More wedding & engagement photos coming up soon, but first I have a more personal post. Over the past few weeks I’ve been playing around with some film cameras. It’s been fun seeing what they can (& can’t) do. It brings back a little of what I used to enjoy about shooting film before digital was even around—ok, it was around, but not very good. I still miss the darkroom, but I do have a great local lab so I can let that go—for now. Fortunately I have a few willing models at my disposal & enough of a back yard that I can change things up a bit.

The black & white photos were shot on a Hasselblad 501cm camera with C-41 b&w film (mmmmm square). Processing & scanning was done at R&R Custom Color. The color photos were shot with my Diana F+ toy camera with a Polaroid back on Fuji Instax film. Those were processed in camera & scanned by me. The only post processing on all of these photos were curves adjustments in LR & sizing for the web. There’s also a reason why you’re not seeing any regular 35mm film photos. It’s because they suck. Well, maybe not suck, but they don’t add anything different or better than my digital super-camera. My files from my Nikon D3 are far superior (& less expensive) to regular 35mm film.

I don’t know if I’m quite ready to introduce these in to my wedding workflow, but I definitely see myself shooting more of both cameras in the future.

**For the best viewing experience, open up the first photo & use the left & right arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the photos.**

A few weeks back I jumped on a plane over to Seattle with my eldest (they each get to take turns) to meet with a couple of brides who’s weddings I can’t wait to shoot, and while I was there I got to shoot a couple of family sessions. The extra cool part of this was both the dads in the family sessions are two of my best friends in the world & have been for about as long as I care to remember. Since I live a few hundred miles away I don’t get to see them nearly enough & it was great to hang out with them & their awesome wives & adorable kids.

The weather rained the entire weekend—with the exception of the hours I spent shooting—so the sessions were wet but not rainy—thankfully. The sessions took place at one of my favorite parks, Tumwater Falls Park in Olympia. If you live on the west side of Washington make sure you visit & when you do, make sure you take the trek all the way back along the water & see if you can find the heart-shaped puddle. If you make it there during the Salmon runs I swear there’s more fish in the stream than water.

**For the best viewing experience, open up the first photo & use the left & right arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the photos.**

Just taking a quick break from wedding posts to throw some family photos up on the blog from my original ‘picture frame’ family. You might remember that I shot these guys before. It’s amazing how quickly the little ones are growing & I love the fact that I get to help them record it in their family photos. We had a blast hanging out for a while at Manito Park while enjoying one of the last really warm weekends of the year. Enjoy!

Challenge? What challenge?

A family session with 9 kids? How tough could that be?

As it turns out, not so tough at all. Especially when it’s the Fullmer family. We had a great session down by the Spokane River & everybody was about as well behaved as can be—except for maybe me. As a dad of 3 really (well, mostly) well behaved girls I don’t see any way to square that number & stay sane. But not only were they sane, they were a pleasure & it was very inspiring for me to see how they interacted with each other. Truly a happy family.

Thanks to my own Reagan for going along & helping to entertain the younger ones while I was taking pictures.

For photographers: The first photo is a composite of 5 different photos so I could get a wide shot with a shallow depth of field since we had to be closer to the tree line than I wanted to.

**For the best viewing experience, open up the first photo & use the left & right arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the photos.**

I’m happy to post some photos from a recent family session. This time it’s the Hopkins family!

We hung out at Manito Park for a little while & had some fun walking around & getting some fun pictures. Frequent visitors might recognize Ana from having helped me photograph Betsy & Chad’s wedding recently. She does some pretty fine photography work on her own. It’s always a little more nerve-racking to photograph a photographer simply because they know all the tricks. Fortunately, I think these ones turned out ok.

**For the best viewing experience, open up the first photo & use the left & right arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the photos.**

A little while back I had the pleasure of spending some time with an outstanding group, the Ross family. We hung out at Mirabeau Park in Spokane Valley for a while, enjoying a beautiful light, & making some great photos. I had lots of fun & I think they did too.

The pictures don’t lie.

**For the best viewing experience, open up the first photo & use the left & right arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the photos.**

A couple of weeks back (on a rare sunny day) I had the opportunity to head up to Coeur d’Alene & shoot ‘engagement’ photos for Kimber & Jonathan. I put engagement in quotes since these two are actually already married. You see, Jonathan’s a Marine & before he shipped off to Iraq he & Kimber did a quickie wedding. Now that the hero’s home & life is getting back to normal, they’re able to take the time to plan a proper wedding.

So a nice little addition to the normal engagement session, I got to take a few photos their little boy, William. What are the chances he’d be that cute? Take a look at his parents, I’d say the number is approaching 100%. The great thing is, as natural as they were as photo subjects, I enjoyed just hanging out with them for a while even more.

