One of the most awesome things for me is when I get to work with clients more than once.  Carmen’s mom, Shellynda is super nice and has sent me a lot of work recently.  As far as this shoot I’ve been playing around more with my flash.  It’s starting to become attached at my hip.  My fav shots in this setting are the shots of Carmen in the wheat field at sunset.  It looks totally epic and I think we both had a total blast doing this.

Last Saturday, studio lights met with Christmas lights for a complimentary photo/video shoot put on by Focus Designs, Valeo Visual, and David Martschinske Photography to give our community something different this year.  It was awesome to see the studio packed with people listening to Christmas music, riding SBU’s, enjoying plenty of holiday snacks, and yes, even samples of SPARK from Cindy Wood.  The idea was to give people something different, awesome, and FREE while exposing everyone to what we do.  In the time that I have been working as a photographer I’ve found that the best advertising has come from the people that know me well and talk about my work to others and I’m excited to see new clients emerge from Saturday’s festivities.

Garret Hergert:

David, Jordyn, and David:

Katie and Cindy:

The Caudle Family:

The Chumbley Family:

Karyn and Philip:

The Dennis Family:

Hi, I’m Courtney (or ‘Court-eroy’ as dMart calls me!), one of David’s staff members.  Today we photographed the 2009 CWSC Minis.  The rain couldn’t stop us as we buzzed through over 30 teams of “Goal Setters”, “Extremes”, “Footfires”, “Sabers”, “Dynamos”, of course the legendary “Ladybugs”, and so on!  My favorite part was taking the individual shots of the kids because they were so darn cute – from big smiles, silly grins, to soaking wet jerseys they were all so much fun.  I couldn’t help but wonder what my 3 month old little boy will be like at that age.  Have a look at some of the great expressions we got photographing this bunch of adorable little soccer players at Camas High School.

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Carmen’s mom, Shellynda originally contacted me first saying that her daughter would like to get some senior photos done. When I met Carmen and her mom in the orange parking lot at WSU Vancouver we all hit it off and had a great time. Shellynda would drive Carmen and myself around to all the local photo spots and it was great to essentially have a taxi driver. As Carmen and I would be taking photos, I really found out that Carmen and her mom are really close, they sounded like really good friends. That, along with Carmen’s super-congenial personality made this senior session very fun for me. Carmen’s boyfriend showed up for the last sliver of daylight to squeeze in some shots. Once they get engaged, they know who they’re callin’ for photos! At the end of the shoot, Shellynda insisted that I was not charging enough money and paid me a very nice tip. Thank you Shellynda! Your gift is very much appreciated!

Nichole contacted me for senior photos through the Senior Slacker Sale ads that I posted on craigslist.  We met up this morning around 6:45!  This is much earlier than I normally wake up but sometimes you need to wake up early to get some good shots.  The advantage of early morning photography is two-fold:  nobody is on the street, and you get better light.  Here are some of the photos from this morning…

Give me eyes, Girl!

I told her it would be awesome if she brought along someone… since we had never met previously. She brought her boyfriend, Cordell

They have been dating for 9 months. Hey if they like these photos I know who they will be using for a wedding photographer!!!

Favorite.

Other favorite.

Go Cordell!

Nichole and Cordell both work at La Bottega. Nichole’s parents run the place. I have been there twice and the food was delicious!

Sundresses in Fields…

This is an HDR Portrait. I love the way it turned out. They don’t always look this stormy but that was what I purposed for this photo. See more HDR here

Another HDR. Cool flower in my opinion.

Classic Senior Portrait

This one was fun.

I think I like this one in color.

I love it!

And finishing off the day with something artsy!

Baby pictures are quite interesting for a number of reasons…

1. Babies NEVER stay still.
2. Babies can cry for no reason.
3. Babies can break into a giggley laughter when you pull the right tricks
4. Babies are cool.

As you will see, Emma Lindskoog (child of Tim and Lindsay, my good friends) is one of the cutest kids ever!  Way to breed guys!  Ok, I’m getting a little bit carried away.

