September

I've been meaning to update for three weeks now!  It's been a crazy month, and October is sure to be too.  Let's see....on September 3rd, I photographed Rick and Lisa's wedding - it was at Shakespeare's, this beautiful castle restaurant/gold course out near Ellwood city.  It was a small and sweet wedding.

That same weekend my friend Sherry came in from New Jersey to celebrate our 24th birthdays!  Hers is September 4th and mine is the 5th.  On the 4th we went with some of my friends from River Runs Scarlet to go see Evolove in Cleveland.  RRS opened for Evolove when we were in LA last summer, so it was great to see them again!

A week after my birthday, I moved.  Only about a mile away, but this means I currently do not have studio space, so shoots are all being conducted on location (studio shoots in people's living rooms, that sort of thing).  Luckily my entire set-up fits in my car and I just bought a portable power pack for my lights AND, yesterday, another light (thank you, Shannon!).  Neither of the new things have been used yet and I must admit I'm getting a bit antsy.

Let's see.....what else have I done this month?  ADORABLE pictures of a little boy named Nathan!  His mommy is in Afghanistan, so his aunt wanted photos taken of him.  In this one, he's holding his mother's dog tags.

I need to do more photos of children, they're so fun.

Yesterday I had a senior portrait shoot with my friend Elizabeth, but she's going to get her own post tomorrow.  I have a few more senior shoots coming up within the next few weeks, as well as a wedding, headshots and a band shoot!  Busy busy busy.

Baby Portraits of Cody

If I want to have a successful portrait studio (which I do) then I have to learn to do mainstream stuff.  As much as I love my bands, and as amazing at it would be to spend my life photographing them (and getting paid for it, how awesome would THAT be?!), I gotta be able to pay the bills.  I've done the senior portrait thing, and, amazingly enough, it's fun.  The seniors I photograph are cool, and their parents obviously are too, because a lot of my work is nontraditional and they have faith in me, with my strangely colored hair and portfolio featuring zombies and musicians, to capture beautiful images of their children.  These are nearly grown-up children though, high school seniors.  They have opinions of their own and can say "hey Mom (or Dad), this chick does cool stuff, let's go to her" and Mom might listen.  Small children, infants, they're a little different.  The parents pick the photographer, and I know some parents go for traditional.

I'm not traditional, but I like kids, and would have no qualms about getting into photographing them.  Kids are hysterical.  My friend Rosa, who I've known since 8th grade (nearly 10 years now!!  Wow, I JUST realized that and feel old), has a son, Cody, who will be 7 months old in a couple days time and is freakin' adorable.  Today we hung out and I took pictures of him to practice.  Some of these are edited, some aren't.  If it has a crappy background, it obviously isn't.  I really need to splurge on a nice one instead of that paper thing I've been using for the last 2 or 3 years.

 

This kid makes the best faces, he's awesome.  I had my softbox going, which is like 5 times the size of Cody, so he was kind of in awe of it.  The backdrop was set up in kitchen as usual, but the floor is hard, so we had my down comforter under it in case he fell over.  Which he did, so having the cushioning was good foresight.  Rosa brought some of his toys, like his lion puppet, so we played with those for a bit, then I went to see what I had.  Sadly, I could not find my giant purple bunny, but it's purple and would have looked weird with his green outfit anyway.  I did find a leopard-print octopus though, which Cody LOVED.  The shot below with his feet up (sooo cute!) is when Rosa was dangling it above him, as you can see in another shot.  Then we sat him back up, took a few more pictures, and went to the Chinese buffet for lunch.

 

NILMDTS

Today I got accepted as a volunteer for the Now I Lay Me Down To Sleep Foundation. NILMDTS is a group of volunteer photographers who can be called in to photograph, free of charge, stillborn or dying babies. The infants can be photographed while still alive, after death, or, if the mother knows her child has little to no chance of survival, while still in utero. Or all of the above. Whatever the family wants. It's to provide people with lasting, professional images of their child.

It's a beautiful idea and when I was took History of Photography in school, we talked about post-mortem photography in the Victorian age (often done of deceased children) and how no one really does that anymore. It seemed like a cool idea then and still does now. I'm very pleased to have my application to NILMDTS accepted and, even though I'm sure I'll cry, because it is terribly distressing and sad, I am glad that whenever I get called in to do this, I will be able to help someone's grieving process.

To read more about NILMDTS, you can go to their website: http://www.nowilaymedowntosleep.org/