my own – manhattan, ks child photographer
It’s not very often that I go to a wedding as a guest. Being in this business, the odds are just against me. So this past weekend, I found myself in a rather rare position: I was at a wedding, I didn’t have to work it, I had my camera, and my oldest daughter was the flower girl. That last one meant that she was all dressed up and at the wedding venue (the Holiday Inn in Manhattan, KS) early.
While we were waiting for the wedding photographer to finish doing the bride and groom portraits, I asked her if she wouldn’t mind me making a few portraits of her. Amazingly, she agreed! I was so happy that she was willing, because the Holiday Inn has some amazing light and great locations. I’ve shot some wedding receptions there before and have never been disappointed.
We spent all of 13 minutes, and I made less than 70 frames, but am so happy with the results. I don’t normally share personal images on here, but since these were not your run-of-the-mill family snapshots, I figured it was okay. So, if you’ll indulge me, my daughter:
My very favorite ones of her from this mini-session (plus my other two kiddos), after the break.
miss zoey – manhattan ks child photographer
Earlier this month, I had the chance to go hang out with little miss Zoey and her parents at their Manhattan, KS home. I had met them the month before while photographing their adorable home (already sold!), and as we were talking about their upcoming move out of state, Zoey’s mom mentioned that they needed to get Zoey’s portraits made.
Two weeks later, and I got to hang out with Zoey at her home and at nearby Anneberg Park. I spent nearly the whole time laughing and playing with this adorable, energetic, Wiggle-loving little girl.
Everyone, meet Zoey:
Zoey is the typical 2.5-year-old toddler: shy at first, but curious enough about the rabbit on the top of your camera that she will eventually come out of her shell and play.
Besides, she loves her little pink sunglasses.
To see more, check out the full post:
charlie – manhattan, ks child photographer
One of the greatest thing about photography is getting the chance to work with a family on several occasions over the course of time. Last year, I shot the wedding of a great couple at the KSU Botanical Gardens and clicked with the bride’s family. Later that year, I got to work with the whole family again when they wanted to create some family portraits on the campus of their favorite university: Kansas State. Last month, I got to work with the bride’s sister and her family to capture their little boy, Charlie, as he neared his second birthday. Once again, we met on the KSU campus, but in a part of campus I had never used before for portraits. I love that there are endless locations for portraits on campus!
Charlie is as precocious as any adorable two-year-old boy, but just before we met for our session, he had been sick for a couple of days and had had to stay inside. I think this was his first day of really feeling better and getting outside. You know how much energy every two-year old typically has? You know what happens when they have to save 3 days’ worth of it while hanging out inside sick?
The photographer gets to run a lot, too. It’s okay–it’s all a game, right?
Like peek-a-boo.
Or hide-and-seek.
Ok, Charlie, enough games. Come on out and meet everyone!
Everyone, Charlie. Charlie, everyone.
More of the handsome little guy (and his monkey!) after the jump.
jeff, ashlee, and skylar 2.0
One August, about two and a half years ago, some friends from church came and asked me to do a family session for them. Jeff was deploying to Iraq and they wanted to get some family portraits made before he left. We went to Anneberg Park here in Manhattan and had a nice little session by the lake.
Fast forward to Spring Break and Jeff is deploying again. So once again, I had the extreme pleasure of working with this adorable family (and can I just say how fun it is to see families multiple times over their lives together? It is so fun to see all the changes and catch up again). Time was of the essence because of Jeff’s deployment, so we couldn’t really be that choosy about our available session time, so we went with the one day that worked for everyone, which meant that, of course, it was cold, windy, and raining on and off. Instead of heading to the park, we decided we needed somewhere a little more protected from the elements. So, naturally, we met at KSU’s parking garage.
Yep, the parking garage. And it was awesome.
Everyone, Ashlee. Ashlee, everyone.
Skylar did a great job as my assistant. It was her task to make sure her parents kept smiling, and she had the perfect magic word for the job…”stinky feet!”
Skylar loves her daddy. Daddy loves his Skylar.
After fully exploring the garage, we decided to head over to the Beach Art Museum. They were only going to be open for 15 more minutes, so we didn’t mess around.
Okay, okay…we did mess around. 
