Monday, February 27, 2012

Wall Gallery in the Abrahamson Home





TO REALITY:





I love it when everything comes together after all of the planning, the photo session, the ordering meeting, and the many decisions and changes that go into creating a custom photo Wall Gallery. My absolute favorite moment is right after I have helped my client get their images hung on the wall and then we step back and admire our work.

The images above are from the home of Marcia and Rich Abrahamson. They chose to do a Wall Gallery using the images from their family session, and I was so happy with how it all turned out. We used hand-made custom frames that were created with exactly the colors the Marcia chose and in the sizes that I recommended. The three 5x5 images on the left are of her three children, there is a family group portrait on the top right and on the bottom right, the image that is everyone's favorite, a back-lit family silhouette.

One of the reasons that I started offering custom frames and Wall Gallery design is because of how important I think it is to display your family images as Art. Now that photography is digital, I believe that most of us are leaving our pictures on the computer and failing to print them. I'm guilty of it, I know my friends are (I know because I asked on FB recently), and I hate to see my clients do it. Our kids should see us print their images, put them in amazing frames, and hang them in a prominent place in our homes. It tells them that they are special and that we think they are beautiful and important.

Marcia has told me how friends and family walk into her home and immediately are drawn to her photographic art and just oooohhhh and ahhhhh over her children. I know this makes her feel fantastic, and it makes me oh-so happy to hear!

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Lauren & Steve: Engagement Session in Scottsdale, AZ



Lauren and Steve are such a sweet couple. They are getting married in a few short weeks, so last weekend we headed waaay up to Cave Creek to grab a few engagement photos. It was a beautiful day, and we had so much fun wandering around getting some great photos of the two of them.





We did the session at a hill-top church that is just on the outside of The Boulders Resort, just north of Scottsdale. The light was amazing and we had a dozen different spots to choose from for pictures.











Toward the end of the session, we drove around to the entrance of the resort and decided to take a few images on the gorgeous property:



Lauren and Steve we fun and relaxed, and that tells me that the wedding is going to be fun and relaxed as well. I am waiting on pins on needles for the wedding date to arrive, I can already tell that it is going to be awesome!

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

Senior Portraits in Gilbert, AZ: Devon



This is my daughter Devon's Senior year of high school, which means that it is finally (yay!!) our turn to do Senior Portraits! This is beyond exciting for me. I've thought a lot about the significance of the images and I want them to be perfect, but I am also hoping that I can focus on just "being in the moment" and enjoying these last few occasions that we can spend together before she heads off to college.

Another thing I'm excited about is being able to share the session experience as a mom with my clients. I usually give a lot of advice to my clients during the planning stages about clothing, locations and what to expect, but that has always been from a photographer's view. After this, I'll hopefully be better able to see things from "the other side."

For Devon's portraits, one of the first things that we did was grab a few shots of her on the same day that she had her school yearbook pictures taken. She was already dressed and had her hair and makeup done, so it was really easy to do the two sessions back-to-back. For most schools in the Gilbert/Chandler school districts, yearbook photos are done at a photography studio during the summer before their senior year. I loved several of the images, so after we selected her yearbook image we ordered a few different poses for our home as well as for our family. I don't do studio photography with backdrops and lights, so I made sure to select the ultra formal ones that look the least like what I would normally take.

The recommendation for the yearbook photo was to wear a long sleeved, dark colored blouse. Do you have any idea how difficult it is to find that in the middle of the summer? We finally found one at White House/Black Market. We ended up getting black, but a jewel tone would have been nice as well. If you have a student that will be a senior next year, I suggest looking for a blouse or shirt now, otherwise you will spend all day combing the malls in frustration like we did.

We ended up with about 20 shots that I loved. Most of them will go into an album, but two of them are framed and hanging in our house:




Originally, we planned to do Devon's portraits earlier in the year. That plan went out the window, however, when she ended up getting her braces put back on soon after school started. We have tons of pictures of her over the last three years wearing the darn things, and it was important to her to get some pictures of her with a perfect smile. So, we had to wait a few months.

Finally, last week, they came off. :) Time to get to business! We had a lot of decisions to make, including clothing, locations, hair style and props.

One of the things I always tell my clients is to first decide how you want the images to look. All of the decisions will fall into place once you begin to narrow it down, and the easiest way to do that is to think about who you are and what you like to do. Are you someone who typically dresses up or goes more casual? Where do you spend your time? Do you want to incorporate your school activities or a favorite hangout?

In Devon's case, we knew that we wanted her portraits to show that she's a Texas girl. That's where she was born, where she has spent most of her life, and it's where she's heading for college. Now that we had a basic look nailed down, the details fell into place.

Clothing: Jeans, boots, natural fabrics, layers, cowboy hat.

Makeup: minimal. We debated whether she should wear eyeshadow or not, and finally decided it wouldn't hurt as long as the colors were natural.

Hair: Straight or curly? We were undecided on her hair up until the last minute, when she ran out of time to do anything at all. So it is completly natural, she didn't do a thing except wash and air dry. I'm so jealous.

Location: Because I'm also photographing several of her friend's portraits this year, I want to use a different location for each Senior and I'm running out of ideas! As luck would have it, a few minutes before we left the house my friend Suzi suggested a place to try and it turned out to be the perfect spot.

Although I can make location suggestions, it always works best if my clients make the final decision on where do do the session. The thing to keep in mind is that it doesn't have to be perfect. The focus literally is not on the background, it is on you, and we can work within just about any location and still get great shots that you will love.


So here they are! I love every image, and now I have the difficult task of deciding what to print big and what goes into her album.



It is actually illegal to walk on or take pictures on railroad tracks, so after we got this shot we left. The light was too harsh, anyway.


We took advantage of an open building with a broken window:




I love using interesting details like the words on the building:




We didn't write this on the wall... it was a very happy coincidence:




The moss-covered wall made a great background:




At this point the sun was setting and it was getting cold in the shade, so we loaded up the car to head home. Devon pulled her hair out of her face into a quick braid, and immediately I knew we needed to get back out for a few more shots. These turned out to be some of my favorites of the day:




And this one seems to be the favorite of everyone that knows Dev really well:


We actually still have one more session planned before we are completely finished. We are planning a special shoot in April in her Prom dress, with professional hair and makeup and an urban, city-lights location.

She's a Texas girl, but that doesn't mean that she's a country bumpkin. :)
Stay tuned!!
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Mom of four fantastic, funny kids. Freakishy addicted to hot tea and cold cereal. Fantasizes about a future in photography. Loves to death her fun friends, funky family and football (just ask anyone). This has been brought to you by the letters "Ph."