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Look what came in the mail!

2012-01-20T13:26:00.001-05:00

I am in the middle of revamping my website and getting my identity package together. As a graphic designer I know that image is everything, so the first thing I spent a great deal of time putting together was my business card. I decided to go with Moo's minicards because I rather like the tiny size. Big enough to fit in a wallet without getting lost, and sturdy enough to feel like a real business card, but the slight size and narrow panel invites curiosity and gives an opportunity for interesting photo cropping.

Moo gives you the opportunity to put as many different images on the back of your cards as you want through a service they call "printfinity". Got 1000 photos you love? You could have 1000 business cards with a different image per card. I wanted to be more reserved in my choices so I decided to go with 50 different backs to my cards and spent a great deal of time going through photos I took as far back as eight years ago to pull out my absolute favorites and the ones I thought represented my style the best. And by a great deal I mean it took me a month to settle on the images. Then at the last moment I decided that since my business is not just a photography centered one but a design business as well, I needed to drop two spaces and allow for some logo designs I've done to be featured. A sampler card, if you will. Which kind of turned out awesome because you can see how well the logos I've designed hold up at such teeny tiny sizes (which is the mark of a good logo design, btw) and I'm proud to say they are completely readable.

One of the reasons I opted to narrow the number of images for the backs of my cards down was so I could have more than one of each card. I know some people will want the card they are on and I know that some images are better aimed at potential clients than others. So more of the perfect wedding photographs for potential wedding clients, the perfect family photographs for families looking for portraits and those lovely single person portraits for people looking for new professional images (or maybe just updated pictures to replace their scary high school images in their mothers houses). I think all I need to do now is branch out into pet photography - I did actually have someone ask me about that back in November if you can believe it.

I'm pretty excited about my Moo cards. I only wish I'd ordered more!

Portraits

2011-12-26T12:07:00.001-05:00

My mother-in-law, like many parents of adult children, has a wall in her house that displays the high school senior portraits of each of her children. In her case it is the wall on the stairway leading to the second floor of her home. I have listened to my husband and sister-in-law quietly scoff at these images, which are out-of-date and not very flattering, for a few years now. This year I decided to offer to replace the images with updated portraits for my mother-in-law and she accepted.

I took the opportunity of Christmas day to take the new portraits, my sibling-in-laws being spread across the country and not easily accessible otherwise. My husband is one of three children, unfortunately his brother did not show up for Christmas this year. Hopefully I'll be able to get his portrait when he is in town for the new year.

For these images I used my Super-Takumar 50mm 1.4 lens.

Something's Missing Around Here

2011-12-14T15:45:00.000-05:00

This is all the snow we've gotten here in Cleveland so far this winter. And this was from last week and had melted by the end of the afternoon. We should be hip deep in snow right now - which would make for some awesome outdoor images, not to mention a much heartier holiday spirit.

I've got no jobs booked as of now, so I'll try to get to other photography related posts soon.

Family Portraits at Home

2011-11-30T08:00:00.020-05:00

This past weekend we had some truly spectacular weather, blue skies and breezes so warm you wanted to dig around in your garden one last time. Surely the last nice days since we are usually up to our hips in snow by now. Of course I took advantage of the weather and put in a call to a friend who'd expressed an interest in family photos. While I was elbow deep in my garden, no less.

I prefer to shoot on location rather than in a studio for two reasons: I like to work with natural light and I think you can get a wider range of images from people reacting to an environment versus sitting on stools. For this shoot we opted to be at their home versus in a garden or park, which actually suites them nicely.

My friends live simple, meaningful lives in which the home truly is where their heart is. Words I would use to describe them include spiritual, crunchy, loving and fun - I hope that I managed to capture that in our session.

Horseshoe Lake Park: In Search of Holiday Pictures

2011-11-08T10:09:00.004-05:00

With the NEO weather getting chilly quickly I knew that, like October, our snow-free days are numbered so I found an hour to jet outdoors with the kids to try to capture some cute holiday pictures. The tricky thing with kid photographs is having something new and cute that the relatives haven't already seen or have plastered on their walls and in their wallets. I like having something 'fresh' if I'm going to make a photo card or print something out to send along with the cards.

And it's just nice if you can get a picture of your 3 year old and your 1 year old that doesn't involve a choke-hold or crying.

So I put some bright clothing on them and took them to Horseshoe Lake Park, which comes equipped with bright fall foliage as well as playground structures and running space.