Jeff, thank you for your service. And for the great time I had with you guys. See you when you get back.
3 brothers
From a recent teeny-tiny mini-session (i.e., 10 minutes next to the light & power building in Wamego) with some friends.
Age 3
Age 5
Age 7
over the river and through the woods
A while back, I did my very first newborn session for a friend of ours whose daughter went to preschool with our son. Not too long ago, we all got together again fairly early in the morning at Pillsbury Crossing (a very cool little river crossing/wading area/waterfall spot) to do some more recent portraits of the kiddos. As you can see, young master D is a bit bigger than last time.
His big sister is just as cute as ever, though.
It was great to see how wonderfully they got along together.
Dad eventually showed up, straight from work, just to hang out with his family. I know one little boy who sure loves his daddy.
And one more. Just ’cause.
Thanks for such a fun time, guys! Can’t wait to see how big everyone is next time!
a complete surprise
Occasionally, in the life of every photographer (I hope), there’s one of those sessions, the ones where nothing seems to go right. I had one of those. The parents had driven a good distance to come out and shoot at Wamego’s City Park with their daughter and 16-month twins. Things went kind of rough. There were tears, temper tantrums, wanderlust…it felt a lot like this:
As I sat d0wn to edit the images, I expected to not have very much to work with, but was completely surprised. Apparently, I wasn’t paying attention to the rest of the session. You know, the part that ROCKED!
Turns out, it was kind of hard to choose what to edit!
Yes, the girls had dolls that matched their dresses. Adorable!
Where’s the baby? Peek-a…wait for it!
BOO!
Thanks so much for coming all the way out here, guys! Hope you had fun at the carnival afterwards!
a long awaited preview
About a month ago, my daughter’s kindergarten teacher from a year or so back got in touch with me. She and her family had moved back out to Western Kansas during the summer after she taught our daughter, but she and her kids were coming back out our way to visit some friends. While she was out visiting, she asked, would she be able to schedule some time for me to make some portraits of her kids? You betcha!
We got together at the park and had a good time playing around and hanging out. She brought her adorable kids and some fun toys, I brought my whole family and some yummy treats to share, and we had a blast!
Stacy, here’s a little sneak peek of what’s been going on behind the scenes as you’ve been waiting to receive your proofs. Hope it helps make the waiting just a little more bearable.
First, the lovely Ainsley:
Her ball-of-energy little brother, Brogan:
As you might have noticed, the treats I brought were big, colorful, and sticky, which just added to all the fun we were having. The kids, however, didn’t seem to mind, as long as the other one kept their sticky, thieving hands to themselves, thank you very much! =]
And one of my very favorites so far, a little attempt at sisterly love:
Stacy, thanks so much for coming and hanging out with us at the park! Don’t worry…the rest of the proofs are on their way soon!
an announcement and a contest!
So I’m going to be doing a show in a local gallery, and the gallery owner said I could display 15 images. Since I’m relatively unknown here in the area, it’s a great opportunity to showcase some of my personal work, but also to display the work I’ve done for some of my clients. I’ve tried and tried to select those 15 perfect images, and I’m just not getting there all by myself. I posted the images to my facebook page and petitioned help there and on twitter, and I’ve loved the response! So, I decided to open this up and make it even more fun.
I’m holding a contest! ***UPDATE*** the contest voting is closed!
I’m going to leave the voting open until Wednesday evening, March 4th, at 5 pm (Central time). At that time, I’ll count up the votes and choose my 15 images. The client whose gallery image receives the most votes will get to keep the gallery print when the display comes down! That’s right, baby: a free print! Depending on how big I print them, that could be worth something!
So, what can you do? Drum up the votes! Tell your friends, tell your co-workers, tell your family! Send them a link to the blog post and tell them to come vote! They can vote on up to 15 images to help me whittle them down.
Voting is easy: you can
- leave a comment on facebook on the pictures you want to vote for (if you’re my facebook friend),
- send me a facebook message (even those who aren’t my friend can do that, as long as you have an account) with the image numbers you’re voting for,
- send me an email (rikandesphoto at gmail dot com) with the image numbers you’re voting for,
- dm or @reply me on twitter (twitter.com/rikandes) with the image numbers you’re voting for,
- leave a comment on this post right here with the image numbers you’re voting for,
- click on the images below you want to vote for and leave a comment there,
- find me and tell me the numbers in person–just make sure I write them down!