Check out one of my favorite shots:

Here was the lighting setup for that last shot:

The lighting setup looks really easy on paper but this was actually quite difficult in reality for the simple fact that I was doing this in a makeshift studio (My girlfriend, Allison’s living room).  I was short on space and had to cram lights in some interesting places. Don’t get me wrong, I’m NOT complaining.  I acutally prefer coming up with solutions to the “impossible”.  I think the fill light was actually a Canon 580 EX II held to an umbrella by Lindsay and placed low to the ground.  This proved to be a problem in later shots because as Lindsay and Tim were trying to get Emma to smile with all sorts of tricks (including food) they would step in the path of the light.

You can see that *somebody* got in the way of the fill light here. The picture looks kind of cool though without the fill! It definitely increased the lighting ratio which causes photos to look way more dramatic (not necessarily ideal for baby pictures, but hey).

This ended up being the one that they selected for their canvas print. Lindsay really wanted to get a canvas print that looked similar to the one her mom had made of her when she was a wee lassy. I think that it will turn out fantastic.

Tim got really jealous after I showed him how the photos were turning out. He wanted a quick shot.

Emma likes to think that she’s cooler than Dad.

Oh yes… Life gets rough sometimes…

Oh but it gets all better when you can text on mommy’s phone.

Senior Slacker Sale begins today for Seniors.  2009 Seniors only!

Yesterday went by in a blur. Devin and I started out at 6:00pm and ended around 9:30. We stopped part way through for some much needed Subway of course! We traveled to a few different locations and ended at Camas Liberty Theater (one of the coolest shooting venues I’ve ever done!) Take a quick look at some of the photos!

Cool lighting here. Bare Canon 580 EXII on the right wall.

We were going for the ‘superhero’ pose

That was one TALL building!

One of my favorites!

He’s laughing because he has a lamp in his head.

“I move to the other side of the bench and all of a sudden mom calls!”

I call this pose the “Jim Halpert” (from The Office)

Cool movie playing right now at the Camas Liberty Theater. Star Trek Rocks!!!

GOT to love the lines here. Cool perspective.

I think this one is phenomenal. Continuing with the superhero poses.

The streets of Camas make for some cool poses. A few people stopped by and asked us what news channel we were with. Apparently when you walk with three tripods people ask.

“I just love my Mother’s Day surprise, you did an awesome job with it.  Thank you so much!!!”
- Norma Aamondt-Nelson

Wondering what photo she is talking about?  Let me tell you a little bit about it first…

Rachel (her daughter), whom I know from college at Western Washington University and when I was an Intern at Bellingham Convenant Church, asked me for an unusual request.  She wanted to recreate this 1974 portrait of her mother for Mother’s Day:

After some help from her college roommates, we pulled off this shot:

The hardest part was getting the human light stands (Heather and Nicole) to stay in the same spot.

One of the most interesting parts to this whole ordeal was making sure that Rachel’s face matched up with the same face her Mom made many years ago (when she was the same age, 21). This hallway location was chosen for one very simple reason, white walls! It was so simple to use a wall as a light modifier (compared to the hassle of a softbox), and the greatest thing is that I have a fill light right on the other side of her face… Woot Woot light ratios! The hair light was another 580 EX II set up to maximum zoom (105mm).

After a while in Photoshop and searching through many free textures at Designer’s Best Friend I finally reached the resulting piece:

The great thing about this project is that it was something totally new for me.  I learned quite a bit, and found out about some really cool resources on the interwebs.

Thank you Rachel, and thank you Norma.  Happy Mother’s Day.

So as most people know, guys generally don’t like having their picture taken.  Senior photos are probably some of the hardest things to do for a senior guy that is doing this because his parents want him too.  At first I dont think Brendon was too interested in having his picture taken (I’m used to that), especially because his parents wanted a certain style of clothing and he wanted another.  Again, this is very common stuff.  Regardless, we got off to sort of a late start because of the aforementioned issues.

I think after Brendon and I shot this picture and he saw that photos could be a pretty sweet thing the day got a little easier.

Hey, I’ve been here before! I love this spot.

This one is my favorite shot.

Now there’s a smile.