I am very excited to be participating in the Senior Portrait Artist Model Competition this year and think several of my clients would be great candidates.   But August is almost over and the deadline is fast approaching for this, so anyone  who is interested needs to get his or her session scheduled.

Any 2009 high school senior photographed by Britt Bailey Photography can choose to have his/her senior portraits entered into the model competition. Each entering senior will receive a set of 10 comp cards,be put on the the national SPA Models website, and be eligible to be a national SPA Model chosen by a SPA fashion stylist.  One girl and one guy  will be chosen from each studio by a spa fashion consultant as finalists, then the SPA members vote from these finalists to choose the final 15.  The 15 national winners will receive a modeling portfolio and a trip to model at the 2009 SPA event in Las Vegas, Nevada, January 4-7, 2009.  To find out more, go to www.spamodels.com.
Entry fee is $100 per model as required by Senior Portrait Artists.  This is the required fee by them to enter the contest.   I’d like to send all of my seniors who are interested, but I realized that I’d have hundreds in entry fees to pay to SPA if I sent every pretty girl and handsome guy who comes here.  You’re ALL so lovely!  If you are interested in participating, ask for the application and I’ll set you up. Hope to see you in Las Vegas!

Notes: Each model entering the SPA model contest must be photographed by a participating studio on or before September 15, 2008. Each model entering the SPA model contest must have his/her entry fee of $100.00 turned in with the application before September 28th.

I will be paying the entry fee for my two local senior models from Flora and North Clay, Morgan and Cara, as one of the perks of being senior models if they choose to participate in the SPA model competition.  But this competition is open to anyone who comes here.
SPA provides hotel and airfare for the model. Moms are encouraged to go with their sons/daughters. Moms are responsible for their own airfare.
For complete details contact SPA at www.spamodels.com

Taylor was dreaming of some beach shots for the second part of her senior session a couple of weeks ago.   Regular sand is easy to come by, but I don’t care for the look of it.   In keeping with my theme of “only the best for my clients,” I wanted white sand, so that took a little more doing.   Here’s one of my favorites.  I think the white sand was well worth the effort.

Here’s a fun one of Jessica with her cat, Fluffy.  Fluffy was like Goldilocks in the studio.  We tried a couple of different chairs that Fluffy did not like before finding one that Fluffy found just right.

The most frequent comment I hear is about the eyes of my subjects.  Some people wonder what I’m doing to them (post-processing in Photoshop) and some people just think I’m obsessed with eyes.  My answers to those questions are “nothing” and “perhaps.”

I think the way eyes are lit in a photo makes a big difference in the mood of the photo.   And one thing I’ve always liked about natural lighting (if well done) is that the eyes tend to have a lot of light in them, so that the pupils are small and more of the iris shows.  In studio, typically, the pupils are larger, because it is more dim in the studio than in a natural light studio.  This leaves only a small rim of iris showing, and is the look most of us are accustomed to from school photos and traditional studio portraits, but not the way we generally see one another, thus some of the artificiality of studio lit portraits.  “Artificial” can be cool and different, so I don’t mean that in a bad way.

In the natural light studio, I can position the person so that their eyes are literally filled with light.  The effect is often dazzling, and I generally can’t help but comment on it.   So, yeah, maybe I am a bit obsessed.

Anyway, here’s an example from a recent session with Jordan in which I’m sure people will think I’ve done something to alter or amplify the color of his eyes, and which I assure you I did nothing other than make use of the sweet light in the natural light studio.

Ah let me count the ways I love the natural light studio.  First, the light is beautiful.  Second, it is air conditioned.

I love a good challenge. One of my challenges for myself this year is to not take any more boring sports pictures. While I love a lot of the sports pics I’ve taken in the past, there were some that I felt I was just duplicating what I’d seen done locally, what sports pics were “supposed” to look like, what clients who had only seen local work expected. This isn’t the way I shoot anything else, and so it bothered me. I’ve spent the past few months collecting ideas and studying imagery from photographers across the country (Montana, Idaho, Colorado, and Michigan to name just a few places) who shoot incredible sports pictures, who, I think, looking at their work, love sports pictures more than anything else they shoot. These photos and photographers have inspired me and I’m having a great time bring that inspiration to my work.

We shot Nathan’s football pictures in studio on a rainy day, but went out to the baseball diamond for some of his baseball pictures on a sunnier day. I think we got lucky with the clouds that day. Here’s one of my favorites from Nathan’s outdoor session.

Just a heads up that as of this morning, I only have two appointment times left before the  senior summer sale ends, which is half off session fees (minimum $50 savings) and either 2 sets of free wallets (one pose) or 50 double-sided two image cards (details in the Senior Give Back Program Post) for all sessions before August 15th.  Due to the great response and the appointments filling up so fast, I extended the sale another two weeks from the original August 1 cutoff date.  However, I won’t extend it again, so this is last call.

Update.  The senior sale is officially booked up.  Thanks for the great response!

It was storming just south of us, but it made for a dramatic sky. Here’s a couple for now of Cara.

Check out my new website at http://www.brittbailey.com

It’s still a work in progress because I’m having to resize images for this portrait site vs. my old portrait and wedding one, but hopefully I’ll get it populated with more images and text soon.

I first met Ashley at Morgan & Stephen’s wedding. And Justin works with his dad at Carson Auction and Real Estate. I really enjoyed spending time with them during their engagement session and am looking forward to their wedding this summer.

I loved the vintage look of Avril’s graduation dress. I think it suits her classic beauty. I have added this image to myspace as a sneak peak for the rest of her session which is still in the works. I’ve gone back in and added a couple of poses that Avril ordered.