Mother and Daughter Session: Mary and Melodie

Melodie has grown in front of the camera with me. In 2009, I placed a search for models to help with my illustration work. Neither of us knew what we were doing, photographically, but she was game to go along with any idea I wanted to try with my camera -- four-mile hikes at dawn, nighttime jaunts through a crowded neighborhood, and an epic six-hour illustration session complete with theatrical period costumes and props, to name a few.

In return, I had the good fortune of photographing many milestones in her life, from opening night with her band to her wedding and new baby.

Now, I'm very excited to be including photography to my creative services. When the time came to add the Mother/Daughter session to my repertoire, I knew she needed to be involved.

As you can see, the apple does not fall far from the tree. Melodie's mother, Mary, was a bit apprehensive, having never truly spent time in front of the camera, but she was an absolute natural. Most importantly, the beauty of this relationship beams in their images. It's the documentation of a very special bond, unlike any other, and one I'd love every mother and daughter to experience.




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Lynda in the City

This is Lynda, an aspiring model whom I had the pleasure of photographing, recently.

I go into shoots with goals. Posing was at the top of my goals list on this day. It can be the single biggest difference between a flattering and unflattering photograph, in my view. A bend of the front knee, a chin forward and down (with thanks to Sue Bryce), and a hand placed around the hip instead of smack against one's side, can elongate, slim, and make anyone look significantly better. Who doesn't want to look good in front of the camera?

The everyday person usually does not know how to pose or look flattering in front of the camera; nor should they. It's not their job. It's my job, and I love it. It's my mission to make everyone who steps in front of my camera look and feel like a model.

Here is a sampling from Lynda.







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Serendipity Bridal Session

In March, I had the pleasure of working with Serendipity Bridal, in Springfield, Missouri. We created stories with some of her lovely products.

Serendipity bridal specializes in custom wedding flowers and fans, but also designs and creates veils, head pieces, and other accessories for the beautiful bride.

Are you a bride-to-be and in the market for one-of-a-kind, gorgeous accent pieces? Be sure to browse the lovely work at Suzanne's website as part of your quest: http://www.serendipitybysuzanne.com

Make up was artfully applied by Michelle Cron of Michelle Cron Artistry: http://www.MichelleCronArtistry.com

And, our lovely model is Melodie. I have had the good fortune of working with Melodie many times. She's just as beautiful and engaging on the inside as she is on the outside.

The trick to photographing these kinds of products is to make sure they receive the primary visual attention while also making sure the photo is flattering to our model. During this shoot, we also had quite a stiff wind engaging our problem-solving skills (keeping hair, clothing, products, and lights steady).

You can see lots of Serendipity Bridal's work featured in the Summer 2012 issue of Metropolitan Bride magazine, on newsstands, now. If you snoop around the issue, you will also see Melodie featured in their ad.

Here are a few shots from our session.





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6 Tips to Help You Look Better in Front of the Camera

I know you. You avoid the camera like the plague, because you think you are not photogenic. You untag yourself in every Facebook photo, because you don't really look like that. Yes, I know you.

There are lots of contributing factors to your camera-fright, but posing is the big culprit, here. Unless you spend lots of time modeling, you may not know much about posing. Posing is hard work, as many models can attest. Just about every woman wants to look taller, slimmer, younger, and more beautiful. Fortunately, there are six quick and simple tips I can share with you, the non-model, to help you look amazing next time you find yourself in front of the unexpected camera. If not amazing, then, at least a whole lot better.



1. Stand up straight. Good posture is slimming and flattering.

2. Turn at a slight angle from the camera. Facing the camera, straight on, makes the body look its widest. A slight angle is more slimming and forgiving.

3. Place your weight on your back leg and bend your front leg, slightly. The back leg is away from the camera, making it appear smaller, and the bent front leg has relaxed muscles, which makes it slimmer. The bend also adds a lovely S-shaped curve, which is more interesting than a straight line.

4. Relax your shoulders. People hold tension in their shoulders. Relaxing them not only relaxes the muscles but also elongates the neck, which is also slimming.

5. Bring a bit of space between your arms and body. Smashing arms against the body makes them wide. Adding space between arms and body reveals the silhouette of the waist, which is slimming. When arms are at the sides of the body, they become the width of the body. The natural hourglass is obscured. Bringing them away reveals the waist and showcases the hourglass, which is flattering.

6. Smile with your eyes. When you do so, it is a natural expression, and very engaging. You've seen those dead-eye "say cheese" smiles from unnamed family portraits; not too engaging.

Give these a try. Let me know how it goes!

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Who Are You?

What do you do and who do you do it for? 

That's a question we all likely struggle with, myself, included. Photography has become a lovely way to not only express myself, but also to help me answer the question, "Who are you?". And, by "you," I mean you, the person reading this.

You see, as artists, we gravitate toward our inner core. We all have insatiable urges to touch our inner core, because most of us have lost contact with it, somewhere along the way.

Artists have to start the process, somewhere, so we begin with the question, "What looks pretty to us?". I like the subject of people, so depicting the human form in beautiful ways is my response.

From there, we often get the urge to look beyond the immediate, two-dimensional visual gratification and search for a third dimension -- message; particularly, what is meaningful to us. We can only do this by mining our vast life history to reverse-engineer that path to our inner core -- and your inner core.

For example, if one struggles with insecurity issues, he might find ways to honor and reflect those feelings or, conversely, find ways to snub their nose at insecurity and show personal empowerment within the image, and see the person they want to be. We put out there what we want to attract. If you struggle with insecurities, you will identify with the stories within those images.

Who is more qualified to reflect your personal story than someone who is empathetic to you?

