Shannon's Senior Session

We’re keeping busy here at the studio with senior sessions. School is just around the corner ( or already here for some) and we’ve got some seniors trying to sneak in before their final year gets started!

We’re sharing one of those seniors with you today… meet Shannon! Shannon is a senior at Pella High School. She’s laid-back, easy-going and was fun to get to know. Shannon totally rocked this shoot! Her outfits were so fun and she was an absolutely natural in front of the camera. Thanks for being awesome, Shannon!

Check out some of our favorite portraits from her session....

Love the way the colors work together to make her eyes really pop!

We tried some vintage toning with our waterfall and really like how it turned out!

Shannon's dad Jeff, brought her grandfather's first EVER tractor! 

Shannon's awesome volleyball collage!

Brad and Holly's Wedding!

THE FISK WEDDING!

Brad & Holly's wedding day took place at the historic downtown Hotel Blackhawk. We started the day photographing in Holly in her hotel suite.  It's always a great to have somewhere nice to create some getting ready shots.  Many times brides underestimate the importance of their getting ready portraits and choose a cluttered church basement which can definitely make it more difficult to capture beautiful portraits.   

The lovely bride-to-be as she put on her wedding gown with the assistance of her mother and bridesmaids. 

Holly's bridesmades were all smiles and laughs as they helped Holly with her dress.

We always set up a private first meeting between the couple.... its great to see the anticipation, it's also great for the couple to have a few moments alone to talk and soak each other in.  Check out Holly's smile.  She was certainly excited!

How beautiful does Holly look on the marble staircase!

Hotel Blackhawk has many great places for portraits.  The hotel embodies class, sophistication and elegance. 

I loved this portrait because it feels like Holly and Brad are an art piece.

This was a classy yet fun pose for Holly and her bridesmaids!

The bridal party was so much fun to shoot. They were very eager and excited to be a part of Holly & Brad's wedding. Check out the groomsmen... they were just hanging out before the wedding and I was able to capture a cool portrait of them!

The Quad City downtown cobble-stone road made for a great background for this fun portrait.

After the wedding ceremony we jumped on the Trolley and rode downtown where we created some portraits of the wedding party & the couple having fun and enjoying the BIG day!

Holly & Brad had a great set-up at their reception... their table was set in the middle of all the guests. It was a great night with a lot of dancing and toasting! 

In the months before their wedding Holly & Brad took dancing lessons and they certainly did not let them go to waste! Check out their amazing dance moves!

Check out these great vendors that made this night possible. 

Band: Funktastic Five  /  Reception Venue: Hotel Blackhawk - Gold Room  / Ceremony Venue: Hotel Blackhawk  /  Caterer: Hotel Blackhawk  /  Dessert Bar: Oh So Sweet by Tiphanie by Tiphanie Cannon  /   Florist: Julie's Artistic Rose  /  Tux Rentals: Ducky's in Moline  /  Wedding Dress & Veil: Hope's Bridal  / Bridesmaid Dresses: XOXO Bridal Hugs & Kisses  /  Hair & Makeup: Salon Luce and Spa Luce 

International Awards

So many photography studios now days use the term “award winning portraits” to promote their business.  So many, that the term no longer really seems to carry as much impact...  Understandably so, for all you know the only awards some of those photographers may have won were for local competitions amongst non-professionals, right? 

So to justify our studio's use of that term to ourselves and to our clients, each year we enter our work into one of the largest international photographic competitions.  We aim to set ourselves apart, so that we can continue to say that we are one of the leading photography studios in the nation.  This year marks the third year our studio has entered the PPA (Professional Photographers of America) International Photographic Competition. 

Within this competition there are two separate categories that professional photographers can enter their work into – the Photographic Open Competition and the Master Artist (MA) Competition.  Thousands of professional photographers from around the world submit their images.  Each photographer is only allowed to enter 4 of their very best images into each of the categories.  Only the most exceptional images entered – the ones regarded as the “best of the best” – are accepted into the prestigious PPA Loan Collection.  These images in the PPA Loan collection are viewed throughout the world as setting the standard of excellence in photographic imaging.

