Here is another group session that I shot about a month ago, and after looking through the pictures there were so many that were awesome.  These girls were great, and very well prepared if I may so myself.  They brought bubbles.  Bubbles were awesome.  It was so cool to mix it up and for a shot of them together blowing the bubbles it made them fun and unique.  They also brought their flutes, and so we got to do the urban take on fluting.  Below are the photos I liked, but there were SO many from there session that were great, I think for both of them we shot close to 1000 images total!

For the September senior special I am going to try something a little different. This is an awesome deal because you can take advantage of it even if you have already had your portraits done, or want to get some more that are a little different, maybe even with a friend. So here’s the deal… 20 minute mini sessions! That’s right, on every Friday evening for the month of September I will offer only 4 - 20 minute session for only $50 each! Here’s the plan, I will start the sessions at 5:00p at a set location, each week is different and booked on a first come basis. Each session is 20 minutes long, so you will want to be there on time so you don’t miss out. Every session will have an online gallery to proof and order prints as well as your yearbook image. Here is the location itinerary so you can have you choice of style.

September 5 - Grassy Field/ Mountain Views - Louisville
September 12 - Denver Urban
September 19 - Broomfield Train Tracks
September 26 - Flagstaff Rock Cropping’s OR Popular demand.

Book early because the sessions are so limited and this is an awesome chance to get something different! Also, if you were wondering why there was no August session it’s because I was completely booked out! Thanks so much to all the awesome student and their families who help spread the word because it was all you guys that filled my calendar!

Here are a few images from Kayla’s session.  We headed up to the CU campus to scope out a few new locations and get some photos for her before she started back to school this week!  Kayla chose this location after she saw her friend Amanda’s portraits, and while I try to steer away from duplicate session I knew I would be up for a challenge.  Come to find out, there are a ton of cool spots on campus to photograph and we were not limited one bit.  She also did not jump in a grab the giant fish, but assured me she would make sure that Amanda would do it before the end of the year :)  Here are a few photos from the session.  My favorite…. the hallway shot.  I love her pose and the location just rocks.  So glad we found that chair!

Also, as a side note, I am in Oklahoma City right now watching it rain cats and dogs and hoping to be able to shoot one of these days.  While do not have a majority of my files with me please contact me anytime with questions!

Lyndsay and Jessie are the second "buddy" session I have done this year.  While the group sessions are so exhausting because I am shooting close to 1000 images, they are so much fun and such a great way to live up the senior portrait session.  This one was cool because Jessie and Lyndsay only kept feeding off of each other and every different location was different because they only got more relaxed.  And then there was the water.  For some crazy reason they wanted to jump into the freezing cold river and splash around, and for some even crazier reason I decided to go in after them.  After going in to deep and realizing that my phone was still in my pocket I knew that the decision I made may have been a bad one.  Thankfully the iPhone was o.k. (good thing because my wife would not let me replace that)  but I was sockless for the rest of the shoot.  We got some awesome photos up in Eldorado Canyon, and while the scenic backdrops usually lend themselves more to traditional style portraits I think that we were able to really capture something unique for them.

On what started to be a very hot Saturday morning, Jasmine met me downtown to rock her senior portraits. While she came into it with no expectations she soon found a look of her own and we were able to find some great place to capture her photos. A good combination of clothing changes and location choices, all added in with a dash of her unique style really gave these portraits a great look. This is also a very special blog post for me, because not only did I try a few new processing techniques on her photos, but I also added what very well could be my new logo. I have been working with the very awesome and amazingly talented Denver designer Adrienne Deloe on concepts of a new look and this one is my favorite so far. Let me know what you think! I also have some thing that will be offered to seniors as an added bonus to their session. All the details will be listed on my facebook fan page after this weekend so if you haven’t added me as a friend/ fan make sure you do… it is going to be awesome!

Over the last few months I have realized how much I have been blessed with in my business and it doesn’t just come from being busy.  I have been able to build and find relationships I would have never had the opportunity to build otherwise.  This is not just limited to people I am photographing, but also with local area photographers as well.  One of my favorite blogs I read is Zen Habits, and today I flipped through this post about sharing happiness.  I think it is always important to do this, and hope that I do and will continue to share my happiness with the people who have done the same for me.  Enjoy, and make sure to visit Zen Habits and check out the post… they are inspiring and worth reading!