Who am I? I'm a visual artist, telling intense personal stories through compassionate eyes. My work is thoughtfully bold.

Who do I do this for? I connect with anyone who needs an empathetic and beautiful voice to tell their unique story.

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Make a Connection

Here is one of the secrets to life (I'm going to get deep on you):

People just want to make a connection with other people.

When you look at a photograph, like this one of Cindy, you may be asking: who is this girl, why is her hair pink, where is she, what is she looking at, what time of day is it, what is she thinking?

What life experiences have led her to this moment?

Here's how people make that connection: they recognize themselves in that other person.

You want to see aspects of yourself, because it validates our own experiences and our own existences. You may be thinking about a time when you had this daydream expression. What were you thinking about?

As human beings, we need this validation, whether it comes from friends, family, or peers. Otherwise, we open ourselves up to feelings of uncertainty about ourselves and our decisions in life (if no one else is doing it, are we doing it, correctly?). I think photography not only freezes time, but has the power to allow this validation. That's pretty powerful, in my opinion.

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Summer Lightning Storm

Who doesn't enjoy a wild lightning shot?

They are violent, beautiful, unpredictable, colorful, and dramatic examples of the earth sciences in practice -- not to mention gorgeous works of art.

In addition to sharing my two recent lightning captures (second one is below), I'm going to share with you the technique behind the capture -- camera settings and things to keep in mind for your own lightning shots.

Theory (the secret behind a cool lightning shot)

It's nearly impossible to capture a lightning bolt, perfectly-positioned and perfectly-exposed, by clicking the shutter when you see it, point-and-shoot-style.

The short of it is, one must:

-Set up, on a tripod, pointed in an advantageous position, where the action seems to be happening
-Shoot long exposures and hope the bolt shoots down from the sky within your frame during that exposure time

To explain further...

Before the shoot

Safety is key. A camera on a tripod can act as a lightning rod, so be safe!

Check the weather radar and track from which direction the storm is coming. Weatherbug is a nice little iPhone app which can do the trick, while out in the field.

Technical things

Camera -- Use a DSLR, if possible. It will give you the most opportunities to control your image through the multitude of settings. I used a Canon EOS 7D.

Lens -- Wide angle would be the obvious choice, because it will capture a wide expanse of landscape and give you the best opportunity to catch a strike. I used a Canon EF 50mm f/1.2L USM (not a wide angle lens) for this recent image, simply because this lens gives me terrific color, and I wanted to see what it could do with lightning color.

Tripod -- With long exposure times, you will need to position your camera on a tripod to ensure sharp images, free of camera shake.

Sharp images -- To give myself the best chance for a sharp image, in addition to using a tripod, I enabled the mirror lock function. This allows me to manually control the flip up of the mirror, inside the camera, and then open the shutter after the slight jarring subsides. Under ordinary circumstances, that slight vibration of the mirror flipping up, just milliseconds before the shutter opens, can cause just enough shake to notice in an image with a long exposure time.

The last order of sharpness business is to use a remote shutter release, to remove the possibility of my finger causing any movement to the camera upon depressing the on-camera shutter button. I control the release of both the mirror and shutter with a hand-held remote trigger. The receiver is attached to my camera's hot shoe.

Camera settings -- I set up in "bulb" setting, which allows me to control exactly how long to keep the shutter open.

I used f/9.0. This gave me decent depth of field, and gave me exposures that struck just the right balance between illumination for a 15-40-second exposure time (depending on how close the storm was) and a reasonable time to let a bolt or two strike the scene.

I used ISO 320. This also gave me a good balance of light sensitivity with those shutter and f-stop settings while minimizing noise.

It's time to shoot

Composition -- Compose your scene and prepare to set up for a while. Patience is key. I find it's good to include part of the landscape in the scene to give the viewer a sense of size and distance, and something and somewhere to anchor them. Plus, it helps tell a story.

Focus -- My first few shots were to get my focus set. You'll often see advice to focus to infinity. But, I pulled in, just a bit, so my landscape elements were in focus. I experimented with a few shots to get the best manual focus setting. Once you are there, leave it.

Exposure time -- My next few shots were intended to figure out how long I should keep the shutter open to capture the bolts and keep a well-exposed image.

Lightning was happening fast and furious, so I found, when the storm was close, 10-20-seconds gave me an exposure that was pleasingly-exposed (using the other settings, above) and yielded a dramatic bolt or two in the frame, most every time. When the storm was distant, 40 seconds was just the ticket.

I checked my watch with every click of the shutter and timed myself. If I didn't, I ran the risk of overexposing my images with too much ambient light -- hard to believe with the night sky, but that's what happened. Photographing lightning requires diligence, too!

Then what?

"Strike" while the iron is hot. Keep shooting and shooting until the action moves. Keep your eye out to see where it may be moving to, and re-position your camera for a new series from another vantage point, and a new composition.

The above image was from a series captured in a 15-minute span.

Think about capturing a sense of space with lightning shots. If you can capture a close-up storm, the cloud-to-ground dynamic is quite stellar and shows where the strikes are happening from the clouds, relative to the distance on the landscape.

Also consider the difference in appearance and illumination of a lightning storm when it's approaching from far away versus when it is almost on top of you. The size and brightness of the bolts are different, as are the ambient colors.

Post-processing

Doing the camera work is only half the process. Creating a final image, for me, includes image editing software to pull out the best from any given photograph, particularly when compositing is involved, like with this one.

Before I sign-off, here's another composite, taken when the storm was farther away and still approaching.

I hope this is helpful! Show me your own images of lightning, and feel free to add your own tips!



Are you interested in your own shoot? Contact me at the link, below, about scheduling a glamour or portrait session. I'd love to discuss it with you!

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