My wife and daughter were out of town this weekend, so I booked 3 photography sessions for Sunday thinking I would have all the time in the world to set up, shoot and process photos. Daylight savings got the best of me again… I ended up rushing out the door because I forgot about the time change and had no more than 20 minutes in between each session. On the bright side, I have been waking up at 5:30 and fighting off the urge to go to sleep at 8:30 J I’m starting to think Arizona has the right idea by forgoing the whole time change thing. Anyway, here are a few from the first session. You may recognize Lauren from some of my other posts. She has a new brother on the way; I defiantly look forward to taking more photos of the two of them!

My brother and his wife were in town last weekend to meet Avery. We went out on Monday morning to take some photos of their daughter, Olivia. I can’t believe how big she is. She was born just after I moved to Oregon, 7 years ago. I cant imaging what my daughter will look like in 7 years. Everyone always says that it happens too quickly and I think I’m finally starting to understand what they mean.

 I was battling the sun while we where shooting out by the old gas pump. I would set my exposure for a cloudy sky and then the sun would pop out overexpose my shot. I would then reset and it would cloud up and underexpose the shot. I finally got tired of it and we moved to a shaded area behind the gas pump. The backdrop is a black garage door that had a cool reflective look, so I underexposed the shot and used my flash to light up Olivia. We took several of her jumping into different poses, but I think this was my favorite.

Do you remember Sam from one of my shoots last summer? Well, he’s a lot bigger now, and he’s got quite the artistic streak running through him. I love shooting with the paint set up for a couple of reasons. First, you are almost assured a ton of smiles. Secondly, it keeps your subject still long enough to capture some images. Studio shoots are notoriously hard to do with two year olds, because all they want to do run around. Really, the only way to combat this is to have a large studio and powerful strobes that allow for some wiggle room in terms of a lighting sweet spot. (Both of which I have neither of) When we first got the paint out Sam was a little hesitant to make a mess. I get why; it goes against everything he has been told for the last 12 months. But it really didn’t take much coaxing to get him to overlook the rules and go for it. In fact, he got a little too into it, and slung paint across the kitchen onto the blinds. It was washable paint, but I don’t know if it was coming out of the blinds any time soon. (My apologies to Mom and Dad) I guess I would classify this as Post Modern/Abstract Expressionism…. Oh who am I kidding, I got a D in Art History. What ever it is, nice work Sam!  

Sorry for the break. This is the 7lb 14 oz reason I took a short hiatus. Her name is Avery Brooke Hauser and she is an angel. I have ALWAYS wanted the photo of a newborn on a stack of towels. I saw it done on another photographers website a few years back and I loved it. I’ve been patiently waiting for someone with a newborn to contact me for photos, but all my sessions to date have been for toddlers. Well, I don’t have to wait anymore!

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I’m ready to confess; I enjoy engagement photography the most. Don’t get me wrong, all genres have their advantage, but all-in-all engagement sessions always seem to put me in a great mood.  It’s probably because the one facet of photography that I love the most is capturing emotion. Every week I look through the top 500 associated press photos from the news because so many of them convey a strong sentiment.

Ariel, Ben and I met up in the South Park Blocks by Portland State University area for their engagement session. I was excited to shoot with Oregon’s Fall in full swing as my backdrop. All it takes around here to turn Fall into fell is a good wind storm. There’s a good chance these leaves will be reduced to a  brown paste in a week, so we were all thankful for the nice weather. The last photo was taken in the music hall on campus where Ben wanted to take some shots since he spends a lot of time there as a music major. Great idea!  Best wishes to Ariel and Ben, I think they make  a great couple!