Last week the results of the competition were announced and we are very excited to announce that all four of Ben’s portraits entered into the Photographic Open Competition were judged as Loan worthy. In the Master Artist Competition three of Ben’s four images were judged as Loan worthy. For a total of 7 Loans!

Loaning all four images in the Photographic Open Competition means for the third year in a row Ben receives the International Diamond Photographer of the Year designation...  which only a few photographers throughout the world earn each year (to be exact only in 12 in 2011, 8 in 2012 and only a handful in 2013)! 

Ben is honored that his portraits were accepted into the Loan collection but one of the things he is most proud about is the fact that the images he entered truly represent the kind of work that he creates on a regular basis.  Nearly all of his Master Artist images were originally created for clients, while nearly all of his Photographic Open portraits were created while instructing other photographers around the country. 

Below are Ben’s Photographic Open Loan images. We will try to get around to writing a post about his Master Artist images sometime soon...

"Enchanted" was created late one night while Ben was teaching in Rockwall, Texas. The scene was lit using a constant light so that the other photographers watching could easily see how the light placement and angle was crucial to creating good light on a subject. Ben was using the lobby of the Hilton Hotel which obviously had some beautiful decorations. He did some minor touch ups in Photoshop to remove distracting lights that was showing through the curtains, and he also removed some of the class attendees that happened to be too close :)

"Ravishing" was also created in Rockwall, Texas while Ben was teaching a class (possibly even that same night as the portrait above)  Ben spent most of the class showing how to create dynamic composites, but he also captured a few simple well-lit portraits of the model.  In Photoshop Ben added a texture overlay and a few other minor corrections. He chose to enter this image into the competition because he wanted to prove that he was not only good at creating storytelling scenes but that he could also produce beautiful classic portraits.

"When the Music Ends" was something Ben had been wanting to create for awhile. While he was teaching some classes in Wisconsin last fall he met the perfect model for his idea and she had the perfect outfit. Ben had not yet even begun to construct the scene for his idea but he knew he wanted a worn circus performer hanging off of an old carousel horse. He had her sit on a high stool and pretend she was leaning off the side of a horse. He had to visualize the angle that he would build the scene at, the direction that the horse would be going, and the intensity, angle, and quality of light.  By the end, it took a great while to put this scene together. The old train was photographed while teaching a class out in Idaho, the grass and broken carriage was photographed in New Orleans at yet another class. If you look closely, far in the background are some circus animals slowly moving in the same direction. The leading lines of the train and the tattered flags help lead the viewers eye to the subject.

"How to Catch a Wolf" is another that Ben had been thinking about for awhile. This one was more of a personal challenge for Ben.  He wanted to create something with a very different look than what he had done before. Many of his preferred images have warm dark tones like those above and he wanted to see what the opposite would look like. The background he captured early one morning. He's not normally a morning person but that morning he happened to be on his way to jury duty. It was a misty frozen morning and he took the back way out of town down some gravel roads when he crossed a bridge and saw those trees. He was already a bit late but decided to turn around and head back to the studio for his camera and he's glad he did! He wasn't sure what he was going to do with the scene but he knew it was beautiful. (side note - he definitely arrived late for Jury Duty!)  The wolves came from Yellowstone. While out in Idaho teaching a class Ben had the opportunity to photograph some white wolves at a very close range (he says they are a very cool sight up close!) and he knew exactly then what he wanted to do with them. There are 8 wolves with in the final scene ghosting in and out of the forest. For the subject he wanted a slight pop of color and decided that Red Riding Hood would be a fun subject, but he wanted to give the story a twist. The story of Red Riding Hood has been recreated a million times, so instead he thought "what if the subject was not trying to flea the wolves but was instead using the red riding hood costume as bait to lure the wolves into a trap? If you look very closely you can also see the faintest of silhouettes of a castle in the background. The portrait was printed on a fine art water color paper to give it the feel of an artistic rendering.

We welcome you to the Shirk Photography Studio!

This is what our building looked like when it was purchased nearly 3 years ago in the historically known downtown of Wilton, IA. It wasn't much to look at but it had the right amount of space for the right price!

Using the image above I took it into photoshop and created my ideal studio.

