Last portrait of the year!

Well, it's been an amazing 2009 and we had a great little session with Ethan to end it on a good note. We had a lot of fun watching him meander back and forth through the studio. He had some serious tasks to accomplish, moving stuffed animals from the basket to the shooting area and it was really funny to watch. We squeezed a couple of good shots in between trips and most importantly he seems very comfortable with the studio now, so we should be good to go for his next portrait.

Happy Holidays!

I hope everyone had a Merry Christmas and is looking forward to the new year. We've currently got a huge rush for family portraits at the studio. Since I know everyone's family is in town I'm extending my hours and booking multiple sessions per day, so if you're hoping to get a family portrait with someone who hasn't been in town since last Christmas, give us a call and schedule your appointment today.

Chelsea's Senior Portraits

What a fun portrait session. The falling snow looked great, it streaked across the background giving this familiar railroad bridge a whole new look. We worked fast to make sure no one got uncomfortable, or wet, and to ensure my batteries held out long enough. We ended up taking about 100 shots, but we were only outside for about 30 minutes total, so that's a really fast pace, much faster than I normally shoot. We got some really cool shots with the bridge and with the curved bit of track on the other side of the road. Three of my favorites are in my senior gallery, and stay tuned for the montage I'm designing for Chelsea.

Well, he made us work for it, but we got a couple of really cute shots of James last night. He was really more interested in running around and hiding under blankets, and hey, who could blame him, but the few times we got him over to the shooting area, we were able to focus and get some good portraits made.

Holiday Season

Well, Christmas is upon us and due to a very busy senior season I really haven't had much of a holiday portrait season. If anyone is interested in getting holiday portraits taken just call me at my studio, but unless you work fast to place your order enlargements probably won't be back in time for Christmas. For the few people that I have taken portraits get your orders in quick or it may be new years day before you receive them.

Currently in Mexico

If anyone needs to get a hold of me fairly quickly I'd suggest email, I'm not going to be checking my phone messages at the studio until Monday the 23rd. If you want to schedule a session leave your name and number, I'll be booking people in the order they call, and with the holidays upon us, I have a feeling there is going to be a mad rush for portraits for photo cards. Call soon or you may lose your spot.

We had a really fun creative studio session last night for Kane's senior portraits. We did a lot of really cool poses with his guitars and we even broke out the fog machine towards the end. As usual we fill the entire place with fog and set off the smoke detectors. It took a good thirty minutes to clear the place out. We got some really good shots though and the smoke didn't overpower Kain in any of them which can happen fairly easily if you're not careful. It was a really good session and I would say this probably concludes the senior portrait season for the year. It should be mostly family portraits and children for the rest of year.

Newest Senior Slideshow

I know these portraits are from last season, but I felt Nathan's portraits deserved a slideshow, so here it is!

Shepler Family Portrait

I'd say this officially begins the holiday portrait season. We had a really nice, fairly short, portrait session Saturday morning with the Shepler family. Little Scott really ran me ragged trying to get a smile. I tried every trick in my arsenal and I just couldn't get anything above a little smirk. Next time though, I've got a bag of feathers with his name on it. We'll get a smile no matter what.

Tessa - Class of 2010

Here is my latest High School Senior Slideshow. I'm really enjoying making these, they're really time consuming, but they are so much more exciting than my old slideshows. If you've had your portraits taken by me this year and want to order one of these, all you have to do is provide me with the music you want included. For licensing reasons you need to own the music I use, so give me a CD and I will do the rest.

Senior Slide Show

Here is a slideshow of about 30 of my favorite shots from Stephanie's portrait session earlier this week.

Stephanie's Senior Portraits

We had another awesome studio session last night. We tried some really cool things and got some of the most dramatic shots I've ever taken. I really love this red background with her black top. Very cool. There are more of her poses in my gallery, plus a couple of fun behind the scenes shots from this session on my FaceBook page. Check it out!

Morgan's Senior Portraits

We had a nice long studio only senior session last night and we worked in a lot of new props I've acquired over the last couple of months, and we used a couple of older props in interesting new ways. We got some really outstanding shots, but this one blows me away. You can bet you will see this shot again, most likely printed up as a 16x20 and hung up at my studio.