Family Portraits at the Irish Cultural Garden

2011-11-01T17:52:00.002-04:00

Saturday I wrapped up the last of my currently scheduled sessions with some family friends at the Irish Cultural Garden in Rockefeller Park. My friends were married in this park so it had special meaning for them and as it was a lovely sunny day for being so late in October we had a good time there with the kids.

One of the bonuses of the Rockefeller Park Cultural Gardens as a venue is that rarely do you run into other people there, unless a wedding is going on. The only downside is the proximity to a busy road and having to park half on the street and half on the tree lawn - which is only an issue for the lower level gardens. The Irish garden in particular has a gorgeous fountain that gives the illusion of water pouring straight on the ground because it has a hidden drain rather than a pond or bowl it raises out of. As you can imagine, the fountain invites the attention of little hands fairly quickly.

Family Portraits at Squire's Castle

2011-10-27T11:06:00.002-04:00

I finally had a chance to crack open the files to Sunday afternoon's photo session last night. It was not without trepidation, let me tell you. Sunday afternoon I met with a family at Squire's Castle, which is not really a castle so much as an incomplete gate house that was being built to look like a castle. It's kind of romantic, the owner was from Europe and was building this massive castle-like home for his wife in a very scenic area of Ohio. Then she died so all construction halted leaving us with a shell of a building to walk around in and admire and for our children to play make believe in.

The trepidation was because there were about two dozen people crawling around the place, including three or four other photographers, when we arrived. Which meant long waits for people to get out of backgrounds, finish with rooms, etc. and made for a rather rushed 1 hour photo session. It didn't help that little Evan was a grumpy-Gus after his nap, but having a 3 year old myself I know that there really isn't a whole lot that can be done when they decide they don't want to do what you want them to do.

By the time I was done, however, I had a lot more photographs for my family than I was anticipating. And that's a great feeling.

Family Portraits at the Cleveland Museum of Art

2011-10-25T10:09:00.004-04:00

I've been working on editing the photos from Saturday morning's session at the Cleveland Museum of Art's outdoor garden and looking at the pictures is making me smile. I had to do some silly things to get little Daniel to smile. I put on my best Jim Henson monster voice and did a series of "uuuup" and "dooooown"s with my whole body, just the camera or sometimes just my voice. Once he'd warmed up to me the smiles came easier.

There was also a whole thing with the ducks and geese in the pond there. They had literally chased a woman and her two children away after the kids had perhaps riled them up by tossing rocks toward them. The ducks weren't happy to just chase them off, however, and proceeded to swarm in the water wherever my family and I were and even came up onto the land trying to intimidate us away. I know geese will bite, but I just stood up from my squat when they got within a few feet of me and that seemed to unsettle them enough to make them retreat at least to the water.

One thing is for sure,we'll all remember the session and those geese!

Portrait Session: Cleveland Main Library

2011-10-21T10:00:00.000-04:00

This weekend I have some family shoots set up, which will be great if the weather turns out to be dry and sunny as is forecasted instead of grey and rainy like we've had all week. Both are outdoor shoots and only one has an alternative indoor location. The coming shoots reminded me that I didn't post about last week's portrait session, which took place in the Special Collections department at the downtown Cleveland Main Library.

My subject's name is Traci and she once worked in the department which is why we were doing the session there. Also it's just fun to photograph in a library, no? Traci was a little uncomfortable in front of the camera, I think, which led to a wide range of facial expressions from moody to guffaw when I tried to loosen her up. All-in-all I think it went well and I rather like her poignant stares.

Cleveland Cultural Gardens

2011-10-17T10:06:00.000-04:00

This weekend I was scouting the cultural gardens for an upcoming family photo shoot. I wanted to see which of the gardens would be most interesting and present the most opportunities for a variety of shots. Some of the gardens, of which there are something like 36 spread out along the Martin Luther King Blvd, don't have a lot to offer in terms of structures. On the lower level the Chinese Garden, Irish Garden and the Syrian Garden have the most interesting structures as far as photo venues go. The larger and more architectural gardens, however, are in the upper level, accessible via East Blvd.

Hungarian Cultural Garden

Lithuanian Cultural Garden

Greek Cultural Garden

Italian Cultural Garden

Slovenian Cultural Garden

A Rockefeller Park Bridge

Wade Park Bridge and Staircase

The Rainforest Exhibit

2011-10-13T16:12:00.003-04:00

A captured moment inside the Rainforest exhibit at the Cleveland Metroparks Zoo. I realize that putting your subject dead center is often taboo, but in this case I rather like the lines created by the water's edge and the faux tree on the left, not to mention the light playing on the plants in the background balancing nicely with the white sandy tank floor.

