Last Shoot of the Year

I’ve been photographing Jean & Gerry’s extended family over the last six years. (Many thanks to their wonderful daughter, Andrea…she originally contacted me and began this longtime friendship.) It was only fitting that they were my last shoot of 2009! J I met up with them at their beach house on Folly Beach. Even though it was really cold that night, they all braved the uncomfortable temperatures and we all had a BLAST! The lighting was fantastic…everything from a really cool sunset to a really dramatic moonrise. I LOVE IT!!!

The Boone Hall Kids

Photographing Greg & Elizabeth's kids is always such a pleasure. They are so well behaved, love the camera, and actually LISTEN to me! :-) I met up with them at Boone Hall Plantation the other day and we just had a great time...going all over and getting tons of different looks. GOOD LUCK narrowing down your favorites, Elizabeth!!! Hehehe!

'Tis the Season

I still remember Anne-Magill & Brad's wedding like it was YESTERDAY! When they found out little Merritt was on the way, they signed up for our "Welcome To The World" collection. So I've had the pleasure of photographing their beautiful girl since she was just a part of Mamma's belly! :-) She's now 6-months old. Here are a few of my favorites from their Christmas session on their beautiful property.

Old Friends Become New Again

I photographed Sara & Jordan's wedding about 4 years ago! So it was really fun and exciting to see them again when they asked me to do an updated family portrait. They hadn't changed ONE BIT...still as much fun as I remember!!! :-)

Lee's Baby Dedication

I recently had the honor of photographing Lee's 4-month portraits. His baby dedication was this past weekend at Ashley River Baptist. This was one of the photos they selected to be projected on the huge LCD screen of him during the service. What an ADORABLE young man!!! Congratulations Chad, Denise, and big brother Thomas! :-)

Dixon-Hughes Executive Portraits

I just wrapped up shooting Executive Portraits for Dixon-Hughes, one of the largest accounting firms in the nation. The firm celebrates it's 50th Anniversary this year!

They had me set up in their conference room. And I used my totally wireless system that I LOVE!!! This time I fired two SB-800 flashes into a large softbox (seen on left) instead of using the Westcott shoot-through umbrella as my main light. Fill was provided by the reflector (seen on right). I almost used the dry erase board that was already there instead! ;-) Hair light was a Westcott Apollo with a domed SB-800 in it. It was triggered by RadioPopper. The others were fired by Nikon CLS.

I popped up the Old Master's canvas background and fired away on the Nikon D2x with 70-200 f2.8 attached. I used the D2x instead of the D3 because I have the WT-2a wireless transmitter on that camera, allowing the images to magically appear on my laptop as I'm shooting. Each indevidual can then go through their shots right then and there to make sure they're happy with them. :-)

Claudette Bell

Recently I had the pleasure of photographing the AMAZING low country artist, Claudette Bell. Those are her beautiful paintings behind the lamp and above the mantel. Her husband, Bill, has commissioned me to do several shoots for his company. So it was neat to see their beautiful home and get to meet his lovely wife. Visit her website at http://www.claudettebell.com/ or stop by Spencer's Art Gallery and the Charleston Artist Guild Gallery where her fine work is featured.

Amity & Ryan on Folly Beach

Amity & Ryan are good friends of Kerri & Wes, who's wedding I had the privilege of photographing earlier this year. Their daughter was the ADORABLE Flower Girl in the wedding! So it was fun to get to work with them again in creating these family memories. :-)

School Portraits

Something I LOVE about my profession is that no two weeks are alike. One week I might be shooting a beautiful wedding, the next I might be shooting Serena Williams at the Family Circle Cup. This week, I was photographing the school pictures for the Child Development Center at Ashley River Baptist Church. Since I'm truly just a kid at heart anyway, I felt right at home. :-)

Many of you have asked me how I set up for assignments like these. So here's a couple shots of this year's set up. We decided to do an all-white high-key setup this year. To properly do high-key, it's CRITICAL that you light the background separate from the subject. This allows you to over-expose the background by a stop or so to give it that angelic glow. I have two Alien Bees with umbrellas lighting the white seamless background, and one AB in a large soft box lighting the kids.

Another great tip when working with kids is to always use a remote triggering device. Children are just TOO FAST to try and jump back to the camera to get the shot. Their smiles light up their face for an instant, the next they're digging for gold or admiring the ceiling tiles. I use a Pocket Wizard, attached to a PW Caddy, strapped to my belt. When I get the reaction I want, a quick tap to my hip transmits the signal to my receiver, which is picked up by the receiving Pocket Wizard, instantly firing the camera.

