Profesional Photographer Magaznie

This is my picture that appeared in Professional Photographer Magazine telling about my speaking program! I'll be a mainstage speaker this winter in Atlanta at Imaging USA, one of the largest professional photographers conventions in the world!  Around 10,000 photographers attend this event.  Last year was my first year entering the competition or attending but my timing was right  :)  I was awarded International Diamond Photographer of the Year and placed in the top three at the Grand Imaging Awards in the Digital Art Category.  For the second year in a row this year I will receive International Diamond Photographer of the Year and I am up for some other awards too that I will have to wait to find out! 

I will be speaking in lots of places around the country next year.  So far my list includes  Atlanta, Florida, Ohio, Toronto and just this week two more eastern states called to see if we could work something out.  I love teaching and meating new people.  I'm excited!

Newest Creative Sports Posters

It's that time of year again and I have a bunch of sports posters coming up.  I had two teams that were smart and scheduled early so they get their posters very soon!  I have been doing Muskie Pom for quite a few years now and have created a lot of very cool posters for them.  This year they wanted to do something with their new dance outfits which included a cape.  After a couple of tries with different scenes I ended up with the background below.  The actual poster motto took even longer to come up with.  I finally settled with "Defenders of Truth, Justice and Rhythm.


The Wilton Basketball Girls had a motto of Respect All, Fear None.  I had pretty tough time coming up with something for the background with this motto since it didn't have any specific conotations with anything.  I tried some old buildings and bridges in the background, a blue sparkly background and then out of frustration I tried a monster background and thought it was kind of fun.

Would love to hear your thoughts!

Mini Session Benifit

We are having our first exclusive holiday mini sessions!  I'm excited to announce that all proceeds will be donated to the Help Laura Win Fund! Laura is an awesome girl fighting brain cancer. The date is December 1st.  We only have 6 sessions left!  If you are interested give the studio a call and we can explain more about our Winter Wonderland set.  I spent all weekend building it and it's looking pretty awesome.  Tomorrow morning I plan on taking some sample images on it.  We will also have a clothing suggestion guide that will help to ensure that everyone looks amazing on it!  Hopefully we see you here!



Watch this cool little video we put together about it!

 

Fall Family Portraits

Fall came early this year!  Still had some amazing opportunities for some beautiful family portraits and I'm still doing lots.  Even though most of the leaves are gone I have been finding some beautiful places with the late afternoon sun shining through long grasses.  I'll be doing lots more this winter when it snows too!   We take our family portraits every year after a big snow and they have been some of our favorites.

I visited the Lorack family farm and they wanted to create somet cool family portraits in their fields and with their combine.  Well as you can see below, I think we got the job done.  One of these will be displayed above their fireplace as a 40" print and the other will also be a 40" print in another room of their house with a smaller grouping around it of single portraits of their children.  I can't wait for them to hang them up in their home!

at first I couldn't find the right angle for this combine pic.  I tried standing on the bed of my truck and shooting over the tops of the corn but it wasn't what I was looking for.  I switched to my wide angle lens and got down low and found what I was looking for.  I love the corn rising up in the forground and the sun shining through the rows!
 

Big pressure!

So those of you that don't know what PhotoVision is - PhotoVision creates educational videos for photographers. It offers the unique opportunity to observe photographers in their actual working environments. PhotoVision's cameras take you behind the scenes of some of the top photographers in the country to show you their workflow, their lighting techniques, their marketing ideas and much more. I have been watching them for years and last year I was honored to be asked to be a featured mentor on a series of videos for them. They spent three exhausting days at my studio filming me while I created some pretty cool portraits. I did everything from family portraits in a waterfall to an engagement session in an antique semi junkyard and even a senior with a horse in my studio under the chandeliers! I thought I would be super nervous but it was actually lots of fun!

I was again honored when Ed Pierce (the creator of PhotoVision) called me up and asked me to create some images for their new website they are launching! He wanted me to photograph some of the very best photographers in the nation and then create something cool from those portraits. Talk about nervous! Being asked to photograph some of these photographers would be like asking somebody to paint the portraits of Michal Angelo, Leonardo, and Picasso. Photographers like Brian DeMint (fashion photographer extraordinaire) Julie Klaasmeyer (maybe the countries most popular and well known children's photographer), Richard Sturdevant - (the only photographer in history to ever win two double diamonds in a row) and many other crazy awesome photographers who I have looked up to for years and have learned many techniques from. And me - yes ME had to come up with three different scenes, compose, direct, and light each of them!