Here’s the link to my facebook album: http://bit.ly/k9QEd
Or the link to this post: http://bit.ly/9ZWnD
Good luck, and stay tuned for a separate announcement regarding the show dates and location of the gallery!
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The fine print: I withhold the right to make the final judgment over which images get into the gallery showing. The client image *in the gallery* with the most votes will get the print.
testing…testing
I got a new umbrella last month. Of course, when you get new toys, you have to play with them. And who loves to play with toys more than kids, right?
I tried it out a couple of times on myself, but I just can’t get the camera that far away, even with my freakishly long arms, at least not without a decent wide-angle lens.
One of the (many) things my wife and I love about our son and frequently laugh about (between ourselves, of course) is how expressive his face is. He’s seriously the Boy of a Thousand Faces. He brought a few of them to the party that night.
Grandpa called as we were shooting. Did that stop us? Nope. (You can also see Mysterious Eye Injury #1 fairly well in this next one. It just appeared at some point. Neither kid would tell us a straight story about what happened. Very Mysterious, indeed)
And my favorite of his faces. I know; it shouldn’t be, but it is!
pleasing the natives
We recently were given a portable dishwasher as a baby shower present for my wife (thanks, Leon!). Dishwashers, because of their size, come in rather large boxes. If you’ve ever been a kid, you will probably remember the joy that comes from having a rather large box at your disposal.
Keeping that joy in mind, just think how you would feel if your mom then broke out all her paints and helped you cut it up and paint it like a house.
And, as if that couldn’t get any better, imagine how you would then feel when the box ripped open at one end so you could lay it down and pretend it was a space shuttle with a perfectly placed front window.
Yeah…that’s how my kids have been feeling for the last couple of days.
This last one I spent a bit of time on in Photoshop. If you click it, you can see it a bit bigger on my photoblog.
Here’s the Space Commander, at the helm:
The top image was shot with a new umbrella I just bought: shoot-through 45″ white satin. I’ve been having lots of fun with that. The last two were shot with the same flash as the top (Vivitar 285HV), except that I shot it through my reflector frame, which has a translucent white material through the middle.
christmas portraits
My family are not usually the greatest models. My kids love to make silly faces or run away whenever they see the camera come out. They have very little patience for any direction, and lose interest in about 3.7 seconds. My wife usually flashes me a smile that lovingly indicates that she will tolerate my antics for just a very little while longer.
In short, my pictures of my family rarely turn out great. I think other photographers know what I mean.
All of that, however, changes when I get them into the studio.
Alan Honey, a wedding photographer in Manhattan that I second shoot for, recently let me use his studio to shoot some Christmas portraits of my family. Amazingly, the kids loved it. My wife, 6 months pregnant as she was, even enjoyed it.
I couldn’t share these until now because we gave a bunch of the prints as presents to grandma’s and grandpa’s this year, and we just didn’t want to spoil the surprise. But now, here they are.
We started with the kids in their Christmas outfits that Grandma sent.
Then we had a quick wardrobe and set change.
This is the one we used for our Christmas cards this year:
One more outfit swap and we even threw Mom into the mix as well, mostly because my mother-in-law threatened bodily harm if I didn’t I love my mother-in-law and think she should have lovely portraits of her daughter.
All told, we were in the studio for about an hour and a half without a single complaint from anyone! I’m super happy with these, too; they’ll be treasured images for me and our family for a long time.
a quick portrait session and an mcd ice cream run
A little bit ago, we hit the park right after work one evening to try and knock out a family portrait for some friends. They have three little monkeys boys, which means that it’s usually quite difficult to do anything in a short amount of time, but we managed a few decent images.
Things got even better once everyone hit the ground.
Poor, poor Valerie…so very outnumbered. Oh well. If you can’t beat ‘em… =P
After total chaos broke out we finished a few images, we hit the local McDonald’s for a bit of ice cream to wrap things up the right way.
No, I just don’t think he’s enjoying that thing enough.
Tired of the camera, perhaps?
You so have to click this one and see it bigger!
