Children's Portrait Session

I had the pleasure yesterday of creating portraits of two amazing young children. Their mom had them dressed in their Sunday finest and I was doing my best to capture the images I wanted before they got dirty or wet. When we walked across the bridge and they saw the creek, they mentioned getting in the water. While I was up for that and their mom seemed to be also, I was hoping to finish the session in the water rather than start it there. Luckily mom and I prevailed. They were really a joy to work with and seemed almost in tune with one another. As many parents with multiple children can attest, being in tune with one another is certainly not a given. These two were not only in tune when they needed to be but played off one another quite well for kicks. Case in point, as the session was winding down and they were starting to tire, one would yawn while the other smiled and visa versa. It was quite comical. Talk about toying with the photographer! All in all I had a great time and hope they did as well. Please enjoy the above images.

Family Portrait Session...

I just created some family and children portraits of a really fun family of four. The husband, Aaron, is a policeman which leaves his lovely wife Amy to handle the kids. She/they obviously do a wonderful job as the boys were very easy and fun to work with. The only real difficult part was trying to get the youngest, Andrew, to smile. Someone else commented that he has far too serious an expression at his age. Perhaps that expression comes from watching too many Braves games with his Dad, a definite Braves-aholic. I myself am a huge Braves fan and covered them for many years when I was doing my professional sports photography, but I'm probably getting an ulcer watching them lately... Honestly though, I had a blast during this session and thankfully they agreed to any idea that I presented even though the heat and humidity was starting to get intense. So without me rambling on too much more, I'll let the images above speak for themselves.

Front Lobby Images for PLAY in Roswell

I was extremely honored and excited to get a call in June from Colleen MacDonald who owns PLAY in Roswell. This is the new and improved home of her former Activity center for kids, The Playroom, in Marietta. She and I became friends last year when I offered to provide her with some gift certificates for various events she had at her aforementioned location. I then also did a portrait session of herself and her daughter for the holidays. Anyway, she contacted me and asked me if I would produce some images of kids playing in her new location that she could then display in the front lobby. Of course I jumped at the chance as it would be not only a fun opportunity to get creative but also be great exposure in her incredible facility. She basically gave me free reign to Play and be artistic. It certainly wasn't hard to find willing models as all the kids there were absolutely beaming with excitement as they were going from one area to the next. My "concept" was to not only capture great portraits of the kids enjoying the facility but to do it in a visually graphic way. By this I mean I would utilize the play areas and objects that the kids were using and the different shapes of each. For instance you can dive into a pit of foam squares, play with large balls or get into a pool of multi-colored balls. Go through a tunnel or slide down a curvy slide...

Anyway, I cannot wait to create more images as she continues to grow and expand her facility. She has plans for a rock climbing wall among other things. But if you have not visited yet, I strongly suggest doing so as it is awesome. They have daycare facilities for the kids, Wifi for adults, a private changing and nursing area for new moms and many other amenities. The images I produced as well as a partial view of her lobby can be seen above. I'd love to hear your comments.

Portrait Session...

My wife Susan recently asked me to donate a couple free sessions for a 2nd Anniversary event that the Atlanta Area Moms Online Board (http://www.atlantaareamommies.com) was having. Its rare that I refuse a request from my wife so I happily obliged. One of the winners contacted me soon after to set up the session which we did last Friday. What a wonderful family! They have a 21 month old boy named Nathaniel who has an incredible personality and was also full of energy. We did a number of portraits on backgrounds at their home and then traveled to a local park to do some more. I'm hoping for his mom Carrie that he expended most of that energy and then had a good afternoon nap! I had a really fun time meeting Carrie, Mark and of course Nataniel and hope they enjoy the tiny tease of images captured above.

Family Portrait Session...

I had the opportunity to create individual and family portraits of a local family of five. We had a really fun time despite the heat and humidity. The children ranged in age from 6 weeks old through 11 years old. They were absolutely full of energy with the exception of the 6 week old who slept through most of the session. The whole family was in and out of a nearby creek and were totally up for each and every idea I had as far as creating portraits. They wanted to have a very natural and minimally posed session and think we accomplished that pretty well. I really enjoyed photographing Heath and Lori and their kids who I first met at the Ultimate Playdate at East Cobb Park back in May. I hope you enjoy the above portraits!

More Fun with the Kids...

These were meant for an earlier post but never quite made it. I have now promised my wife I would post them primarily for family but also for my regular readers too. We took these actually on the 4th of July late in the day and had a blast letting the kids run wild. The only drawback was the fact that they were soaked for the ride home and had to sit nearly butt naked for the short trip. Anyway, lets get to the portraits...

Metro Montage VIII

Just a quick little reminder that The Marietta/Cobb Museum of Art's Metro Montage VIII Juried Art Exhibition will be opening this Saturday (12th) Evening at 6pm. This will be the third time I have entered and have been selected to participate in this exhibition. Normally there is a theme for the exhibition, but this year there was none. As always though, there is some very talented and gifted artists of all mediums. I have taken a couple of years off from exhibiting and selling my artwork. Actually my last solo exhibition was of all my Olympic Sports Art held at the United States Olympic Headquarters in Colorado Springs, Colorado in 2005. This being an Olympic year always brings back fond memories of covering the Olympics for Sports Illustrated as well as the Olympic Committee. In any event, here is the one and only image I submitted for the Metro Montage. I hope you enjoy it and that you'll come and check out all the work from the other local area artists.

More from our Horse Whisperer...

Here are a few more images of Larry and his Babies. The images obviously do not do his work justice, but watching him interact and work with his horses is really amazing. Maybe his key is those carrots, but I don't think so. Hopefully in a future posting I'll have some images of my kids riding with Grandpa Larry and Killian Red and/or Spirit. Until then, these will have to suffice...

Family Fun Time...

Yes, yes I realize I have been bad again keeping up with my blog and staying up to date. Honestly though, I do not post images of all my sessions unless they have agreed to allow me to do so. So with that in mind, please know that I usually love to "tease" my clients with images from their sessions, I also love to save the major emotional impact for the viewing session in their home. This way they get to view the images in a beautiful large way as opposed to a fairly tiny image on my blog. So there you have it.

I wanted to share some portraits that I created of my father in law over the 4th of July weekend. Larry is an incredible horseman and artist. His love and passion is his horses of which he has two; Spirit and Killian. He has such an amazing way with horses that is so fun to witness. He is what my wife (his daughter) and I call our horse whisperer. He routinely hauls horses across the state and the country for that matter for his various clients, but riding his "babies" in the mountains of Georgia or Kennesaw Mountain is where he really has fun. He also recently got to take Killian swimming in a lake in Newnan, Georgia. From all reports, Killian could hardly contain himself. As for the artist aspect of Larry, all you have to do is look at the buildings and structures he creates with his hands. The man can build, fix and create anything you can imagine. Part of his handywork can be seen of the barn in the portrait of himself and Killian. By the way, Killian is the reddish of the two horses and favors the color of the beer bearing its name...