check out their slideshow below.

Thanks for reading!

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Slaughter Pen Jam Video...

I decided I've been letting the video I shot at my first XC Mountain Bike race sit around for too long. So, I decided to finally turn it into something. In hindsight, I wish I had GoPro or Contour camera footage of my own ride to add to the mix and break up the third person perspective, but there's no point crying about what you don't have.

Enjoy!

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Richard and Judy's 50th Anniversary...

Awhile back I mentioned that Howard Photography was booked for it's first official portrait session. Now that the finished disks are in the mail, I figured I would share the results. Richard, Judy, and the entire family were great clients. They had ideas of what they wanted but were still open to my ideas and they were very patient considering how hot the weather was. It still amazes me that the entire session took less than 2 hours to complete, but like I said, this family was really helpful and organized.

Here are their photos:

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"This Lens Will Change Your Life!..."

Well, at least that is what I read on some of the online forums I frequent. I'm talking, of course, about the Canon 50mm f/1.8 ii lens I recently purchased.

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Rigged Out And Ready To Roll...

I think I've mentioned in a previous post that I would be trying out some DIY projects over the next few months. Well, project number one has finally made it to the finish line... For now.

All it needs now is paint.

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Snow-pocalypse Update...

So, for anyone who remotely cares, (which won't be many, I'm sure) you may have noticed that the blog has had another dead patch without any updates. This has been mostly by design as I have been waiting to hear from a full time job I interviewed for. However, the recent blizzard has both delayed their decision and is starting to give me cabin fever, so I felt like I needed to post a small update and maybe a few winter pics I have shot.

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Strap in...

For the last couple months I've been trying to catch up with the current DIY camera accessory community. I've mostly been looking for shoulder mounts, steadycams, and sliders, but I've also been picking up other small tips along the way. One such tip I got from the Cheesycam website. Here is the original video they posted:


DIY Quick Camera Strap from emmagination on Vimeo.

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Feeling things out...

Well, after spending all of Saturday putting in a new hot water tank and Sunday doing other chores, I didn't have much time to get out and test my T2i. However, I did sneak outside for a few minutes to capture some video. I'm starting to get more and more used to shooting with my Canon, but I'm still not at any kind of a comfort level yet. My biggest complaint about Canon's control setup is their use of only one wheel to control exposure settings and having to holding down buttons while using that wheel to change different aspects of the exposure. Nikon typically has two wheels, one for shutter and one for iris, so I find myself fumbling around trying to remember which button I need to be holding to get what I want. Once I got my settings the way I wanted, things actually started to go a bit smoother. The T2i automatically goes to live view when you switch over to video and recording is only a button press away from that.

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