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Summer Family & Missionary Portraits

Families are always changing and now is the best time to update your family portrait. It’s warm weather in Utah, the studio gardens are in full bloom, and it’s the perfect time for outdoor family portraits.

This young man was leaving on an LDS mission and would be gone for two years. So we mixed a mission portrait session with a family session, and the results are a gorgeous and emotional art piece for the wall that his family can enjoy while he’s gone. See finished image and album in this video.

I like using locations that have a personal meaning to my clients. In this case, their yard was gorgeous and lush with trees. So by mixing in some custom lighting to make everyone look great and also enhance the deep lush colors, we had a number of beautiful angles from which to shoot.

And I like to create a number of family portrait options from each shoot. Some are better larger on the wall, others are better smaller on a desk. And others will just have a certain emotional punch to it, where the client just connects with it and loves it.

For this shoot, we started in casual clothes for portraits with and without the grandparents.

Then dressy for some other options.

Of course I create options of just the children individually too. Here are some of my favorites of each child.

Here’s a missionary themed image using a nearby wheat field.

This image with the flags shows the countries where this young man will serve his mission for the next two years.

And closing with some gorgeous images of just parents together.

It’s the perfect time to get some new updated family portraits. Families are always in flux and sometimes we put off our much needed portrait for the so-called “perfect” time (like when this child is married, or when that baby comes, or when I feel better about how I look). But there’s always another change right around the corner. I’m a national Master Photographer and know just how to make you look fantastic in your portrait right now.

Take advantage of this gorgeous Utah weather. Let’s talk about meaningful locations for your portraits, and if you need, I have wonderful grounds right here at the studio for both outdoor and indoor options.

Give me a call at 801-728-3317 and let’s talk about your new family artwork.

And until next time, America.

Shirley’s Portrait of Her Growing Family

Family portraits are incredibly fulfilling for me to create. A well-made family wall portrait brings joy to people for years if not decades. And Shirley’s family had grown quite a bit since I’d last photographed them. It was neat to see everyone, to hear about their lives as I photographed them, and I always find it especially fun to get little children to not just relax, but to smile and laugh for a portrait.

We had talked earlier about doing a large canvas panorama of her family above her couch, and this is the final image.

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It’s a little hard to see all the great faces online, so I made this 15 second video to show the big group.

Because Shirley and her husband were leaving on a religious mission for a while out of the country, the large canvas pano would have been hard to take with them. So I used the individual family groups to create this square wall collage.

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And here are some of the individual families. They were each shot individually for the panorama so that they could each get their own portrait, but it also made it easier on the family’s time constraints, as well as making the most of my custom style of lighting. I have a lot of space and options here in my Utah studio, but even a family this large makes for a very tight fit if I were to try and shoot everyone at once all in the studio. But shooting each family separately, we were able to create something much more unique and artistically pleasing, plus it helped the family because there were some members that couldn’t be there all at the same time. Everyone was coming and going throughout the shoot, and we never had everyone in the studio all at the same time. And it all worked perfectly.

As you view these families, notice how comfortably everyone is grouped together in each portrait, and how great each kid looks.
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Family portraits are one of the most important images we can create. I believe strongly in a great family portrait, and now is a great time to get your family in the studio for a portrait.

Give me a call at 801-728-3317, and until next time, America.

Tyler’s Senior Portraits

I’ve been working on Tyler’s senior portraits this week, and they are amazing! When I photograph seniors, I can push things further, use more of my edgy fashion lighting, and be extra crazy and creative. All of these images were created at my studio — none on location!

This first piece was shot inside at my studio, and I created the pool completely from scratch, digitally. I love how this turned out, the aggressive lighting pattern, the strong stance, the lines in the water framing and adding depth… all around, this is one of my favorite senior pieces I’ve created in a while.

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Tyler is also a great basketball player, so I created this as a double-page spread for his album.Cox_TOBrien-Sr_Basketballcomposite

Here is another image in his basketball uniform, from behind, lit to be more dramatic.
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I also created some wall collages like this trio…Cox_TOBrien-Sr_8x20

and this nine-up wall collage. These wall collages are a great way to get a number of different images in one cool display that can hang almost anywhere.Cox_TOBrien-Sr_21x21NinePrintComposite-dark

Tyler has also received his LDS mission call, so we did some missionary portraits as well. Here’s just a couple of those.Cox_TOBrien-Sr-121-5x7Cox_TOBrien-Sr-102

This is just a small sample of the cool images we created or that are going in his custom senior album. I really think Tyler is going to love these finished images. They show a nice variety of moods and looks, and years from now when he reflects back on this time in life, he’ll have some great mementos and heirlooms from that time.

Cox_TOBrien-Sr-162 Cox_TOBrien-Sr-215 Cox_TOBrien-Sr-228 Great shoot Tyler, and good luck on your mission!

And if you need some great senior portraits, it’s a great time for the class of 2013 to get in last minute, as well as the class of 2014 to get an early start. Give me a call at 801-728-3317 and until next time, America.