32 ways to make someone happy today.

Make someone happy today!

1. Smile.
2. Help them carry something.
3. Send a thank-you email.
4. Call just to see how they’re doing.
5. Pick them flowers.
6. Cook them a nice meal.
7. Tell a joke and laugh your butts off.
8. Clean.
9. Write a love letter to a loved one.
10. Give them a cherished book.
11. Bake cookies.
12. Praise them publicly.
13. Thank them for a job well done.
14. Listen.
15. Be there when they’re in need.
16. Give a free hug.
17. Spend time with them, having fun.
18. Do errands or chores for them.
19. Say I love you.
20. Help them get ahead.
21. Be proud of them.
22. Babysit if they need it.
23. House sit if they need it.
24. Buy them movie tickets.
25. Create a care package.
26. Coffee. Mmmm.
27. List the things you love about them.
28. Secretly leave them thank you notes.
29. Give a back rub when appropriate.
30. Deliver a nice lunch to them when they’re having a rough day.
31. Love them, completely.
32. Be happy yourself.

One of these days I am going to post one of my senior portraits up here just so everyone can see why I shoot in the style I do.  Not that my senior portraits are bad, they just don’t reflect my style.  I am certainly not knocking the photographer that did mine, she is phenomenal and also very successful at what she does.  She was also a great mentor to me as I was making the transition as a kid who liked to take pictures, to a professional photographer that wanted to make a career for himself.  Maybe it was my clothing selection, or location, or time of day, but whatever the case the portraits didn’t really say much about who I was.  One of the challenges as I shoot more and more seniors is to really be able to find that for everyone, because I love looking through the portraits and feeling like I was able to capture and tell a story with images.  Even though every student has to have them done, guys make up only a small percentage of the graduates I shoot every year.  Which makes it challenging in that the expectations are completely different.  I know from my own personal experience, most guys don’t even really care if the portraits get done at all, let alone could care less about clothing changes, location, or time of day.  That’s what I like so much about Andrew’s session.  Even though he brought only a few simple thing to change into and his guitar, we were able to create completely original portraits for him that hopefully speak and reflect his personal style.  What was great is that is very hard to convince anyone but a guy that running and jumping off a wall is going to make a good portrait, but he went along with it and I am glad he did.  The stellar images below were my favorites from the session, but there were so many others.  I really wish I could have put them all!  Enjoy!

For those of you who have had a session shot by me before you know that I prefer to work alone.  The reason for this is that I like the freedom to move around and be an active roll in the shoot.  it also allows me only to worry about what I need to be doing, and not trying to add in the extra element of what someone else should be doing as well.  After Jill’s shoot I realized I may need to start working with someone else.  Mostly so when I come up with crazy ideas there is somewhere there to stop me, and pull me back down to Earth and reality.  Jill’s shoot was awesome, and by awesome I mean in a cool 1950’s People magazine kind of awesome way.  She has such a unique look and picked an amazing outfit to have her portraits done in.  I love the modern yet classic look to her images, and it definitely showed as I was editing them down so consistently that way.  Below are a few images I pulled from her session, including the first sequence in which I love the look on her face as she realizes she is swinging out over traffic.  Someone should have stopped us from doing this, but the images look awesome!  A big applause to Jill for not killing herself and a great session!

This one is great, and I have been trying to nail this all summer long!  She is not first to be able to do it, but the first time I was able to get a perfect sequence of the full "heel click" along with a fabulous finish!  Nice work Jill!

This last week or so has been incredibly busy with graduate portraits, and while I am working my hardest get most of them on my blog, my turn around is a little slower than normal.  Here are some images from Julie’s session downtown.  We were blessed with beautiful light at the beginning of the session and were able to escape the heat at the end.  In mind that is almost perfect, and when you look at the images I think you will agree.  The best part about this session was when I had her sit in the trashed out field in the middle of the city, she was looking at me like I was crazy.  In my opinion those images look very striking and have a very specific character to them.  Thanks Julie for smiling all morning long and going along with my ideas!