posing

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.

New Hampshire Shoot

I recently got back from speaking on the East Coast in New Hampshire. While teaching, I demonstrated some various techniques on making women look great in photographs. Here are some of the images I created that day.

These images don’t have any finishing touches on them yet, and that’s because I was showing that they should look great right out of the camera. Any final enhancements later should only be slight as the images should be ready to print without them if you did everything correctly.

Some people think that great images come from having a good camera. That’s like saying  good songs are only written on good guitars when the truth is it’s the artist using the camera or guitar. Any good musician can write a great song on any guitar, and any great photographer can create great images on any camera.

Another misnomer is that that great images come from having beautiful models. This is also incorrect. A great photographer understands exactly how to make everyone look better and an average photographer will make even the prettiest person look worse.

I love teaching workshops because I really like helping photographers do better, plus it helps to raise the level of quality in the industry.

 

In New Hampshire, I was teaching how to create great images with any camera, and how to make all women look better using specific lighting and posing.

Here are two portraits of the same pretty girl in the same beautiful location. I shot her two different ways to show that a camera in the right hands will make her look better, and in the wrong hands she will look worse. Look at the two images and see if you can see all the differences.

In the first image, I used custom lighting and posed her specifically in a way that would be more flattering for her and her outfit. I took control of all aspects of the exposure which means her skin tones have great color right out of the camera. I separated her from the background and sculpted her using directional light at particular angles. Everything was set up and shot manually, nothing left to chance or to Auto functions.

Then I did another image of her the way most photographers would, with no specific poses, no control of light, and shooting the camera on Auto.

Notice how flat this second image looks. Her skin tones are green, the light on her face is coming from the sky rather than from any controllable or directional source, her eyes are dark, the background is too light, and the wrong camera angle and lack of posing and lighting make her look thicker. Again, NO woman wants to look thicker or heavier, and fixing it later on the computer isn’t the same as shooting it right.

This is why most photographers shoot so many images – they hope that with the law of averages they’ll get something decent that they can then spend tons of time on the computer fixing and covering with various effects.

This is why you need to hire a really good photographer with credentials – and why photographers need to get continual hands-on training from Master photographers.

So with a change of clothes, I continued to teach and shoot this model, walking around the town, making sure that each pose and lighting set up made her look great.

We ended up at this cool bridge which gave me some cool leading lines.

Well, if you’d like some great portraits, I know just how to make you look great, plus now is the perfect time if you like the fall leaves. Give me a call and book your appointment at 801-728-3317 and lets create something amazing for your wall.