Matt Wood {Senior 2012}

Have we mentioned how much we love photographing seniors?  Capturing who they are and what makes them tick is a creative, sometimes challenging, but always fun opportunity that we enjoy completely!  It's a creative high we get, what can we say?  :)

Tuesday evening was another interesting evening weather-wise, with severe thunderstorms predicted complete with 40+ mph winds, frequent cloud-to-ground lightning and heavy downpours.  Instead of a storm however, we got mostly clear skies and a beautiful, breezy evening.  Go figure.  <shrug>  We almost rescheduled the session, but we're so glad that Matt was game to give it a try, despite the weather forecast.

Three years ago we photographed Matt's brother, Robert, and it was great to have another opportunity to work with the Wood family.  Check out Matt's teasers from our shoot together and be sure to let him know what you think!

Erik Porchik {Senior 2012}

Monday night was pretty gloomy and rain threatened the entire evening, but our photshoot with Erik Porchik was anything but dreary!  Even with the challenge of gray skies we were still able to capture the individualaity of Erik with some pretty sa-weet cloud textures.

Workin with Erik was a blast and if it wasn't for the horrible onslaught of mosquitoes, the evening would have been perfect!  Erik was willing to try just about anything we threw at him, including climbing on top of a train just to capture a different perspective.  His sister, Kerianne, was a huge help throughout the photoshoot too, and provided the perfect comic relief when we needed a genuine smile or two.

Check out Erik's teasers and be sure to let him know your favorites.

Evie Kutler {6 Month Portraits}

It is so much fun documenting babies as they grow, especially when they are friends of the family.  We have had the great opportunity of following little Evie since she was in the womb, then newborn, then 3 months and now she's getting big at 6 months old!  This was one of the easiest 6 months sessions we have ever photographed and Evie was all smiles and sunshine for the entire shoot.  The afternoon was definitely a scorcher, but that just made it more comfortable for the beautiful baby skin portraits.

Audreana Gallegos {2012 Senior}

Audrey Gallegos, without a doubt, has one of the most contagious smiles ever!  On Monday this week we had a great time traversing the Ann Arbor countryside and city limits with her for her senior portraits, hitting 5 different locations within 3 hours.  Whew - but her smile never faded!  She has such a fantastic serious look too though, so we had to coax a few no-smile poses from her, just to vary the look.  :)

Audrey is the first 2012 ignited Photography Senior Model we have photographed yet this year and we spent extra time getting just the right look for her.  Enjoy these teaser images from our session together and stay tuned for our other iP Senior Model's (Elizabeth Hunt and Erik Porchik) teasers to be posted soon!

~ Kevin & Heather

Behind the Scenes with Sam Cullen

Welcome to a quick behind-the-scenes tour of our portrait session with Sam Cullen.

Sam hired us a week ago to photograph her senior year dance individual portraits.  Here we will give you a little taste of what it's like to spend an evening with Kevin and Heather Autry.  Enjoy!

How we got the shot:

We set up our strobe at about a 45 degree angle to camera right.  Typically we use our 24x36' softbox attached to our strobe, but the wind was too gusty this evening.  Even without it we were able to acheive the look we were aiming for.  After we decided what sort of 'look' we wanted with this image, we used our lightmeter to get our camera and strobe setttings just right the first time.  We ended up with f11 and a shutter speed of 1/100 at ISO 100 and strobe at aproximately 1/3 power.

Gear used:

Camera - Canon 5D MKII

Lens - Canon 24-70mm f2.8

Light - White Lightning x3200

Lightmeter - Sekonic L-358

Editing:

Cropped

Slight contrast boost

How we got the shot:

With this next shot we wanted a bit more of a dramatic look, so we changed our settings to f14, shutter 1/100, ISO 100 with strobe power just over 1/3 power.  Our strobe was set at about 45 degree angle to Sam again and we had her jump away from us as we shot.  We metered to strategically capture the gorgeous setting sun.  To heighten the perspective, I took this image while laying in the grass.

It's always fun sharing the shot to show the beauty of the imagery right in the camera.

Gear used:

Camera - Canon 5D MKII

Lens - Canon 16-35mm f2.8

Lighting - White Lightning x3200

Lightmeter - Sekonic L-358

Editing:

Slight vibrance boost

How we got the shot:

Getting down and dirty is all part of the job.  At this location however, it was awkward dodging all of the goose "gifts" - hazards of the job.  (lol)  With this shot it was getting later so our aperture could be quite a bit more open: f3.5, shutter 1/160, ISO 400 and strobe power at about 1/16th.

Gear used:

Camera - Canon 5D MKII

Lens - Canon 16-35mm f2.8

Lighting - White Lightning x3200

Lightmeter - Sekonic L-358

Editing:

Levels adjusted

Cropped

How we got the shot:

Sam's good friend and fellow dancer, Alissa Maedel, was on hand for inspiration and for her technical eye.  We were glad she was there because although I LOVE dance, I am not a trained dancer and couldn't instruct Sam on her form.  Photography we can do.  Dance, not so much.   

Our gear, editing and set-up for this shot were all the same as above. 

~Heather