Well I survived but barely :) These images are going to be viewed by 10's of thousands of photographers from around the world so there was also that to think about. Luckily I have learned a few things these past few years and seem to have a small knack for knowing how to light and composite people. If you know how I work you realize that I do things the hard way. Much of the time I don't know what the scene will be until after I photograph the subjects. I like the challenge of allowing fate and chance to play a big role in what I do. I feel it helps create unique situations with non-standard results which is what helps set my images apart.

Well anyway enough blabbering, here is what I have come up with. Hope you like them!

 

 

 This scene included Dave Junion, Julie Klaasmeyer, Beth Forester and Brian DeMint.  I will eventually need to switch out the images on the TV screen before they go on the website.

this was one out take from the shoot when Dave gave Brian a titty twister  :)  There wasn't a green screen available so I used a blue screen.

I wanted to use a vintage tv but vintage tv's are small so I had to make a big screen vintage tv - I kind of want one now!  notice the batman/photovsion logo in the sky!

This was option B - having them all gasp in fright (but we didn't really want them make people think photovison would be something they might be scared of)   This scene included Chucky Arlund, Amy Parrish, Jed Taufer, and  Mike Ridinger.

This scene I had to change a few different times.  I had a few different ideas with a jacked up red 55 Chevy but it got sold so I used the truck of one of my seniors.  This was especially difficlut because I had nothing built beforehand so I had to guess on exact positioning and angles.  This scene included Richard Sturdevant, James Hays, Dan Frievalt, Dan and Alex McClanahan and Me!

this was a fun shot of Dan that I used.

 

Beautiful Engagement

Megan and Sam love the outdoors and wanted to do something that reflected who they were. We did some brainstorming together and came up with the idea of photographing them along the banks of the river. I few days before their session I happened to get up a little earlier (okay a lot earlier) than usual and as I was driving to one of my sessions I saw the steam rising off the water as I crossed the bridge just before sun rise and thought that it looked pretty amazing. So later that day I called them and told them that I wanted to reschedule their session for sunrise (most days that is out of the question because I normally work past midnight). That morning I got up extra early, loaded the boat and all my equipment and was on the river before sunrise. Luckily last year I had come across the perfect old oar boat and had purchased it just in case I ever needed it for a session. I found some old oars in the attic of my parents garage that happened to match the boat exactly. I also brought one of my old muslin backgrounds that was just the right color and texture for making a cool vintage tent. When I got to the river the steam was rising off the river and the sun was just beginning to have the pink orange glow of sunrise. I loaded a bunch of my equipment into the boat and oared a few hundred yards downstream to a sand bar along the bank. I pulled the boat to shore and quickly began setting up everything. I found two pieces of drift wood and stuck them into the sand to make the poles of the tent and tied a rope between them then draped my background across to make a tent. Then I laid down an old quilt on the ground for them to sit on.. Then I gathered some firewood and placed an picnic basket near the tent with an old book setting on top. Soon Megan and Sam arrived. There was a steep trail that lead down from the road above to the sandbar that they followed down. The steam was still rising off the water and the sun had now broken over the trees lighting the sand bar, tent and oar boat in a golden haze and the rest of the morning.... well see for yourself.

This portrait will be a 40 inch print hanging in their home with a series of smaller portraits from their session above it.

Teaching in Kansas City at After Dark

Yet another amazing time photographing models, teaching hands on classes, and having fun with friends. Between Sunday night and Thursday morning I slept a total of around 12 hours. I taught a bunch of classes on photoshop and also teamed up Dan Frievalt for a composite session and then with fashion photographer extraordinaire Brian DeMint for a senior posing and lighting session.

I'm excited to be teaching all around the United States in the next few months. Next month I will be in Wisconsin for their Fall Professional Photographers Convention and then I head out to Idaho to teach a course in the Grand Teton Mountains with Travis Gugelman. Then in January and February I will be a main stage speaker at Imaging (with around 10,000 photographers attending) then I will be speaking at SYNC in Florida. The week after that I will be at Iowa's Professional Photographers Convention and then I head out to Ohio to speak there!

Here are just a few images that I created in Kansas City - I have lots more to work on!

This was taken around 4:00 AM downtown Kansas City

 

 

This was the scene from somebody else's camera - I had gelled lights in the background to create the bright colors

Photographing early one morning with some other very fun photographers!