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Madison | St. Louis Newborn Photographers
Posted on January 31, 2011
Last weekend we got to finally meet little Madison after having to reschedule twice! We don’t get a ton of snow here so to have a session get snowed out twice is insane! We were so glad to finally meet Eric and Melissa and their sweet baby girl!
You will notice that her eyes are open in more of her images than our usual blogged images… that’s because Madison was almost a month old by the time we could get her session in! We still got some great sleepy shots but we also had quite a few with her big dark eyes wide open!
Finally getting sleepy!
We loved finally meeting Madison and her parents (her dad is the brother of my college roommate! Hi Cath!) and although this sneak peek was a bit delayed and a little shorter than normal, I hope you guys love the images! 10pm and I have to go do a nebulizer treatment on all three of my super sick kiddos!
Happy snow day tomorrow!
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Donna’s Perspective.
Posted on January 25, 2011
Remember the HORRID woman who took the most unflattering image of me yesterday? Well I happen to absolutely love that horrid woman! HA! She’s awesome. She’s talented and creative and trustworthy and kind and has one of the biggest hearts around. She’s truly amazing and I feel blessed to call her a friend even though growing up I would have called her my mom’s friend. Now she’s mine too and I’m so lucky.
She came to our Fresh Class over the weekend and then wrote about her experience on her blog (which I did link to yesterday). With her permission I’m re-posting it here b/c I think the way she describes learning photography is perfection.
Thanks for letting me post this Donna! And if you ever take another image like that of me again I will kill you!
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It [the Fresh Class] was a wonderfully relaxed setting with patient, professional instructors.
And, in the everyday detritus of family life, there were plenty of subjects – both
inside and out.
It was a lot like learning another language.
Not that all the terms or phrases were unfamiliar –
but rather akin to thinking that because you can order ‘quesadilla’ or ‘chimichanga’
at a Mexican restaurant you can speak Spanish!
“Aperture, ISO, depth of field, F-stops” and being surrounded by much younger heads
nodding in unspoken understanding all combined to make me feel like a total bottle blonde!
I was reminded though of an observation by Sherman Alexie, a Native American humorist,
who asked: “Do you know why the Indian rain dance always worked”?
and then answered, “Because the Indians would keep dancing until it rained.”
There’s no magic… you just have to keep doing it until you get the result you want.
You wouldn’t take the training wheels off a bike and expect to participate in the
Tour de France the next day. Why should this be any different?
There’s no magic… it takes practice to get where you want to be.
So I came home and, being the essential slug that I am, continued to practice from
the comfort of my bed…
Playing with settings, seeing what I liked best.
I also signed up for Project 365 and made a promise to myself to post an image a day
for a year – and NOT go back to Automatic Focus no matter how tough it may be.
Sometimes it’s good to stretch yourself.
Am I worried that I’ll miss some shots because it takes me so long now to think
about what I’m doing? Yes.
But I have spent thousands of dollars in therapy seeking consciousness and
awareness of what I’m doing… I think I can allocate however many hours it takes to
do the same thing with photography!
Can’t you just hear Pearl thinking it’s gonna be a hell of a long year!?
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The Fresh Class | Learning how to use your DSLR
Posted on January 24, 2011
This past weekend we had our fourth Fresh Class where we teach the BASICS of photography. It is always a blast and always flies by too fast and there are always a few awful photos of me taken that end up on the internet somewhere! I’ll share WHERE later! HA!
My BFF, Angie, opened her home up to the class which was so great – thanks Ang! And we had a BIG group! Almost 20 people!
The best? Katie Mohr and Missy Lang. Our assistants extraordinaire! Missy comes and works every wedding we ever shoot and we literally couldn’t do weddings without her! Katie is a face you should recognize if you read the blog b/c she is for sure the mom of our most photographed family! But BIGGER news is that Katie is coming on this year as our official Fresh Art STYLIST! If you’ve received a welcome packet recently for a family session you will see her session add-on but basically (and expect another blog post with more details later!) you can pay Katie to work with you BEFORE the session on clothing choice, location ideas or props AND she’ll come to the session to help keep things running smoothly with clothing changes, prop set-up and posing. It’s going to be an awesome year working so closely with both Katie and Missy!
AND these two have “known” each other for years through their blogs but have NEVER met! Fun to bring two blog friends together finally! And in case you want to read their blogs or see how good their photography has gotten (they both took our class last summer!) go HERE and HERE!
Is it SO mean that we hosted a class on natural light photography in the dead of winter? Kind of. Because these guys had to rough it outside for quite some time!
We had Missy and Katie there helping people with settings because we knew it was such a large group this time! We couldn’t have done it all without their help!
We had each person grab a toy from inside the house to take out and shoot so they could practice exposure, composition and focal points… so don’t think it’s strange they’re all shooting Barbies!
See the woman with the camera pointed right at us? Yeah. That’s Donna. I think that must have been the exact moment she took this photo…
OMG. Can you say NO NECK? As in, I have SO many chins you can’t even tell I have a neck anymore? UGH! I stole this shot directly from THIS blog, which although I could KILL her for posting this shot, is a seriously talented writer/blogger so go check her out HERE!
