Seniors 2013 - Emmilia

Keeping in the tradition of photographing seniors I've known for years, Emmilia is a girl who has been going to my family's bowling alley for at least a decade.  I even taught her to bowl when she was 5 or 6.  Now she's switched from her studies at Lincoln Park to do cyberschool so she can graduate early and start taking collage classes! 

When I put out my call for senior models this year, she responded so earlier this week we had her photoshoot.  We ended up at her aunt's house because Emmy wanted to bring her dog and her aunt has a big backyard.  I LOVE when people bring pets to photoshoots!  It's always so fun, even when the pet isn't being overly cooperative (kind of like Zander was this week).

First off, we did headshots.  Nothing too dramatic, just a nice pretty portrait.  I played with my portrait lens a little but it's really more dramatic for outdoors shots.  Studio is so great though because I love being able to control the catchlights in the eyes.  Check out how sparkly Emmy's are!

After the studio shots, we went out to the HUGE backyard.  It's pretty great and since it was nearly 6pm, the light was beautiful.  I took some really pretty pictures of Emmy with my "new" LensBaby which I got at ImagingUSA a few months ago but haven't really used much.  It's definitely going to make for some fun senior portraits this summer, I can't wait!

Emmy's dog Zander had been hanging out, sniffing around, and she wanted him included which was pretty entertaining to accomplish.  He kept rolling around!  Awww, happy puppy in the yard, he's so cute!  I want a dog....

Zander was being a little difficult though, so we ended up not using him so as many pictures as we would have liked.  I enlisted Emmy's boyfriend to help and hold my reflector for some more portraits of her because she was facing away from the sun and needed some light in her face.  I should have taken one of him holding it, she kept saying he looked like a giant M&M.  But this wasn't about him, it was about Emmilia.  She has been an awesome senior model for me!  If anyone else wants to volunteer, I have an application.  You have til the end of the month!

Jessi + Mike's Engagement Shoot

4 or 5 years ago, I met a kid called Jessi Disaster at a metal show at the Monaca VFW and we became friends.  Now she's getting ready to get married, so of course she and her fiance Mike wanted some photos done for Save the Dates.  They came by earlier this week and we took some cute studio shots.  It was nice to see them, because I haven't in awhile and catching up is always nice.

I set up a white backdrop to contrast Jessi and Mike's black clothes, which worked out really nicely.  They didn't need anything too crazy, so here are some pictures of Jessi and Mike being cute!

Portraits - Jen

Last week my graphic designer friend Jen came over to hang out and take some pictures.  We actually went to high school together, and were cool, but not really friends.  Now that we're both in the arts, we talk online sometimes and share cool things we've found.  She does really amazing work (I want her to redesign my website!) so check out her stuff at www.jendorman.com.  I suggest you look under the "Projects" section, in which there is a very cool Evil Dead 2 patch.  After you do that, be jealous, because she gave me one and it is AWESOME.

So anyway.  Jen has pretty cool style, and is especially interesting in that she wears a lot of skirts and dresses.  Do girls really do that anymore?  I don't know, I wear jeans.

First off, she wanted to be in my body mod project with her back tattoo(s).  There's a photo in the album on Facebook of the bigger one, but she also showed off her semi-colon tat, explaining that she designed it herself and that the semi-colon is a favorite punctuation mark.  That's slightly random, but ok.  Semi-colons are pretty cool, yeah.  Also, I'm really aware of my punctuation now and feel the second sentence in this paragraph may require a semi-colon somewhere.....

Yay!  I love this picture.  Backlit by softbox.

Classy.

 

And classier.  In the glass, by the way, is grape gin, which is surprisingly good as I generally find gin rather foul.  Jen also is a fan.  Cheers!

2013 Senior Model Application

2013 Senior Model Application
for elena dee photography

Here’s what you need to do:

Be graduating from high school in 2013.
Be fun, friendly, have great style, and bring props!
Be comfortable in front of the camera.
Tell everyone you know about elena dee photography.
Have your parent or guardian sign a model release form.
Agree to have your senior portraits done by and represent ONLY elena dee.
Leave comments on the facebook page!

Here’s what you get:

A FREE senior portrait photo session (worth $150), that must be shot by May 1st, 2011.  You have the option to shoot again before October 1st for half off the regular session fee.
24 free wallets
a CD of 10 lo-res images with the elena dee photography logo on them to use on sites such as Facebook.
Model cards with your image on the front (your friends get 8 free wallets for turning them in!)
Free mini book of your images



Name:   __________________________________

Address: _____________________________________________________

Phone: ____________________   Email: ____________________________

School:  __________________________________     GPA: _______

Facebook?  ________________________


Hobbies/Interests/Extracurriculars: 






Why do you want to be a senior model for elena dee photography?







How would your friends describe you?








How did you hear about elena dee photography?







Anything else?  Dreams?  Goals?  Fun facts?  I want to get to know you!