I’ve been using my flashes a lot  lately as a result of cloudy weather and earlier sunsets.  This weekend I wanted to try to stay away from the flashes if possible, so  I scheduled this quick family shoot for 4pm thinking we would have enough light for some outside shots. However, I forgot Daylight Savings ended Sunday morning which pushed the light back to what was the equivalent of 5pm! I thought I was screwed, but in the last few moments of daylight the clouds broke on the horizon and we got about 3 min of soft setting sun. I had to fight the urge to take the easy way out which would have been simply pointing them into the sun and shooting. Instead I used it as a back light and used my flash to fill in on the front side. This is something I probably wouldn’t have thought about doing a year ago…

Fall is here and the days are definitely getting shorter. So much so that this engagement shoot had to be stretched over a couple of evenings. Emily and Rex are both in the middle of their Residency at OHSU. By the time they got off at the hospital there was really only an hour left of useable light. At least it’s the best hour of light for photography! I wish I would have had someone take a picture of me while I was 15 feet up a tree with a couple of cameras hanging from my neck. I need to climb more trees; it made me feel like a kid again!

  I’m excited to shoot Emily and Rex’s wedding next summer at Cooper Spur Resort on Mt Hood. I’ve been told we can go for a ride on the chair lift, which will make for some great photos!

This little cutie is just as much fun to be around as she was a year ago. I’m soon going to be in the business of watching kids grow up, so I was excited to see her again. Just like last year, all she did was look at the camera and smile. I was finding chocolate frosting on myself several hours after the shoot, so I’m sure her mother is still finding it on her!

These are from a morning shoot last week at Mt. Hood Bed and Breakfast. Yup, the same B&B I was at a few weeks ago for my buddies wedding. Darcy (the bride) grew up with horses and even spent some time on the East Coast showing them. She wanted a few photos with a horse on her wedding day, but time just wouldn’t allow for it. Darcy happened to mention this to the owner of the B&B and it turns out that she has always wanted bride and horse shots for marketing purposes. Jackie and Mike, who own Mt Hood bed and Breakfast, offered to put us up in a couple of their rooms so we could shoot with the morning sun. A summer sunrise in Oregon is hard to see considering it usually starts around 5:45 in the morning. I think I woke up every hour after 3a.m. just because I didn’t want to miss it! As the sun began to rise over the hills that lead east from their property, it slowly set in motion an “unveiling” of Mt. Hood. It was amazing to see it change from almost an iridescent blue to a warm gold in a matter of minutes. I can’t imagine a place to get married in Oregon that has a better view than what they have to offer. Its need-less-to-say that a place with these views has attracted some very good photographers in the past. Jackie’s office was fully dressed with photos that make my work look like the Hamburger Helper of the culinary world. Don’t get me wrong, I grew up with Hamburger Helper; love the stuff! I just wouldn’t want it sitting on the kitchen table if I was trying to sell my house. I guess what I’m getting at is that she knows a lot of great photographers, yet she was offering me a crack at these shots. Jackie is one of those people that genuinely loves to help people and see them happy. She knew I would be eternally grateful for the opportunity to grow my portfolio. I think that was why I was extremely nervous for this shoot. I wanted to make sure I got some good memories for a great friend, and I also wanted to get some images that Jackie could use for marketing. Overall I am happy with the results. The morning sun was fun to work with. The most challenging aspect was framing. It was tough to bring enough attention to the bride while getting a horse and a mountain in the shot. Jackie, I know you wanted some that shows how close you are to the mountain. Trust me; there are some coming to you that look like we shot them on the chair lift!

Even if you aren’t getting married anytime soon, head out on Hwy 35 from Hood River, take a right on Cooper Spur Road and stay the night at Mt Hood Bed and Breakfast. Ask Mike for some German Pancakes in the morning too!

I was in Hood River, Oregon last weekend for my buddies wedding. Ashley and I took a couple of days off work and made a short vacation out of it. I have to say, Hood River is my favorite town in this state, but I love it even more during mid-week before the weekend crowed arrives. I love the breeze off the river too. It reminds me of the Kansas wind. (Without the heat!) The wedding was at Mt Hood Bed and Breakfast, which is located outside Parkdale, OR, on the rolling hills that lead up to the base of Mt. Hood. I forced them to let me take a couple of pictures in front of mountain. The opportunities to shoot with this background are so few you have no choice but to take advantage of the situation. The dancing shot was inside their barn. They didn’t even use the barn for the wedding, but the owner let us use if for some photos. This wasn’t actually their first dance; I forced them to fake it so I could get a few portfolio pics. I used one speedlite to backlight them.