Flash Freeze

I created this image at Erin & Jason's wedding last week. Everyone was marveling at how dramatic the moon was that night. It didn't take much prodding to get Erin & Jason to join me for a daring adventure to capture that drama in an image of them! :-)

Working with a minimalist amount of gear, I had my two Nikon D3's, each fitted with a Nikon SB-900, plus one remote SB-800 on a Bogen 3333 stand I had used earlier for group photos.

I set the SB-800 off on camera right, zoomed to 70mm to concentrate the beam of light on them. I took the SB-900 off one camera and flipped it to remote mode (I LOVE how quickly you can switch modes on the 900 vs. the 800). This one was placed behind the couple for a rim light. I positioned Erin & Jason so that the street light in the distance was behind her veil. And there's some landscape lighting on the famous Pineapple Fountain I liked.

To pick up the ambient light of the moon, street lamp, and landscape lighting, I used ISO 1600, f2.8. Even so, I was at 1/30th of a second. I was using the D3 with the 70-200. I had no tripod with me. So you're probably thinking at that slow a shutter speed, this image is going to be blurry, right? Well, by carefully placing Erin & Jason so that all the ambient light was behind them, the couple was pretty much pitch black at this point. The only light hitting them from the camera side was the off-camera SB-800. This is VERY IMPORTANT! By doing this, I am essentially using the high-speed burst of light from the strobe to FREEZE them in place. At this point, the shutter speed of the camera is only affecting the ambient light, it has nothing to do with the exposure of the main subject. So even hand-holding that long lens at such a slow shutter speed, Erin & Jason are as sharp as a tack!

And that's how you use Flash Freeze to save your behind when you don't have a tripod with you! :-)

Robin & Leif

Here's a few of my favorites from Robin & Leif's fun family session. They have the most ADORABLE kids, don't they?!? It was a little stormy that day. But they decided to take a chance and were WELL rewarded. This is PROOF that days you don't "think" will be good for portraits are often the BEST days for portraits. The drama of that sky just ads so much dimension to the images! :-)

Corporate Head Shots

I had a fun shoot for the folks at the David Gilston Insurance Agency the other day. This was my second time out to their office. I know, it looks like this was photographed in some expensive studio somewhere. But we have an AMAZING portable studio setup we take on location to provide studio-quality portraits to our corporate clients IN THEIR OFFICE! They love it because there's no "down time" for their employees. Instead of each employee trucking over to our studio and wasting an hour of their time, we set everything up there and they simply walk down the hall when it's their turn. It's so cool because while I'm shooting, the images are wirelessly flying over to my laptop. So each person can review their images to make sure they're happy with the results before going back to their desk!

If you work in an office environment, or know of any companies that would benefit by having professional, executive-style head-shots, please let me know. We are accepting new corporate clients!

Apryl & Ben's e-Session

Apryl & Ben have a couple months before their Big Day gets here. We tried twice before to do their Charleston Engagement Session...but both got rained out. Well...third time's a charm!!! I had a GORGEOUS day, good spirits, and a couple that is SO CUTE and VERY MUCH in love! ;-)We started out at The Battery in downtown Charleston, walking up the rustic cobble stone section of Church St. Ben actually proposed to Apryl on this street! Then we zipped over to Folly Beach after a quick outfit change to catch the dramatic setting sun. We had a lot of fun. So I just know their wedding is going to be AMAZING...

Kiawah Island Sunset

My family portrait session with the Kings had some of the most AMAZING light I've had in a long time. We had a BALL! One of the kids gave me a high-5 after the shoot...then paused...and with a big grin said "I'm just glad you broke our long streak of family shoots that were disasters!" :-)

Folly Beach Sunset

The entire Rodgers clan came descended on Charleston this summer. They were staying at Isle of Palms. But since IOP and Sullivan's Island have an ordinance that bans professional photography on their beaches, we met up at Folly Beach. We all had a BLAST! And at the end of the session, we were rewarded with a SPECTACULAR sunset!

Family Portraits at The Sanctuary

Sabrina & John enjoy vacationing at The Sanctuary on Kiawah Island. But this is the first time they've been back with the kids. So they called us to photograph their VERY FIRST family portrait session on the beach. Since it had rained on their wedding day, we also did a mini Trash-the-Dress session at the end...woohoo! :-)

Kiawah Island Photography

I had a fun shoot with the Mayo family on Kiawah Island. It rained all afternoon and was still sprinkling when I arrived so we were really worried the beach photography session we had planned wasn't going to happen. But after a few "backup" images in the beautiful house they had rented, the sky opened up and we got all these AMAZING images with the dramatic sky and vibrant sunset.