Kim’s a bit nicer to me and is only posting a pic of me where my hair is hiding the neck rolls! 
Thanks friend! However. I will NOT be posting the shot my DEAR friend Kim took where I look pregnant!
There! Do you see HIM? Our super sweet and one and only MAN we’ve ever had come to a class! It was SO great to have Billy there with all of us girls!
From our standpoint it was a great success but our job is easy! Teach the camera basics. Eat great food. Meet awesome people and reconnect with others. It’s HARD on the people that come to the class. It’s a ton of information to cram into 3 hours! SO Kim and I are working on revamping the class! We think we’ll make it a two-day event so we have more time for questions and LOTS more time for shooting. Once we figure out all the details we’ll blog about it!
THANK YOU to everyone that came out for the class and for Angie for hosting and for Missy+Katie for helping so much! We had a great time and we hope you ALL are practicing!
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photo of the day | St. Louis Newborn Photographers
Posted on January 24, 2011
Just editing away and thought I’d post a little Mac! Happy Monday!
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Avery | Wisconsin Children’s Photographer
Posted on January 21, 2011
In case you didn’t see ALL the photos I posted over on my personal blog from our recent trip to Wisconsin I thought I would share these here. Because they totally crack me up.
My niece, Avery, just turned one and my sister wanted a few “cake smash” photos of her. Of course with Samantha, her oldest daughter, we had balloons and a custom cake and a handmade bib to make the little mini session perfect. Because she’s the first kid. But poor Avery, we gave her a cookie-pop her cousins+sister made and decorated to chew on and waited until the last second to do the shoot so the lighting was terrible. That poor second kid!
BUT. Despite the fact that we sat her in the hallway as close to the front door where a blizzard blew outside giving me very little light or the sub-par cookie we gave her, these are some of my favorite photos of her ever. Because they’re hysterical. And even though they are grainy as hell and it’s not a cute studio backdrop they are perfect to me. Because this is SO our family. Throw it together at the last second and make it work!
Ab, I hope you love these. They had me laughing out loud last night as I edited them!
Happy first birthday Avery girl!
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Perfection.
Posted on January 20, 2011
If you do nothing else tonight go look at THIS.
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The July Class Winner!
Posted on January 20, 2011
Hey guys! Happy snow day! At least I think it’s a happy snow day as I’m at WORK while Chris and the kids are having fun at home! Hopefully I can leave a bit early this afternoon and catch some sledding time with the kiddos!
I’m popping in to reveal the winner of our Fresh Class from JULY. Yes. We are about six months late on this one but whatever. We just gave them ample time to practice! And I have to tell you, we are SO proud of the four ladies who wanted to compete for a FREE session with us!
In the past we’ve let you guys all vote on your favorite image and this time we decided we wanted to do the voting ourselves. And although all four images are great, there was a clear winner this time and I hope you all agree!
So what we’re going to do is show you the image and then underneath will be our critique. We are being honest and hope that no feelings are hurt… ultimately we want you each to grow and get better. And when all you hear from family and friends is “wow! you take the BEST pictures!” then you stop really looking at your photos and trying to constantly improve. And trust me, I fell into that bad habit. I’d get so many compliments that I really thought I was good with my Canon Rebel taking snap shots of my kids! But DUDE did I have a long way to go! Even now, there are shots in every session I wish I had taken differently. Kim and I are constantly standing back with a critical eye and working to be better. So we feel this part of our class is important. To hear OUR thoughts on what you did well and what needs improvement…
First up, KATIE!
Oh how proud she is of her new 3 year old status! Great focus and clarity! Perfect really! Would have loved to see this without such a competing background so she would pop out more! Between the edge of the door, the doorbell and the brick it takes your eyes off her and the flowers that happen to match her perfectly… I would have loved to see her with just the flowers as a background or the trees in your back yard. Gorgeous+crisp colors too, I mean, does it get any better than pink & green on your blonde cutie?? Her skin tone is perfect too! You had all the technical parts great, it’s just the composition that was lacking a little… but overall hitting the technical is hardest so great job!
Bravo! I’m having a hard time finding anything to critique. Awesome use of depth of field, love the leading lines of the alley, adore the moment you captured! And all in a dark bowling alley! Super job! The only thing I can even notice is that I think the focus is on his tush instead of his head, but in that dark of a setting it’s amazing! Truly, this is a seriously good shot! Technical and composition!In his previous turn, he had gotten all but the one pin you see standing. He wanted to get a spare so bad. This photo allows us to be right there with him wanting the ball to hit that last pin. And while you can’t see the look on his face, you can just imagine all the hope that he has.
As a 5 year old, he wants to be so good at so many things; he wants to be a grown up so bad. Sometimes we just have to “hit the floor” and hope for the best.
If you are a pro-photog we’d love to hear your crits as well!Filed Under Uncategorized | 2 Comments