I had the pleasure of [shooting] the Elys last week at Manito Park on Spokane’s South Hill. Talk about troopers. We wandered around the park looking for great places to shoot and all the while the kids were (at least acting like they were) having a great time. Little foot injuries or pangs of hunger weren’t nearly enough to slow down this family.

I really had a great time hanging out with these guys. The kids were so sweet & willing to try whatever I was asking—especially if it was jumping off a ledge while I had my camera on its “machine gun” setting which reminds me a ton of my own girls.  My favorite part of these photos is that  the impressions of the  personalities of everyone seems to shine through in the photos.

Then, after our session was over I saw my friend Ana wrapping up a bridal session so I hopped up on the ledge of the bridge (shhh, don’t tell my wife) & took the opportunity to shoot the shooter. That makes up the last photo in this set.

For the best viewing experience, open up the photos & use the arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the photos.

I met up with Michele & her two kids in downtown Spokane and spent some time hanging out with them & getting some photos (& tossing the football around). We started at the Rocket Bakery then headed up to the MAC. They were so at ease with each other & with me as well, we had a blast (at least I did) getting these photos. They were all great to photograph & I think the pictures show that. Since I live in a house full of girls, chances to toss a football around are few & far between, so I’m thankful for any chance I get. Thanks guys!

For the best viewing, open up the photos and use your arrow keys on the keyboard to navigate through the photos.

While we were over visiting the other side of the mountains—sill refuse to call it ‘the coast’ unless I see the actual Pacific Ocean —we had the chance to hang out with one of Gina’s friends from high school & photograph her little ones as a surprise birthday gift for their daddy (kind of a recent theme at MS Photo!).

She brought up the idea of having her daughter have a tea party on the beach & I thought it was an awesome idea! So at the end of the day we got out the big lights & headed down to the beach just in time for the wind to pick up & the waves come crashing in. In all, we only had about 5 minutes of actual beach shooting before the little model had enough of the cold & wind & we called it quits—not before getting some great shots, IMO!

Fortunately the weather was more than accommodating for the rest of the session & it was a blast for me to catch the kiddos going from being shy (notice the first subject I was offered to photograph was ‘Doggie’ the sheep) to playing it up for the camera.

Take a look by clicking through. FYI, once you open up the window, you can just arrow through the photos with your keyboard which is very cool, try it!

Calvin just turned 2 and his parents thought it was a good idea to get some photos taken of him as well as some of their family. The entire time I was editing these photos I kept finding myself holding back the laughter since Calvin is such a cute & expressive kid. How can that joy not be contagious. From seeing the moon in the daylight sky to blowing out the candles on the birthday cake. Every photo was a different face—and I think it’s great.

Thanks to Kelsey who came along and helped a bunch. Click the thumbnails to see the photos…

I was asked to take photos at an elementary school dance and decided that it could be a fun project if I break outside the norm of what’s expected for the genre. So I set some rules for myself.

1. Photos have to be affordable. I saw the price list of previous photographers who did this and I was astounded by the prices. I felt like these should be priced like an impulse item rather than something that needed to be worked into a family’s monthly budget.

2. Photos have to be fun. We’ve all seen the all too common and boring photos of people standing there looking blankly at the camera.

BOOOO-RING.

The dance was fun. The photos should reflect that. My answer: PROPS!

3. Photos should be printed on location. People don’t really want several 8x10s or wallets of the dance photos. So what’s the reason for filling out forms and waiting to get 1 or 2 photos? After doing tons of research and finding a portable photo printer that could print 5x7s and get great photo quality, I ordered it and figured out the best way to get it to print at the dance (the toughest & most time consuming part). More fun for everyone that way.

What I learned: Doing it the old way has to be way easier. Boring photos are easy. Getting a reaction is tough. Expensive photos mean less photos to take. That’s easier. Sending the files to a printer and dropping them off at the school a couple of weeks earlier would have been way easier.

I worked my butt off for a couple of hours. That was harder work than shooting a wedding. Was it worth it & would I do it again? Without a doubt. It was a blast!

P.S. As a little extra, I emailed digital photos to everyone who ordered a photo so they could upload it to facebook or whatever they wanted.

Here are a few of the photos:

There’s never really such thing as a private moment when you’re the wife/daughter of a photographer.

I’ve been trying to get used to my new Nikon D3/85mm combo (oh baby.) so I’ve been carrying it around with me. Yesterday was haircut day for mom & Kels (Reagan would have but she’s growing it to donate to Locks of Love again. Baby G & I are due for one soon). The outstanding new hairstyles, along with the beautiful afternoon light shining through our wall of windows compelled me to grab some shots that I love, so I figured I’d share.

