Split session for Sarah: Turlock Senior Portraits

While I'm pretty much caught up on work, I'm way behind on sharing. This is a two part senior portrait session where the first part was done in fall and the latter in spring. The crazy thing about it is that the photos from fall look like they were done in spring and vice versa. That said, I had a great time with Sarah on both shoots.

Our lead photo this week I put a little extra attention into. It's not one of the ones that Sarah chose, but as I was going back through her catalog to get her order ready, I paused at it and thought back to when I shot it. I can distinctly remember commenting on how beautiful I thought it was. Then when I loaded them into a gallery for her I remember pausing again and thinking that I should edit it but I went with the color powder shot because of Sarah's work with Red Zone. This last time, as I readied her invitations for print I thought of what a shame it was that no one else would ever see this photo.

I looked at the clock. It was probably about 10 in the evening. The kids were in bed, it was quiet but for Pandora playing in the background. As always, I still had lots of work to do but the artist in me pleaded with me to let him play with this shot. About two and a half hours later I made myself stop experimenting with textured layers and inverted masks.

In the end I learned some new things about textures and layer masks, but most importantly I learned how refreshing it is to the soul to be allowed time to breathe every once in a while.

Lovely wooded shot at CSU Stanislaus

Cinder block wall providing some depth to this portrait.

This stuff gets EVERYWHERE. I'll never shoot with it again, but at least I can say that I tried it once.

It took FOREVER to get this shot, and it's still not how I wanted it, but it's still pretty cool none-the-less.

The benefit to splitting the shoot into two was that Sarah was able to see that she liked more spontaneous, natural light shots more than my more dramatic, lit shots.

"Okay, now no smile." Works every time.

Not how I typically take this shot, but I like it.

The amount of hair that was blowing in this shot was INSANE. It was like we were in a wind tunnel.With a little care and attention to detail, I was able to pull much of the scattered strands out of the shot and off of her face. 

Senior Portraits: Saint Mary's College of California

One of our favorite high school seniors is now a college senior. Say what?! Translation: I’m old.

Jessica is graduating from Saint Mary’s College of California this year so I packed up the car, headed out to the college and did some shooting with her. She was one of our ‘model’ seniors back when we were first getting started. How long ago was that? This long ago…

Hamming it up on our very first shoot.

Look at how tiny Aiden was. Awe…

Well now she’s all grown up. She’s so grown up that she’s actually making beer in her science classes, (thankfully, Aiden isn’t to that point yet). Not goofing around making beer either. Like serious, looking for a job as a chemist in a full blown brewery, sort of beer making. 

We took some shots around campus but she really came alive when we got to her home away from home, the lab where she spent most of her time. It was so nice getting to see her in her element and listen to her explain everything. My how time has flown by.

Congratulations Jess!  

I had a great time taking doing these environmental portraits.

 

The tutu and striped socks might be gone, but she's still Jess.

5x7 announcements for the graduation designed by yours truly. 

There's still one more shoot in the works (Melody wanted to get a chance to shoot with Jessica too) so keep your eyes peeled for that one as well. Until then, congratulations Jessica! 

An Anniversary of Sorts: Turlock Senior Portraits

Posted by David

It's Sunday night at about 2:15 (that makes it morning, doesn't it?) and I'm sitting here waiting for yesterday's wedding to load so that I can start edits. It's been a busy week and weekend with many hours and even a few days away from home. We wrapped up five days of shooting with a joint senior session with Mariah and one of our Model Seniors, Jessica. They'll each be getting their own post because, as Jessica so aptly put it, "We all like to be the star of our own show."

One thing I just had to share was a shot from today that has my creative engine purring. Seriously, my eyes light up every time I look at it. I don't mean that in the conceited way that it probably comes across. It's honestly one of those things where you look at it and think, "Wow, I did that?" You see, it's more disbelief than anything else.

