I can now officially announce that I have finally checked the last portrait session off my to-do list. I’m all caught up in that department…yay! Now I just have four or five weddings to get up here on the blog* and I’ll be a happy man.

Not too long ago, I had the pleasure of having one of my maternity clients come back with an adorable little bundle of joy ready for his own portraits. We were only able to squeeze in a little time together, but boy, was he cooperative.

He and his mom weren’t able to make it out during his first 10 days (really, the ideal time for newborn portraits), so instead, we did more of a 6-week portrait session. I was so amazed that, at 6 weeks, this little guy was already smiling! He really beamed a couple of them for me.

His mom brought along a teddy bear that his sister had held during some of her own baby portraits.

Just a few days after our session, my family was invited to attend his blessing at church and a lunch afterwards. Naturally, I brought my camera and managed to pick up a few more images for the family. Here’s little S with his grandpa.

I had such a hard time with these last two, trying to decide whether I liked it better in black and white or in color. In the end, I couldn’t decide, so you get both!

Keep smiling, little guy! I look forward to watching you grow. =]

*As a second shooter, all I need to do is edit out all the really bad shots and give the good ones to my boss, and that just takes me an hour or two and I’m done. Once I hand over the DVD, I don’t have to worry about processing the images for clients at all, so the pictures sit on my hard drive for weeks at a time. Don’t worry though, they’ll be up here soon!

It’s nice to have professional photographers for friends. When they need help, sometimes they repay in pictures. Alan Honey’s son left on a mission recently, so he wanted to get his family’s portrait made before he left and asked me to pull the trigger since he couldn’t do that himself and actually appear in the portrait. As a thank you, he said he’d shoot my family and give me the images to play with however I wanted. We were really excited by the offer. You see, I think the last time we had a family portrait done, both of the kids were still in diapers. Seriously.

And, yesterday was our 8th anniversary, so it was about time to get proof that we could still stand each other. =]

Here’s last year’s anniversary image.

This is a picture of the Wamego City Band conductor, handing his baton to a band member’s 2- or 3-year-old son because he really wanted his mommy and then walking over to sit in the stands as the boy conducted the entire march.

And he never took his binky out the whole time.

Unphotographable

Oh boy…I am excited to be posting today. As I’ve been going down my checklist of sessions to process and post, I was really looking forward to this one. This is Olivia and Mac’s engagement session, which we shot back in mid-May at the K-State Botanical Gardens. Olivia is the brave soul that hired me to shoot her wedding before I had ever shot anything wedding-related. Since then, I’ve been assisting Alan Honey at a number of weddings, and this weekend I’ll be working for another good friend of mine, Nicole Coleman of Nicoleman Photography, second shooting for her. I still have a bunch of Alan’s weddings left to assist at this summer as well, but Olivia’s will be my first solo wedding.

As (hopefully!) every wedding photographer would tell you, their first solo wedding is probably their most terrifying, their most sleep robbing, their most nerve wracking. I’m sure mine will be the same, but after this engagement session, I am super excited to be there for them!

This, incidentally, is the best reason to get an engagement session done if you’re planning a wedding: if you and your photographer have a good relationship, that will make the day of the wedding go all that much more smoothly. It’s tough to develop that relationship, that trust, if the first time you’re in front of your photographer’s lens is the big day. An engagement session allows you to get to know each other, to discuss your style, what you’d like to see, and to allow your photographer the chance to earn your trust ahead of time.

Back to the session: I knew I was in for a great day when I got there and discovered just about the most beautiful day ever.

This is where Olivia really wanted to get married, but when she called to find out if it was available, she was told that they don’t schedule any events here during football home games. So, we planned to do her engagement pictures here, even though they said it was the same day as graduation and that the grounds would probably be full of people. We decided to risk it and go ahead with the shoot.

We hardly saw another soul the whole time we were there.

Soon after Olivia and Mac showed up, we had a great time exploring the grounds and getting comfortable with each other. And let me tell you, they wasted no time getting comfortable.

Look at how easy these two are on the eyes!

They really wanted to make sure that we were able to make use of the fountain, and who am I to say no?

We made good use of the rest of the grounds and flora as well.

We also made good use of my Polaroid.

They were such an awesome couple to work with. Here’s a few more of my favorites:

I just love the feeling of this last one:

Olivia and Mac, thanks for such an incredible session! I had a blast, and I am just jazzed about your wedding in September!

Two weeks ago, I had the distinct pleasure of driving down to Pillsbury Crossing to meet young master D, a brand-new, 11-day-old little boy. His family has some beautiful farmland just around the corner from the river crossing, which almost made me late getting there. You would think that Google could put on their map if your directions take you, oh, I don’t know, through a river! I did end up getting there safe and sound after calling little D’s mom, just to confirm that all of the signs reading “Warning! Do not cross the river! You will die!” weren’t really all that serious.

We had a fantastic session. It was my first session with a newborn, but since it was D’s first session too, we were all able to relax and have a great time.

Here are a few of my favorites from the session:

Eventually, we got D’s big sister, little miss A, involved as well.

I think she’s a natural.

Finally, my two big faves from the session:

Sweet little D, thanks for sharing your time and your family with me. And thanks for not “christening” me,your mom, or any of my blankets or gear! You’ve got a wonderful family. Welcome to the world!

Another in my portrait with a polaroid project.

We did a number of different poses for her because she wasn’t too happy with anything we got at first (her mom later loved them), but this one both she and I just loved.

At a recent church gathering, I had my cameras and was hanging out with some of the youth. I busted out the Polaroid camera and took pictures of a couple of them. Then, I took a picture of each of them with their polaroid. I’ve only done two so far, but I’m excited to see where this goes (for as long as the film lasts).

From a recent gathering of a bunch of families from our church at City Park for a large-scale Family Home Evening. This is my first time playing with textures, really. I kind of like the effect.

(Since I’m off work and we’re not connected at home, that means I’m without the internets and blogging from the local public library, so no shot stats for the next week or two. Sorry!)

I’ve got a lot to do these days, now that I’m on vacation from my real job for a couple of weeks, and I’m really excited. There are just a few reasons for me to be excited (in order of occurrence):

1. A beautiful wedding at a Wamego church.
2. A fun wedding at a B&B that eventually got stormed out and relocated.
3. A really fun newborn shoot for a friend at their farm.
4. An engagement session for my first solo wedding (coming at the end of the summer)
5. Another newborn shoot for a friend at my studio house.

Yeah, I’ll be busy for the next few days, but that means that you guys will get to see some fun stuff coming up, so stay tuned!

And, since this is a photoblog, a picture from a recent church event at City Park.