Fortunately for me, these daughters & wife don’t seem to mind being in front of the lens.

Here are a few of the photos I took.

P.S. The B&W photos are natural light shots and the color shot was taken with my new Photek 60″ Softlighter & AlienBee.

Right after Christmas we packed up the family and headed over to Tacoma. One of the biggest reasons for this trip (besides the normal holiday festivities) was to say goodbye to my brother’s family as they were getting ready to relocate in South Carolina in a couple of weeks. One of the blessings of traveling back (besides always having someplace to stay) is getting all of the kid cousins together. Even though it may have been months since they last saw each other, they instantly go back to playing like they’ve never been apart.

We’ll miss seeing them next time we go back to visit.

So one of the important events this trip was getting a family photo of the four boys and our families. Of course it rained the entire week. After driving around looking for spots to get it done we ended up downtown in a parking garage where graffiti artists are welcome to show off their skills. As you can see, the kids had a blast (like always).

Since these are more of a personal project I felt I could take some liberties and edit these in a style that’s a little different than my own, but I felt the hyper-contrast look worked perfectly with the urban environment. I doubt I’ll be adopting this style for my other work.

Generally I prefer to get my photos on location, but sometimes timing, weather, and circumstances add up to equal taking the photos inside. Fortunately I have the studio setup now that allows me to accomplish the photo taking without relying on nature at all—plus I love having absolute control over my light.

This time the Osborn family needed their family photos done and we decided it was a perfect time to get in the studio and get some use out of it since the weather has been on the cold/rainy side. First I set up the lights against the 9′ wide white seamless paper background and had Reagan stand in to test things (the last photo is a couple of these test shots). Once they were good, the Osborns showed up and we got to shooting. They were lots of fun and everybody did great in front of the camera. They all have such great personalities which makes my job easier since I don’t really have to do anything but catch it—you know, like karate kicks and stuff.

Finally I got a couple of photos with my daughter Gwyn hamming it up with her friend—which didn’t look like it was going to happen since Gwyn was being a bit of a brat. Of course she saw how much fun everybody was having and decided it was ok to be a part of it.

Even within the confines of a small studio I think we got some great portraits and I can’t wait to use it again.

Sometimes you get to pick when to take family photos. Sometimes you have a small window of when everyone will be together and you just have to get it done. Such was the case with the Priebe family. They were all in town for Christmas so we headed out to the 20+ degree weather to get some photos. It really was a beautiful day in spite of the cold, which was bearable—until the wind picked up (which also picked up my umbrella from the light stand and carried it about 20 feet).

The Priebes are a great family and a celebration of what families can be. So I was honored to be able to capture them all together.

To the photographers out there who read this, this session was a great example of the importance of back-ups. I had an extension cord, 2 umbrellas, and my wireless flash triggers (and their flashes) all fail. Fortunately I had backups of everything and we were still able to go ahead with it—thank goodness.

Thanks to Reagan & Kelsey (and various Priebe family members) who held down my light stands suring the shoot.

Here’s a few photos I neglected showing earlier. Back in the fall I photographed the rest of the family (you can see them here) but we ran out of light and the girls were done smiling so we had a separate quick session to get a few portraits of them. Here they are.

From the Shumate family.

Finally getting caught up on some needed editing. Soon I’ll be able to post the jobs I have edited but haven’t posted yet. We’ve also built a studio (YAY!) in our basement which has taken a lot of my time as well.

A couple of weeks ago I got to spend some time with the Fox Family and make some portraits. Mary and Baden are some of the nicest people around and their kids are adorable with their big dark eyes. You wouldn’t know by looking at the photos that it was terribly cold out that day. I had to bump the shutter speed a bit as not to catch the kids’ chattering teeth. We had fun and got some great shots as you can see here.

Thanks to Kelsey who helped me out a bunch on this shoot by holding my light and watching the little ones while I photographed their parents.

I know it seems like this website hasn’t got much love from me lately. Trust me, it’s only because I’ve been busy shooting and taking care of some big projects on the horizon. But the combination of lack of posts and shooting means I’m going to be able to machine gun some posts in the next couple of weeks (hopefully).

One of the recent sessions was for the sister and brother in law of one of my other great clients. Of course, Chris and Shanna were just as great to shoot. The funny thing is I’ve been friends with Chris’s brother since we moved to Spokane 5 years ago. The only conclusion I can come to is that I was just meant to make their portraits.

Like usual, I enjoyed my time hanging out with my clients—we had a lot of fun getting these photos—Chandler smiles (or lack thereof) included. Hopefully that comes through in the images—I think it does. What do you think?