World Wide Photo Walk Day

2011-10-04T11:39:00.000-04:00

This past weekend was the 4th Annual Scott Kelby World Wide Photo Walk Day. I registered so long ago for it that I had nearly forgotten it was the first weekend of the month. Fortunately, other photographers I follow on G+ had not.

I signed up for the Cleveland Flats walk, which was held on Sunday morning from 8am - 11:30am and was led by Akron wedding photographer, Michael Steinberg.

All in all, it was a good time. I met a few other area photographers, listened to Steinberg's tips regarding various camera and lens models, was introduced to a UK photographer's work via recommendation and explored an area I had not spent much time in before. I will definitely be participating again next year.

The photo walk is meant for photographers of all levels, and the first round of judging (for the individual walks) is left to the walk leaders and their individual criteria. In fact last year's Akron winner was among our group, and she confessed she had taken the winning shot with a point-and-shoot Luminex. This year she borrowed a DSLR of her husband's, though she did have the Luminex in her pocket.

Mine was the only Pentax in a sea of Canons and Nikons.

PhotoWalk Cleveland: The Road

2011-08-06T22:51:00.005-04:00

In the interest of pushing myself in the realm of photography and to get the heck out into the city I have decided to participate in various photowalks. A photowalk is essentially just a bunch of photographers walking around an area taking pictures at the same time. The point is to get out of your comfort zone and explore your city. Sometimes it is local, there's one in a few months that is going to be downtown for instance, and sometimes they are global but all share a theme.

Today I participated in one of the latter. It was a global photowalk that took place, in my timezone anyway, between 10am and 1pm. You had to take your photo, do any editing and get it posted by 1pm. The theme was announced at 10am so that you had to think on your feet and couldn't take photos earlier and just post them during the time limit.

I saw the theme was "the Road" and immediately thought of this area of the flats by the Steelyard Commons. It has a lot of inter-looping highway overpasses and whatnot. None of which I ended up photographing. Instead, when it became clear that the West 3rd Street Bridge, which has been off limits pretty much since 9/11, was now open I became fixated with it and the views from it and around it.

First I was fascinated by the metal grid that was the road portion of the bridge. Then I went off on a tangent about the structure of the bridge, then the view of other bridges from this bridge and then explored views from this area. Basically what I'm saying is..not all of the following are strictly in the category of "the road" but they were all taken this morning during that Photowalk.

West 3rd Street Bridge, Cleveland

Heavy Duty

Remnants of Industry

The Interbelt Bridge seen from West 3rd Street Bridge

The New Young Thing

Steelyard Tracks

Glass Mountain

Photo Archives: Other Places

2011-08-02T08:50:00.001-04:00

In this post I will share some photographs I've taken from other places around the country I've visited in the past year. This will be my last introduction archive post and I hope to bring you new images soon.


Baily Railroad Yard in North Platte, Nebraska


Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson at Salt Lake, Utah

Nuclear jet engines at EBR-1 in Arco, Idaho

Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming

Glacial runoff at Glacier National Park, Montana

Photo Archives: People

2011-08-01T11:51:00.000-04:00

Photographing people is one of the hardest things to do, I've found. People move. People don't want to be photographed, or maybe they want to be photographed a little too much. It can also be the most rewarding subject to photograph.


Sleeping Delilah at 3 weeks.

Everett at 15 months.

Joan watching Tian Tian at the National Zoo.

Dinner at the Duck & Dumpling in Raleigh, North Carolina.

Zoe at Bowman Lake in Glacier National Park, Montana

Photo Archives: Cleveland

2011-07-31T11:17:00.001-04:00

In this post I'm featuring just a few photos from around Cleveland that I've taken and really loved. Just because I like them so much I can't not share them again.


Sunrise over my backyard.

Horseshoe Lake at Shaker Heights, Ohio

Cleveland Co-Op Stove Company in Cleveland, Ohio

Reintroductions

2011-07-30T11:34:00.000-04:00

I had this blog going for a while but it was lost in the ethernet as one child became two and my time to photograph anything other than sweet toes and messy chins dwindled. I hope to revive it anew and be able to maintain a somewhat regular post schedule, sharing with you my favorite photographs as I make them.

Criticism should be left at the door, but honest critiques that can help me be better are always welcome.

I thought I'd start off by posting some old photographs that I still love. Next week I will bring fresh new photographs to the table.

Photo Archives: Baltimore


Baltimore City Firefighters responding to exploding manholes in Federal Hill.

Supporters at a United Workers victory rally.

Dragon Dance by Falun Gong members at Baltimore's Hampden Christmas Parade.