I got to see Grant again, which is always a highlight.   Grant has become a super fast crawler and displays a lot of spirit.  The outside picture the wind was gusting 20-30 mph, which might have bothered a lesser baby, but not so Grant.  He seemed to just find it amusing to which I say,   “Go, Grant, Go.  You’re going to be a great one.  I can just tell.”

Ada turned six this week, which was very exciting.    Here’s one for now with her birthday balloons.  I’ll add a couple more later.

And the below picture is of Ada and her beloved babysitter, Shelby, who came down to get photos taken before prom. Ada had been playing in a creek earlier and running around barefoot, but when she saw Shelby in her dress, she wanted to go get her pink dress “Just Like Shelby’s.” Ada plays dress up in it. We didn’t have time to brush her hair much, but here you have it, a good look at ten years’ difference.  They grow up fast.  I don’t think I take enough pictures to make up for all that is disappearing.   I think I just have to try that much harder to get down in pictures what it was like for her to be six.

I have just under a jillion photos from Donnie and Nicole’s engagement session and am trying to narrow them down to a reasonable number.  Here are a few favorites as a sneak peak  Such a fun couple!  I can’t look at their pictures without smiling.  And am so looking forward to their wedding.

I blogged one image from Victoria and one from Kelsea’s session a couple of weeks ago, but now that they’ve chosen their favorites in their orders, I want to show a couple of those because they are a good example of the range I like to cover in a senior session.   First, Victoria’s close-up.  Then an artsy dress shot that I loved, and she chose one similar to, then Victoria’s ballet collage.

I like to cover a lot of ground in senior sessions, literally and figuratively.   I encourage a range of clothing from casual to dressy and shoot in three different environments:  my natural light studio (first image below), outside and the strobe studio.  I never know which environment or studio is going to be the best for a client until I work with them and get a sense of their personal style.  The natural light studio feels like a living room with beautiful light.  It is comfortable and a very easy place to relax.  The strobe studio is fun to try something more dramatic or playful.   I love shooting outside, and have found that between outside and the natural light studio people tend to look most like themselves.

Overall, I strive to de-stress the picture process every way that I can, to help make it a great experience for my clients as well as getting great images.   My head is full to the rafters of technical mumbo-jumbo about how to get the best possible pictures, but when a person shows up, my number one concern and focus is my subject as a person.   That is both what interests me and where I believe good pictures come from:  human interest backed up by enough skill and equipment to get the picture.

Next up, some of Kelsea’s selections.

The Summers-Kistler Funeral Home was one of the oldest, and grandest, buildings in Clay City.  I happened to be driving past when they were bringing the last of it down, so pulled in to watch and take some pictures.  I generally have one of my good cameras with me, but all I could find was one of my older cameras (2 years old as opposed to this year’s models), and worse, only two lenses, a 10.5 mm fisheye and an 85 mm.  I had to laugh at this, because one I only use for novelty, due to the super wide distortion and the other is a portrait lens.   But, shoot I did, with what I had, and here are a few pictures from the old funeral’s home last day.

I think I set a new personal record for number of images shot in a single portrait session with Kaydee.   She was so great about being game for looking for different locations and different shots.  Thanks, Kaydee!  Here’s one I particularly loved from our walk down the dirt road.

I’m posting senior session images first on my Facebook business page these days, so have already posted this image from Hanna’s session there.  We had a beautiful day to shoot last week, so we shot a lot outside before coming back to shoot in the natural light studio and strobe studio for a whole range of looks.  We had fun, and Hanna did great!  Can’t wait to show them all of their pictures on the big screen in studio hopefully later today.

Beth and Jason Cooper brought over their beautiful new daughter, Carissa,  little sister to the lovely and lively Maleah, who I photographed when she was brand new.   Happy days.  Congratulations to the Cooper Family!

I ran across this great Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai article (website here) this morning on a friend’s blog, and received permission from Cheryl to post it.  I have long found Cheryl’s work and approach inspiring.   I find this advice to aspiring photographers as relevant now, if not more so, than when I first went into business.  Many thanks to Cheryl for writing this and sharing it.  I’m very happy to pass it on.

I get asked all the time, during workshops, in e-mails, in private messages, what words of wisdom I would give to a new and aspiring photographer. Here’s my answer.

- Style is a voice, not a prop or an action. If you can buy it, borrow it, download it, or steal it, it is not a style. Don’t look outward for your style; look inward.

- Know your stuff. Luck is a nice thing, but a terrifying thing to rely on. It’s like money; you only have it when you don’t need it.

- Never apologize for your own sense of beauty. Nobody can tell you what you should love. Do what you do brazenly and unapologetically. You cannot build your sense of aesthetics on a consensus.

- Say no. Say it often. It may be difficult, but you owe it to yourself and your clients. Turn down jobs that don’t fit you, say no to overbooking yourself. You are no good to anyone when you’re stressed and anxious.

- Learn to say “I’m a photographer” out loud with a straight face. If you can’t say it and believe it, you can’t expect anyone else to, either.

- You cannot specialize in everything.

- You don’t have to go into business just because people tell you you should! And you don’t have to be full time and making an executive income to be successful. If you decide you want to be in business, set your limits before you begin.

- Know your style before you hang out your shingle. If you don’t, your clients will dictate your style to you. That makes you nothing more than a picture taker. Changing your style later will force you to start all over again, and that’s tough.

- Accept critique, but don’t apply it blindly. Just because someone said it does not make it so. Critiques are opinions, nothing more. Consider the advice, consider the perspective of the advice giver, consider your style and what you want to convey in your work. Implement only what makes sense to implement. That doesn’t not make you ungrateful, it makes you independent.

- Leave room for yourself to grow and evolve. It may seem like a good idea to call your business “Precious Chubby Tootsies”….but what happens when you decide you love to photograph seniors? Or boudoir?

- Remember that if your work looks like everyone else’s, there’s no reason for a client to book you instead of someone else. Unless you’re cheaper. And nobody wants to be known as “the cheaper photographer”.

- Gimmicks and merchandise will come and go, but honest photography is never outdated.

- It’s easier to focus on buying that next piece of equipment than it is to accept that you should be able to create great work with what you’ve got. Buying stuff is a convenient and expensive distraction. You need a decent camera, a decent lens, and a light meter. Until you can use those tools consistently and masterfully, don’t spend another dime. Spend money on equipment ONLY when you’ve outgrown your current equipment and you’re being limited by it. There are no magic bullets.

- Learn that people photography is about people, not about photography. Great portraits are a side effect of a strong human connection.

- Never forget why you started taking pictures in the first place. Excellent technique is a great tool, but a terrible end product. The best thing your technique can do is not call attention to itself. Never let your technique upstage your subject.

- Never compare your journey with someone else’s. It’s a marathon with no finish line. Someone else may start out faster than you, may seem to progress more quickly than you, but every runner has his own pace. Your journey is your journey, not a competition. You will never “arrive”. No one ever does.

- Embrace frustration. It pushes you to learn and grow, broadens your horizons and lights a fire under you when your work has gone cold. Nothing is more dangerous to an artist than complacence.