I say it because exactly one year ago from the time of today's shoot, with a Nikon D80 that I borrowed from my mom, I took my first steps into photography. It's something that I've been afraid to mention up until now. I don't want clients to lose faith in our ability to create amazing photographs. I also don't want to lose face with my peers. But to be totally honest with you, dear reader, there are not a lot of things in life that I've done that I feel like I can be truly proud of.

I'm proud of all that my wife has accomplished, and my family. My heart swells over every time my son does even the smallest thing worthy of praise. But for the most part my life has been filled with false starts and almosts. As a matter of fact, one year ago I was trying to change that by giving my all to writing, only to abandon it for photography. (Anyone that used to read Divining the Words already knows that my posts tend to have a very introspective feel to them. Those of you new to my writing, prepare yourselves for a little soul searching.)

That has been the crux of my problems for so long: half assing things. I've never been proud of myself because I've never given something my all. Things that others are proud of for me, I take no pride in. The record for the 400 yard dash that I broke in high school that friends still bring up, is not a point of pride for me because I know I didn't give it my all. I got kicked off the team for bad grades for cripes sake. They don't remember that, but I do. Art school, while I learned a lot, did not produce the kind of work that I was capable of. College saw me doing just enough to get by as better than average; still, it wasn't my best.

When it came to photography, I had to make a choice: move forward with something Melody was passionate about that we could share in, or concern myself with only my creative needs and let her hash things out on her own. I chose to abandon my love of writing to embrace my love for and commitment to my wife. A pretty good trade-off if you ask me. After all, nothing worth having ever came easily. Then again, photography was easy, you just pointed the camera at stuff and captured expressions. Right?



Our second shoot together, which should have been a fairly straightforward portrait session, left me reconsidering my ability to be a photographer. For the entire shoot, nearly all of my shots, save for when I was in the darkest of shade, were blown out. Super bright whites everywhere, and nothing I did on the back of that goofy Rebel camera could change it. It wasn't until the end of the shoot, after our senior and his mom had headed home and I was left to monkey with settings as I shot geese on the Stan State lawns, did I figure out that I'd had my ISO bumped to 1600 in the middle of broad daylight. Of course, back then I wasn't even second fiddle to Melody, I was more like the guy that plays the triangle once a movement. My shots didn't really matter.

But I wanted to matter. We all do, don't we? And so, I turned my back on writing and embraced photography. Nearly every day since then has had some form of study, practice, thought, or experimentation in photography. Without Melody's encouragement along the way I'd likely have given up on this as well.

So what has me thinking that I can finally admit to being new to this? Is it just the photograph I captured? To be honest, anyone can get lucky. I know that. And I know that luck played a big role today. Luck came in the form of amazing clouds. It also came in the way that although I'd forgotten all of my filters at home in the scramble to get out the door after unpacking from the overnight stay in Sanger for the wedding, the one filter left in my bag was the Neutral Density for my 100mm. Luck came in two ready and willing models, and their supportive mothers. Luck especially came the day I somehow tricked Melody into marrying me. Even with all of that luck there were things that no amount of luck could create.

No, today it's different, it's different because I had the wherewithal to say, "Let's do that over." I was confronted with a problem and instead of saying, "oh well, Melody's shots will cover my butt," I did what every professional that I aspire to be like would have done and worked the scene until I got the shot.

So here's the beginning of the problem. We've got two lovely young ladies who love the Harry Potter series. The gods have graced us with a moody sky, and we've got half of a dead tree. Mel's thought was to place one girl on each side, zoom in tight on the tree so that we don't see the top and catch just the two of them and the gnarled bark. A great idea, but a problem for me.



I knew right away that the light fall off from my source would be too great to cover both girls, and that I only had one light source to play with (fried the backup flash at the wedding the day before). I understood the limits of my modifier and source, which for anyone who works with off-camera flash can attest to, is grounds for kudos all by itself.