This is the image I created in photoshop

And this is what it looks like now!  (minus the snow now)

This portrait of the studio was captured last winter

Shirk Photography Studio was no longer just a Photoshop creation but a reality! The studio was complete in 2011, a year after the the building was purchased 

Most of the work was done by us and with the help of friends and family! This images show you how much extensive work was needed to be done so that Ben's vision could be fully realized. 

The ceiling had collapsed and we had some serious reconstruction to do! 

This is our reception area today with large canvas wraps and metal prints. Our design was inspired by some buildings in Chicago and and a bit of Las Vegas style

This is our grande gallery hallway displaying our portraits that are truly timeless. Our studio was so meticulously designed that we made sure every inch is not only unique and beautiful but also can be used for portraits. Our chandeliers and architecture through out the studio offers our clients elegance! We've even photographed seniors with their horses under our chandeliers and down our grande hallway.

Our 10 foot projection screen allows for an awesome viewing of our clients portraits

Our studio has been designed to perfectly fulfill the needs of our clientele. The studio features a huge dressing area, a top of the line sound system,  and state of the art viewing room where clients can view there portraits on the big screen! 

Once you open the two 12 foot metal doors at the end of our hallway you enter in our shooting area!

While the front of our studio offers classic elagance the back shooting area has a vintage grunge look to it for even more flexibility for portraits. 

notice the shelves of couches :)

Our 16 foot ceilings allow us to have some great and unique backgrounds. We have some great exposed brick and beautiful rustic windows. The studio has big wide open spaces so that our clients's creativity and imagination is not limited by space. 

these our two 12 roller backgrounds systems that give us a ton of variety for different looks!

 We certainty love having this area to play and work at, it allows us to love what we do and have lots of fun with our sessions! 

Megan & Ross Petersen Wedding

It was a rainy overcast day for Megan & Ross's wedding but that just means that there are some cool clouds to photograph with!

 Megan and Ross' wedding day started as a rainy overcast day. But I wasn't worried. We had a great location at the Celebration Barn to photograph their big day! We were able to set-up their first glimpse of each other in the Timber Frame barn, it has a large round window that allowed lots of natural light to shine through out.

A contemporary portrait with a little attitude

A romantic portrait of the big day! 

Megan and Ross had their ceremony at the Zion Lutheran Church in Iowa City, it was a beautiful exchange of vows! On our way back to the reception at the Celebration Barn we were able to find an ideal location of tall grass fields to photograph. 

These portraits were taken within a few moments of each other. With the knowledge of different lighting techniques, lenses, and camera settings it is possible to get many different looks in the same location

We didn't have a lot of time to capture portraits but we got some amazing shots of Megan and the girls. No sooner did they get on the bus did the rain just let lose, but that didn't stop us from taking some breathtaking portraits in the rain. 

When we got back to the Celebration Barn we were able to photograph some additional portraits while we waited for Megan & Ross to be announced. We used overhangs as backgrounds for some stellar bridesmaids and groomsmen portraits.

Megan and her Bridesmaids rocking the "Bridesmaids" pose

This is a fun series - somebody said something funny and once Ross started laughing, everyone else had a hard time not laughing too! Tuxedos by Skeffington's Formal Wear   

A great portrait of the bridal party

A beautiful bouquet of flowers by Green Thumbers 

A stunning head shot with the brides bouquet

Megan & Ross' wedding reception had the couples signature styles written all over it. The Double Round barn had beautiful cathedral ceilings that made for some great shots. The reception was packed filled with family, friends and most importantly LOVE for the newlyweds! 

a great food presentation by Jeff's Market 

The whole wedding party was a blast to capture through my lens 

The reception was a blast filled with great laughs and a open dance floor allowing for dancing in celebration of Megan & Ross' big day! 

a great shot of the head table: Check out the Cathedral ceilings-Love them! The Celebration Farm

 

a yummy! creation by Yummy's Gourmet Cakes

Megan & Ross were able to sneak out from the reception and into the venue's amphitheater. We captured some great portraits of the couples using the stormy night sky, what some may say is a disadvantage, but for Megan & Ross it was definitely an advantage to capturing some absolutely memorable portraits