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.
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.
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. =]
jodi – a sneak peek
On Wednesday, I drove out to the Konza Prairie and met with Jodi and her family for a portrait session. I was particularly excited about this session because Jodi and her husband, Tim, are great friends of ours. Jodi is 36 weeks along in her third pregnancy and had never done maternity portraits before but figured this was as good a time as any. Since neither Jodi nor her husband, Tim, are from Kansas, they thought it would be fun to get some portraits made out on a real Kansas prairie, so we also took a few of the whole family while we were out there.
Normally, I don’t turn images around in two days, but seriously, I’m just so excited about these, I could hardly wait. You’ll still have to wait just a bit for the rest, but don’t worry…they’re coming.
And yes, before you ask, we did drag a stuffed armchair out into the middle of the prairie.
Working it like a freakin’ model!
And my absolute favorite from the night:
lotus – maternity
A week or so before I went to New York, I got a call late one Friday from a friend of ours. She had been expecting to give birth any day (actually, a couple of days prior to that), so we expected the call to be the big news that her baby had been born. That wasn’t the case. But, she thought, since she was still pregnant with nothing to do, would I want to do a maternity shoot with her and her family the next day?
Of course!
We went to an old house in Manhattan for a fun shoot with her, her husband, and their daughter. I was apprehensive going into the shoot because I typically like to do my shooting outside, with all the wonderful natural light. I found, though, that there is lots of lovely light inside, too, so long as you know where to look. In this house, we started upstairs by a big window, moved our way to the staircase, and then eventually to the front room with its massive windows and yummy light.
Here are a few of my favorites:
I especially love the light on her belly in this one:
Their daughter, the lovely Miss M, was all too eager to get in on all the fun!
We got a couple of nice family portraits while we were there, too.
And, of course, we got some great belly shots:
Lotus, Charles, and little Miss M, I had such a fun time with you and your family! And it was great to get to see young Master S at conference this past weekend. All my best to you and your growing family!
jenny – maternity
This summer, while on vacation, I had the pleasure of meeting one of my sister’s friends, Jenny. At the time, she was about 35 weeks along in her first pregnancy and I had never shot a maternity session before, so I offered to shoot some images of her. Unfortunately, we couldn’t get our schedules to work so that both her and her husband, Rob, could be there, so we went ahead and did the session with just her (since a maternity session with just the husband doesn’t really have the same appeal).
She was a beautiful model to shoot and wonderfully open to my suggestions. Here are some of my favorite images from the session.
She was staying at her parents’ house at the time, and there was a super cool little spot in the dining room that we merrily took advantage of.
As we were shooting in her parents’ front yard, her sweet little sister came home.
My two most favorite images:
Thanks, Jenny! And Rob, I’m sorry we couldn’t quite meet up all three of us. I hope the little man arrived happy and healthy!