I made the choice to bring Jessica around to the front of the tree. Now I'm working my light, balancing ambient and off camera, working the scene, fumbling my way through directions to the girls. I'm liking the shots. They're looking good. "I think we've got it," I say and then show the girls the back of my camera, something I rarely do. Far too many times I've been excited about a shot only to show the client and get a "Yeah, that's nice," in response. Nothing deflates a creative's motivation faster than "yeah, that's nice," but I took a chance.



They loved it. The girls loved it, Melody loved it, even the moms loved it. I was feeling pretty good about myself. We decided that there was no point taking any other pictures because that was THE ONE. However, something Mariah's mom said nagged at me. "That's the kind of picture you print as a poster and put up on the wall."



"f/5" echoed in my head. I'd shot it at f/5. For those of you not in the know, f/5 was going to leave one girl nice and sharp while the other would end up just the slightest bit out of focus given the distance between them and my choice of focal length. I knew that and was going to let it slide because you'd never see it in an 8x10. But a poster? A poster was an entirely different beast. That's when I made the call that a professional would make, I asked them to set up and do it all over again.

They probably thought I was crazy, but I knew one of them wouldn't be sharp and I knew I could do better. So we set up again and I pushed my light to the limit and worked my settings until I could squeeze f/10 out of the camera. The results, straight from the camera, . . . .



One year. Granted, there was a foundation of years of art school, drawing, graphic design, sign shops, and just a general love and appreciation of art on which to build, not to mention the unwavering love and support of Melody through it all, but it has been one year with a DSLR. I went from blowing out images because I couldn't figure out that I had my camera set to ISO 1600, to having the wherewithal to restage a scene because I knew I needed f/10. I used to look at images like the one I created today and think, "I'll never be able to do that," but I did. The best part about it is that I know that I'll be able to do it again. It probably won't be tomorrow, or next week, or maybe not even next month, but I know I now have the ability to seize the moment when it is presented. I finally feel like I'm the star of my own show and I finally feel comfortable saying something that I haven't felt I could say for a very long time, "I'm proud of myself."

The final image, after photoshop:


Edit: The blown out senior portrait shots above are from October 9th of last year. The shot above was 1/200, f/10, ISO 400. Canon 5D mkii, Canon 100mm IS L macro with a neutral density filter, two 580ex ii's fired at full power in manual through a three foot softbox with outer and inner baffle, triggered by a radiopopper PX atop an ST-E2. ISO was pushed to 400 in order to achieve f/10. In hindsight, I probably could have removed the ND and pulled back on the ISO to achieve the same aperture. I'll keep that in mind for next time. :o)

Modesto Senior Portraits: Model Senior Thalia

What is a Model Senior? For some photographers it's nothing more than a pretty face. It's a spokesmodel - someone to go out there and represent your photography. For us, it's something more. Our Model Senior program is a competitive opportunity for a select number of juniors throughout the Central Valley to have the ultimate experience with their senior portraits with the possibility of getting that experience for free. But that is just the basics. Remember, Melody is an educator, and three of our parents either are or were in education. The power of knowledge is very important to us, and it's something for which we have a great deal of respect. Hence, our Model Seniors tend to share that value of education and love of learning.


Thalia, a senior at Gustine High School, is one of the most active young ladies you'll come across. She's a part of the volleyball team, was the captain of the Varsity Girls Soccer team, is the president of the senior class, and attended the COSMOS program at UC Irvine, where she worked on a project titled "What is the Impact of Interleukin - 13 in Liposomal Doxorubicin on Glioblastoma Multiforme Cells?"(Yeah, based on that title alone, I am willing to wager that she is one smart cookie!) She also takes numerous AP classes, and she is perpetually smiley and positive; really, you can just (FILL IN AWESOMENESS HERE). She somehow finds time for all of this while maintaining an exceptionally high GPA. She also has one of the sunshiniest dispositions we've encountered. All of these qualities make her an ideal Model Senior candidate, and we are already looking forward to her next session.