Thanks, guys! My family and I had a great time hanging with you guys, and the ice cream was a splendid surprise. =]
little miss tay’s sneak peek
Wow…I just realized that it’s been forever since I’ve posted here. Between the end of the local wedding season and being so insanely busy with my day job lately, it’s seems like I’ve been neglecting this poor thing. Do candy and flowers and massages make blogs feel better?
Whatever the case, I’m back.
This past weekend, I had such a great time at little Miss Tay’s house. We hung out for an hour or so and had an awesome time. But that was no big surprise; when Tay’s mom and I sat down ahead of time to discuss the session so I could get some ideas of how things might go, she said a couple of my favorite words.
Words like we have big windows.
Words like she’s the most adorable little girl you’ve ever seen.
Words like she loves to finger paint.
So, you see, I knew from the very start what a marvelous time we were going to have (and for an even more marvelous time, you can click a couple of the pictures above for a bigger look).
Thanks so much, Tay, for the wonderful time I had at your house! I can’t wait to see you and your parents again. =]
the L family
A little over three weeks ago, I had the pleasure of getting together with the L family (yes, that’s an L in the title…hard to tell, I know). They basically live right on the shore of the Big Blue River where it spills out of the Tuttle Creek Reservoir, so I knew we’d be in for a great location.
Unfortunately, the location was so great, it was flooded. So, instead of giving up, we headed upstream a bit to a little observation site and had a great time.
Melissa, here’s a little sneak peek that I know you’ve been waiting for.
Thanks for the fun session, guys! I’ll be in touch soon when the whole session is finished.
nichole and the girls
In between the summer session and the fall semester on campus, my family and I went to southern California to visit family and friends. While there, we went down with my wife’s family to spend a couple of days in San Diego right on the beach.
Frankly, I’m surprised I made it back.
But, while we were there, I had a fun little mini session with my sister-in-law and her two beautiful girls out on the beach. My mother-in-law was my trusty reflector-wielding assistant, which was fun because it was probably the only time I’ve ever been able to tell my mother-in-law what to do.
Ha ha! Just kidding! (Hi Kathy!)
On with the show!
Oh, and if you’re confused at this point because she looks a lot like my wife, it might help if I explained that they are identical twins.
Sorry to make you wait for these, Nichole–I hope they were worth the wait! Shoot me an email (or just call your sister) if you have any questions.
amanda & casey + 2
This summer, some random lady stopped my wife at the library to ask her a couple of questions. She saw that our kids were the same ages as her kids, and she was desperate: she had just moved to our small town from Oklahoma for the summer while her husband got some job training nearby and she was out of her mind for something to do.
Fast forward to the end of the summer and we had to say good-bye to our good friends, Amanda and Casey and their two adorable kids. Luckily, before they left, I got to get them in front of my lens for a family session on campus up at KSU.
Their little girl was such a treat for me! She’s only 7 and already knows how to work it for the camera.
Their little 2.5-year old was missing nothing in the charm department either.
Mom and Dad didn’t do too bad either. 
They may look great individually, but all the magic really happened when I put them together.
And there’s plenty more where these came from. So much so that you might get just a bit sick of them in the next little while!
Thanks you guys! We miss you and hope everyone’s getting settled back in at home.
tim + jodi
If you’ll remember from a couple posts ago, I recently convinced a friend, Jodi, that she really needed to get some maternity portraits done and she agreed. We set out to the Konza Prairie Reserve, stuffed chair in tow, to see what we could do (and boy, did we like what we did!). Since we were going to be out on the prairie, all dressed up nice, Jodi decided to make her husband, Tim, and their two adorable children dress up nicely as well so that, just in case, I could do a family picture or get a couple images of the kids as well.
So, while I was focusing on her and Tim, I did manage to grab a couple of the family as well. Little Miss M decided from the very beginning that she was going to play it cautious around the big guy with the camera, but I still managed to catch her looking once or twice:
Her big brother wasn’t so hard.
It’s so fun to see a couple’s relationship unfold in front of you during a photo session. You get to see how they really are together.
Oops! Wait…I meant this one:
Or this one:
The end of the day came and it was finally time to head home.
Tim, Jodi…you guys know I love you! And congratulations again on your brand new little baby girl! Can’t wait to meet her. =]
