Senior Pictures

Photography is just a hobby of mine. I happen to love taking pictures. That being said my favorite part of taking photographs is sharing them with others. When on vacation I want my friends and family to feel comfortable with me taking pictures of them and their children. When people are comfortable when a camera is around, the more "life capturing" the photographs are.

That all being said, a senior portrait shoot is the exact opposite of all of that. Teenage boys rarely want their picture taken or care how they look most of the time. When my nephew (it was probably my sister-in-law) asked me to hang out and take some portraits for him I jumped at the opportunity to broaden my skill set. This was a bit different than the engagement photos I have done, however I think the shoot went well enough.

We met at Borderland State Park and I tried to make this already handsome gentleman look respectable. I have learned that I need to figure out how to use some form of portable light source or work on using a flash outdoors. There were more than a few photos that suffered from very hard shadows across his face. I did my best to tweak the photos in Adobe Lightroom and I am happy with the final results. 

Most of these are your traditional take on a senior photo, I did not really want to try anything too crazy for my first attempt.

These next pictures are not going to show up in a year book however I was a fan of them. The senior here was about the size of his little brother when I met him and he was even the ring bearer at my wedding. So I find these two shots to be quite reflective. 

As always, thank you for reading. My love of photography is directly connected to my love of sharing how I view the world. 

Anna and Mike

I am by no means a professional photographer but I do love taking pictures. More than that I love being able to share my pictures with people. A friend of mine recently became engaged and I volunteered my services to take some engagement photos for her. After all, the only way to get better at anything is to practice (or at least that's what I tell my students). I feel that my strongest photographs are my candid shots, so taking portraits is still new to me. I know I have posed my son a million times but with children even portraits still feel like candid shots as they refuse to sit still.

Anyway here are some of my favorite shots of the day. Before anyone asks (like that's going to happen) some have been edited using Photoshop.

If you are wondering, the Latin phrase below translates to "If there be heaven on earth, this is it, joy everlasting"

Thank you to Anna and Mike for allowing me the opportunity to practice my hobby and thank you for reading. Unless you just looked at the pictures ... just kidding I am thanking those people to they just don't realize it.

Have fun and don't forget to take pictures!

One Month At A Time

So it finally happened, my Little Buddy turned one year old! I am not sure where the time went or how we got to this point but it happened. This past year has been the most demanding, stressful, tiring, as well as joyful, exciting, and rewarding year of my life. Every day my Little Buddy learns something new. I understand that he literally knows nothing so of course he is constantly learning, however the amazing part is the look on his face once that light bulb goes off. I remember him realizing that his feet were attached to him, I watched as he suddenly figured out that he could hold his own bottle. Just the other day I witnessed the most excited look as he made it to the top of the stairs. I have tried to photograph as many of these moments as possible and have definitely made it to the millions of pictures bracket. Though I am not going to share millions of pictures with you I would like to share this collection of monthly images.

My wife and I knew that we wanted to document his growth via a series of photographs and we also knew that to do this correctly we needed a constant for scale comparisons. I wanted to get him a necktie and while walking through a store one day we came across a super cute teeny tiny Adirondack chair. It was perfect! With the tie and the chair adding a bright pop of color his pictures came out lovely. So here they are one month to twelve months with an added bonus.

Enjoy!

Until next time ... have you cake and eat it too!