Seniors 2012 - Zak

I got a call earlier this week asking to do senior portraits for a kid named Zak.  Definitely psyched for it because, when I was talking to his mom she said he skateboards and shooting at a skate park would be super fun.  Of course, the weather today turned out terrible - very windy and with freezing rain.  So that part is postponed to next weekend, but today we still got some awesome studio shots!

This was my lighting set up for the day.  The hair light is an Alien Bee B400, the umbrella and softbox have B800s.  This was also my first shoot using my new background, so that was pretty exciting!  After years of saying "these paper backdrops are in terrible shape, I should buy new ones" I finally invested in black and white muslin backdrops.  MUCH nicer.

At ImagingUSA this year, I went to a lighting seminar from Oscar Lozoya, who is amazing.  He really had me excited about lighting so I was determined to make something nice today.  Quite pleased with how it turned out - you can see the separation between the background and Zak's dark hair, the highlights on his shirt aren't blown out and there's great texture.  The softbox was up higher (and not tilted down) in this photo than in the example because he's standing, but basically the same setup.

Backlit by the softbox.  It makes a great white background!

This shows the lighting set-up from the example.  Because he's a skateboarder and we couldn't go outside, we still wanted to include his favorite board in the studio shots.

There's a brick wall in The Fallout Shelter where I was shooting, so had Zak grab his board and take a few shots over there.  I showed him this on the back of the camera and he said he really liked the lighting and how the skateboard is visible in the background.  Yay, I love making the client happy!!

Is Your Kid the Cutest?

As many of you know, my charity of choice is Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep.  Every year, they have a fundraiser, the Charity Model Search, which is a photo contest for the Cutest Kid.  I decided to participate this year, so am looking for models!  Once you have your session, I'll post a picture to the contest and you have all your friends and families vote.  Votes cost $1 a piece, but are absolutely worth it - every penny benefits NILMDTS.  Plus you have the chance to win all kinds of prizes!

ImagingUSA 2012 - Life is To Short To Live Somebody Else's Dream

Just got home from ImagingUSA which was in New Orleans this year.  This is my fourth year at Imaging, and my first as a member of PPA (Professional Photographers of America) instead of a volunteer from SPS (Student Photographic Society).  I'm a grown-up!!  Hahahaha, yeahhh....  Anyway, I went with my ex-boyfriend and fellow photographer/former SPS and AiP kid Cryss.  We were able to meet up with our Colorado friend Sheena, which was awesome!  She and her husband used to live in Louisiana so were able to suggest all kinds of delicious places to eat (ok, seriously, Mother's?  That was one impressive sandwich).  I wish I could see my photographer friends who don't live around Pittsburgh more often, but it's nice to catch up at Imaging.


Cryss and I stayed about a mile from the convention center in the French Quarter, which I love.  New Orleans in general, I love.  I wanted to stay.  Yes, last year I wanted to stay in San Antonio, but New Orleans...wow.  Traveling is definitely in my future, though I was thrilled to come home.  While I was there though, so much walking!  All around, not just to the convention center, though I spend a LOT of time there!


My goal this year was to go to a bunch of classes on business (pricing, marketing, that sort of thing) and senior portraiture.  I need some help in the business/marking aspect so that was to teach me and I love doing senior pictures so wanted inspiration there.  Literally took half a composition book full of notes!  Sunday there were four time slots for class and I went to all four which was exhausting but informative.  The problem of course, was deciding what to go to, but I mostly picked good ones.  Monday I went to two out of the three, then went exploring, and Tuesday I slacked and only went to two of four because I slept in a little and then went to the Expo where I bought a Rogue Flash Bender (goes on your speedlight, pretty nifty) and a new LensBaby Composer Pro (these are AMAZING).  I can't wait to use them!!  I especially think the LensBaby is going to be a huge hit with my senior girls this year, so am really excited.  I'm also really excited about some of the things I learned.


A couple things really stuck out.  One was a lighting class by this guy named Oscar Lozoya.  He is AMAZING.  Seriously, look him up.  Actually, I'll make it easy and just click on his name, it takes you to his website.  I was so insanely impressed by his lighting and diagrams that I bought his book and had him sign it.  The other thing that stuck out was the phrase "FEAR LESS."  A couple of the speakers I saw talked about not selling yourself short and having confidence in yourself and your work.  To be honest, I have trouble with that sometimes.  One speaker though, Kimberly Wylie, she had these phrases on her slides: "Fear less, dream more" and "Life is too short to live somebody else's dream" that really hit me.  Those are things I've been working on and am getting better at (Damien tells me similar things a lot), but sometimes you need to hear them in a setting like that.  So yeah, that was really inspirational to me and I'm going to try so hard to live MY dream.

These are all images from my last day in NOLA, when I did what I spent most the trip attempting to do and went on a photo adventure to the cemetery where the Marie Laveau the Voodoo Queen is rumored to be buried.  So in love.