Kyle's Senior Portraits

I hope this isn't the last outdoor senior portrait I take this year, but with the way the weather is going I'm thinking this might be it. If that's the case though, what a way to end the season. We nailed the exact right time for perfect fall colors and every single pose was just perfect. I was really really happy about how everything came together.

Britney's Senior Portraits

After a really fun session down at the dam we spent a couple of hours in the studio doing some really nice casual shots. We also spent some time in her cheerleading and Berryette outfits, and got some really cool shots. I'm working on a montage for her, I'll get that posted as soon as I finish it.

This is a portrait session for the record books. We hiked down to the dam, spent about 15 minutes taking 38 portaits, and then hiked back to our cars. You get in, you get the shots, you get out, that's they way to do it. We tried 2 different poses, one with the dam as the backdrop and one with this pool, and they both turned out really nice, but the kids' expressions in this shot are perfect. Aside from there being so much green in the background as opposed to the beautiful fall color present everywhere else, you just can't ask for a better family portrait.

Levi Kamden 3 weeks old

Here is little Levi. We had a really fun session with him. He was awake a lot more than you would expect from a 3 week old. We stuffed him into all sorts of little sacks and made him do all of these really cute things. This is a really excellent shot of him though, his toes sticking through the bag are really great. This one is getting printed up nice and big to hang up down at the studio.

LAA 2009 Photography Competition Winners

Best in Show: John Troxler Bleeding Heart
Judges Choice #1: John Troxler Bleeding Heart
Judges Choice #2: Deb Saine Red Rose
Creative Imaging Award: David Bowles Contemplation
Virgina Lewis Award: Kaylee Ervin Skylight

Advanced
Landscape/Architecture
1st John Troxler Cloudy Reflection
2nd Ann Weigand Just Another Indiana Icon
3rd Ann Weigand In the Desert
4th Wallace Dibble Long Way Home

Nature
1st John Troxler Bleeding Heart
2nd Jack Burger Lupines
3rd Jeremy Ashcraft Adult Swim
4th David Bowles Contemplation

Open
1st Ann Weigand A Simple View
2nd Jeremy Ashcraft Frontier Christmas
3rd Don Hershberger See-Through Still Life
4th Don Hershberger Aftermath

People
1st John Troxler Trackside with Andrew
2nd Dale L Sullivan Spanish Fiesta

Amateur
Landscape/Architecture
1st Beth Johns One Room School House on Walton Road
2nd Jud Barr What's Beyond
3rd Philip Reismiller Springmill Sunrise
4th Marta Ulrich Deutsch Garden

Nature
1st Deb Saine Red Rose
2nd Phillip Reismiller Rose Breasted Grosbeak
3rd Judi Barr Patterns in Ice
4th Harriet Murdock Rincon The Elegant Egret

Open
1st Donald Weikle '48 Buick at Vera Mae's
2nd Judi Barr Rusting Red
3rd Donald Weikle Lights!
4th Phillip Reismiller Into the Wild Blue Yonder

People
1st Marta Ulrich Grace
2nd Carla Baker Cousins
3rd Clint Andrew Brown Eros
4th Marta Ulrich Carter

Youth

Open
1st Natalia Martin Flowers
2nd Rachel Sims Mexico Beach
3rd Kaylee Ervin Roller Coaster at Sunset
4th Joseph Shafer Karly and the Horse

Little Children's Ministry

Had a great day photographing everyone at Little Children's Ministry yesterday. Everyone did really really well, there were a few children last time that were quite shy that did a complete 180, and smile as big as they could. That was really great to see, and aside from the fact that a full 50% of the kids had runny noses the pictures turned out great. Don't worry parents, the runny noses will be taken care of in your enlargements, it just means a little bit more work for me.

LAA 2009 Photography Show

Ok, the show has been hung, it looks amazing. There is some really awesome work this year. I have a couple of favorites that I saw while hanging, but it's anyone's guess how the judging will go. The judges are both arriving today, Angie at 10am, and John and 2pm. They'll get me their scores and I'll punch them in tonight, so we'll be able to start working on the documentation for the show tomorrow and of course writing the checks!

I also wanted to announce the Photography Show Facebook page. We'll be able to post pictures of the winners, talk about the winning images, and keep track of important dates. This will also be a great way to keep people updated on rule changes as there are probably going to be some major changes in 2010.

So if you're interested in the LAA's annual photography show, click the link and become a fan:

LAA Photography Show Facebook