I just love working with high school seniors! They’re at a very special time in their lives, when the world is before them and all options are open. They’re hopeful and confident, yet still in the process of turning into the adults they will soon become. Most of all, they’re a lot of fun to shoot!

I had the pleasure of working with Mayabeth, a senior from Wamego High, and let me tell you, this young woman is busy! She runs cross country, plays basketball, volunteers at the elementary school, and to top it all off, was recently chosen to be the Homecoming Queen!

On a day that started out cold, cloudy, windy, and 48F (before wind chill), we went out to a local lake in the afternoon and found incredible blue skies and gorgeous temperatures.

Is it wrong to start a blog post with one of my very favorites from the session?

We really couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful day in mid-October! So yeah, we had some fun.

Here are a few of my favorites from the session:

Man, I just love this next one!

After hanging around the lake for a while, we hopped back in our cars and went over to the campus at KSU to get a few more in a more urban setting.

As the light started to fade, we headed over to the old stadium there on campus to get make some images of Mayabeth in her cross country uniform and spikes.

She has been hitting the weights for a few years now and wanted to make sure we documented the progress. Check out those guns!

Good luck choosing a college, Mayabeth, and in all your future endeavors!

To those that know Mindy and Nathan, this will not come as much of a surprise, given that they just tied the knot about a week ago in a beautiful hill-top ceremony at her parents’ farm. However, not too long before the wedding, we got together for a little engagement session, knowing that there was little time between the session and the actual wedding (there was only family at the wedding–a total of 18 people).

And, incidentally, for anyone else in a similar situation, where there is not that much time for an engagement session before the wedding, when you might be tempted to just skip it and focus on the nearing nuptials, I’d recommend going ahead with the session anyways. It gives you a chance to get to know your photographer in a much more relaxed environment, to see how he or she works, and develop an amount of trust and confidence that will come back to serve you on your actual wedding day. You’ll be more relaxed with your photographer, and that will only make you look better in your wedding portraits. Trust me on this one.

So, we met on campus at Kansas State University in Manhattan and made good use of the great variety of locations available in such a small area. I’m going to try not to talk too much now because there are a bunch of images to share, so get ready for a long post!

Mindy and Nathan met in grade school. Sounds like the beginning of a great love story, doesn’t it? Really, it is.

It was so cool to see how much fun they have together. They’re unafraid of letting it show around other people, too.

Oh yeah…the dumpster thing? Their idea.

The real Nathan.

The black and white Nathan.

As we were moving from one location to another in the old stadium there on campus, a sweet, elderly couple that was walking the track passed us and commented on how nice the weather was. They then suggested we shoot right there on the track.

Ok!

After the stadium, we moved over to the new parking garage and had some fun there. Don’t worry…we looked both ways before laying down in the street.

The real fun started when we went to the top of the parking garage. It’s not finished yet, so there were a few locations that probably won’t be available in a few months when they do finish it.

And my very absolute favorite of the night, the very last image we made:

Mindy and Nathan, you guys rock! I’m so excited to have been able to create these images of your love before your wedding, and can’t wait to show you the images from your wedding! It’s coming soon…stay tuned!

*hack, hack* *ahem*

Pardon my cough. All the dust all over this poor blog really aggravates my lungs!

My goodness it’s been forever since I updated this thing! To get myself gently back into the habit, I thought I’d throw up a quick post.

Not too long ago, a good friend contacted me and let me know that he was being invited to speak at a conference. This was good news for him, but he wasn’t just calling to tell me his good news. Once he got the invite, the conference organizers let him know that he’d need a headshot to put in the program and on the organization’s website.

That’s when the panic set in. And that’s when he called me.

We figured we’d be able to run over to his school after hours (he teaches at the local middle school) and set up a simple headshot there in his room. However, when we actually got together to shoot, our schedules were a bit cramped and hectic, so we decided that we’d just shoot it in my dining room.

That’s right–in my dining room.

I threw up some seamless black paper over a doorway and set up my big light (a Norman head) with a shoot-through umbrella. We found something to hold up a white reflector to fill in the shadows, and put up a little speedlight with a CTO gel on it to color the background.

The result?

And in black and white, just in case.

His wife told me later (with a wink) that she never knew that she had married such a handsome man!

So there you go: a quick headshot in my dining room. Good luck on your presentation, Curtis!

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!

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!

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!

If I’ve been a little absent around here, there’s a good reason. It’s a cute little reason with incredibly pinchable cheeks, but this reason still loves to wake up at night and scream/growl/grunt at me.

This past Sunday afternoon, just before the light died away completely, Michelle and I were staring at our little girl in her adorable pink dress when we realized that she had turned one-month old without us doing a little photo session for her. She was already in an adorable dress, so we got right to the session. Michelle even prettied herself up a little (afternoon naps tend to mess up one’s hair, after all) and jumped in the shot.

Here’s a couple early favorites.

Yes, I am a very, very lucky man.

When I went to install my show at the local gallery (which I mentioned before and will give more details about soon), I took a moment to check out the other artists’ work. One particular photographer, Ali Mocabee, caught my eye, so I went to her website and browsed around for a bit. I saw a link on her blog that said to add her in facebook, so I did.

A few days later, after we had had the baby, I got an email from her asking if she could come play with our baby. She was wanting to try out some natural lighting techniques she had learned but that couldn’t really be practiced without a model (i.e., a fresh, sleepy baby). We had the baby and love pictures, so we said yes!

She came over yesterday and brought a really fun bag of toys that we got to break out and play with for a couple of hours. Cate was a great model and slept almost the whole time. Except for when she pooped in my hand (don’t worry…I caught it all. Nothing got on the floor). Ali and I both shot a ton and I’m really happy with both what I got in the camera and with the whole experience and practice.

Michelle wouldn’t let me go to sleep tonight until I edited at least a couple of her favorites, so here you go!

Ali brought this AWESOME pink petticoat that we bunched up and used as a cushion for Cate. I love this series.

This last one was so yummy, I had to serve it up in two flavors!

If this just whets your appetite, don’t worry! There are plenty more to come!

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!

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.

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!