Gustine Senior Portraits: A Park Like No Other

Posted By David

Another day, another attempt at catching up on blog posts.

So how far into your senior year can you wait to get your senior portraits done? That depends on your school's yearbook deadline. Of course, if you're not concerned about what your portrait in the yearbook looks like, you can wait until, oh, the week of graduation. Yup, that's right, Joe just graduated last week and had his pictures taken the Sunday before.

You see, mom wanted something to put up at his graduation party and since Joe hadn't allowed any professional pictures to be taken of him since before the eighth grade, not portraits, not school photos, nothing, she therefore had nothing to put up. After much motherly pleading, Joe finally conceded.

That left us little to no time to set up the shoot and get them something to put up at the party. We met on Sunday at a local park in Gustine, going to great lengths in our shooting to make sure that it didn't look like the park that everyone in Gustine knows. We got the "mom" shots out of the way and then Joe wanted some shots that expressed more of who he was. Out came the monster tank top.

Now, we had already tried to convince Joe to go into downtown to do pictures but, like most guys, he doesn't like photos anyway, so he wanted to simply stay put at the park. Melody took a few shots in the with the new outfit and I said, "Dude, we have to go into downtown with this outfit. Find a back alley or something." Thankfully, he agreed.

A splash of dramatic off camera flash, a photogenic subject, et voila!

We headed home, color corrected the photos, put them into an online gallery, got mom's 8x10 request by Tuesday, ordered a print from a reputable printer in San Jose, I picked it up on my way back from renting lenses in San Mateo on Friday and delivered it to their door in time for the party on Friday night. Whew!


Nice way to round out our 2010 seniors. Now on to 2011!

Beginnings & Endings - Maternity and Senior Portraiture

It has been entirely too long since we have updated. It has largely been the result of looming yearbook deadlines for Melody & a general overload of construction work for David (for those of you not "in the know", David is a Jack-of-All-Trades, so to speak, and has been busily constructing a new garage for us... which is more likely to turn in to our studio in the near future.

Here are a couple of my favorite recent sessions, though.  I suppose I should work chronologically, but it just hasn't happened. So here are some from a beginning....

Melissa and her husband Mike were expecting their first little girl, Keira, back in January. We postponed one time in late December as rain was threatening. Our reschedule - only 5 days before Keira's due date! - looked like it might be a wash, too, as the forecast predicted a 94% chance of rain at the time we had scheduled. About an hour and a half before the scheduled time, Melissa called to see if there was any chance we could work them in early in the hope of getting the shots before the rain began to fall. We enthusiastically asked them to hurry on over. Here are a few from that sitting.

The last picture I will share from our set of Beginnings photos features a coat that Michael particularly likes... and Melissa does not. I thought it produced some lovely results!

And now for out Endings set. I should not think of this set as an end... yet. Heather has been one of my students this year in my AP English Language & Composition course, as well on my yearbook staff. She is a tireless worker and a very giving individual... and she is testing out to leave high school early! Selfishly, I am sad that she will not be around school next year, but I know that she is heading out to do much bigger and better things... including doing some work as our assistant in the upcoming busy summer months! Since she is leaving school early, this is her "senior portrait session" even though she is not really one yet.

When the day of our shoot with Heather arrived, th sky was filled with clouds and rain. As we approached her family's orchard, the clouds seemingly parted from directly above our heads and the sun came out, even as rain fell just miles away. Here are a handful of shots, including some with her boyfriend Justin.

And then the rain started falling. Luckily, Heather was a good sport - even going barefoot in the rain!

For which she was rewarded... with a rainbow!

Some have said that Heather is the Hermione Granger of Gustine - she actually shares the character's initials. I can see from some of these portraits a reason for the comparison. (By the way, the rings on her hand were given to her by Justin. I love all things Celtic!)

So, here is to beginnings - Keira was born right on schedule to two extremely happy parents.
And to endings - Heather leaving GHS.
And to new beginnings, with wherever the future takes her!

~Melody