Today we spent some time with Chantel on one of our “Adventure” sessions. We explored a few places normal people wouldn’t think to go for senior pictures.

We have been so blessed this year. We have had a great time with every senior.

So many adults look at teenagers as trouble, but this is just not the case. If you really take the time to listen to our young people, you will find them full of optimism for the future.

Is this all the work we do? Is there more?

Yes…much more.

Only a few images from a few sessions ever see the website.

Why?

In a perfect world, we would have time to blog about all of our great customers and how wonderful their images turned out (like this one of Chelsea). The problem is time. We don’t seem to have enough of it during our busy time. July through December is crunch time for photographers. It’s busy January to June, but the real craziness starts right after Independence Day.

It’s very important to us not to neglect our family time. There are times when we sneak off for a few hours during the week to spend some time with our kids, so don’t be offended or surprised if the machine picks up instead of a real person. We’ll return your call soon. We are also doing location sessions for some of our seniors. Again we have to rely on the machine for a couple of hours.

So many times you’ll here the phrase, “I’ll just fix it in Photoshop later.”

While computers certainly have their place, it’s not always possible to correct errors made when exposing the image. Even though we use digital capture, we try to get the lighting and composition right at the time of exposure. We then take the RAW file (digital negative) and adjust it slightly for exposure and color balance before processing it to a JPG format – the same kind of file that comes out of your point and shoot digital camera. The difference being that ours has been fine-tuned for the best possible results.

Many will question the added steps in workflow that the RAW format requires, but it is actually far more efficient to adjust a RAW file than it is to “fix” a jpg file.

Now we take the process a step farther. We are pre-visualizing what we want the final image to look like at the time of capture and then going through a series of steps using the computer to realize our vision. We’ve done it so long that it has become second nature. The above picture of Kiley is an example of what we can do when we “see” the final image in our minds as we are doing our senior sessions.

Kelsey and her family came in for their sales presentation last night.

We are sometimes surprised by what ends up being the favorites. We loved Kelsey’s serious look, but she was into the ones that were a little more fun.

Many of our senior sessions are done in the late afternoon/evening. Some evenings are just perfect for pictures: beautiful golden light, a slight breeze and temps in the 70′s.

Kelsey had one of the best nights of the summer so far.

Chris lives just down the road from us. We were able to take advantage of the great light and a slough not far from his driveway.

Don’t tell Mike, but ElizaBeth takes great pictures too…like this one of Marti taken at sunset at the lake..