Recent Work

I’ve been pretty quiet over here recently but it’s for good reason!  Not only have we been staying fairly busy, but I’m neck deep in business planning.  Creating new products, cleaning up our branding and web presence, and a whole slew of other things are on the ‘to do’ list.  But I wanted to post a few shots from recent shoots, it’s a bit of a mix of stuff… some commercial yoga shots, a beauty portrait, a boudoir fashion shot, and some portraiture.

 

Milwaukee Art Museum and The City

In January I had the honor of hanging out in Milwaukee for three days with two awesome people, Tegan and Pratik!  Through a contest, Tegan and I had a unique opportunity to be taught retouching by the best in the business, Pratik.  Since we both wanted to get to know the city a little better Tegan generously offered to show Pratik and I around for a day… it was really a great experience to get to know a great city like Milwaukee from someone who’s very familiar with it.  Our first stop, and the thing that took up most of our first day, was our trip to the Milwaukee Art Museum.  Below are some photos from my first day in Milwaukee, and at the end of the post, I’ll talk a little more about our lesson from Pratik.  Enjoy:

The famous ‘Starburst’ outside of the Milwaukee Art Museum

 

For Photographers: Building Light; A Progression

I don’t post a lot of tech-minded stuff here but every once in a while I get the itch to do so.  Today I needed to get out of my studio and breathe in the unusually gorgeous March weather.  Today’s goal: Light a self portrait outside that doesn’t look so… ‘lit’.  I recently got a more powerful studio light that is allowing me some liberties I didn’t have before and well, I’m just excited to use it.

So here’s my play by play… hopefully this will give you a little insight into my light thought process.

 

Katie

 

I’ve finally got my edit lag nipped in the a$$!

Last week I had the honor of photographing a gorgeous designer/photographer from the Green Bay area, Katie Bobber. Besides her undeniable good looks, she had a sweet/warm personality that didn’t take more than a few frames to start showing up!

This was her first time doing a shoot like this, and hopefully not her last!  (My camera loved her! )

Here are a few of my favorites from our shoot:

 

 

 

Nicole, Jai, and a few shadows

I get to work with some amazing and creative people but among my favorites are Nicole and Jai; both extremely creative, talented, professional, and wonderful people!

I’d recommend either of these lovely ladies in a heartbeat if you need someone great for your next project!

At our last shoot, Jai and I talked about playing with shadows on some beauty shots in the future and that idea finally came to fruition in late January!

You’ll see in a few shots we photographed a necklace by Jewelry by Jolene; what a beautiful piece to be able to feature!

After that we dove into some fashion and beauty photos and called it a day!

 

The elusive shoot

 

Andrea and I had been planning a shoot together for MONTHS and it just kept slipping through our fingers, until finally we caught it one day late January!

I enjoy working with Andrea because not only is she talented and beautiful, she’s got a great eye for style, fashion, and strong photography. It’s fun when she’s looking at the shots on the back of the camera and also ‘knows’ when we’ve got the shot!  Not something everyone can do!

A few of you saw on Facebook, the platform I constructed a few months ago, well, here it is:

 

 

 

Experimenting

Tiffany and I both had the pleasure of shooting with Nicole in the same day last month, as most of you already saw in this blog post.  I’ve been encouraging Tiff to do a little shooting of her own so we arranged a rendezvous with Nicole! Tonight I gave her a retouch lesson so she’s still working on finishing out the process on her photos, but I wanted to share what I came up with!

Oh and I think I mentioned this in a previous post, but Nicole is available for hire for modeling, assisting (photographers and models), and second shooting.  Follow the link above to contact her. And those of you who are talking with me about lighting lessons, I recommend finding a strong model to model for you so we can concentrate and stay focused on our learning! (Would always recommend Nicole, of course!)

After Tiff got her shots in for this shoot, Nicole and I just winged it, and came up with some cool stuff!

 

Bianca

I’m on an editing rampage!  Getting caught up thanks to a lag caused by a whirlwind of December and January.  It feels good to be getting back on track!

In December, I got to photograph Bianca while she was visiting over Christmastime.  We collaborated with Jason Thiel and Steve Wagner on some video this day, as well as Colour Law and Jessica Rodinelli on Hair and Make up!  It was a long exhausting day, but I think we all had a lot of fun!  I’ll be sure to blog about this shoot again when Jason finishes his video!  It was great to spend time with Bianca again… here’s what we did:

 

 

Holly, a year later

I got to work with Holly again in December; with the help of Nicole, and Law, we were really able to pull together a great shoot!

I worked with Holly twice over a year ago so we were both excited to get together one more time and see how much we both grew!  As we went through our day, memories of our first shoots kept popping into my mind, reminding me how much I did NOT know when I first started.

It’s funny, when we first set out on a new en-devour, we rarely know what we’re in for… all the trials, struggles, and growing pains seem invisible until you hit them, and once you do, well, that’s when the real test comes.  But I also think when we start something new, we also start with something we don’t even know we have; untapped potential.  All you really need to do is have a little faith that you can make it and then keep stepping in the direction of your goals.  You see we weren’t designed to be complacent, so progress usually doesn’t start until you step outside of your comfort zone and believe in yourself.  <—- That’s the sort of year I had and have been grateful to have so many wonderful people believe in me enough to step in front of my camera and Holly is one of those who believed in me when I had far less experience to back myself up; for that, Holly, I thank you!  We’ve both come a long way!

 

A ‘range’

 

I really don’t have time to do much test work these days (Nicole either… dang those pesky bills! ) but back in December I got to shoot with Nicole… this was another one of those where we just ‘winged it’.  She might disown me for saying this (long story) but I really love the range of looks we were able to get with her short hair!  She did her own hair and make up on this one and I’m really happy with what we got!

 

We played with a range of emotions that were new for both of us; one of my favorites is the smile shot!
I’ve also applied some of my new post processing techniques to these photos.  I’m still refining it so you may see that fluctuate in the next few edits until I reestablish my flow!  Here’s what we did: