It’s always the quiet students that surprise me the most. Cathryn goes to Bonny Eagle, and she had two sessions with us last week, both on the same day. At her studio appointment, Cathryn was serene, and maybe a hint reserved. Later on at the beach, well, see for yourself.
And two shots with her boyfriend:
Rockin’ good job Cathryn! You can find out more about senior portraits by following this link: http://www.focusphotography.info/seniors/sessions.html
So we do this photo session for seniors called RockStar, and the goal is to shoot musician’s first Rolling Stone cover, and maybe get a CD cover or 2. We take them through downtown, and let them perform in some pretty cool locations. The results are almost always awesome. Here’s a few from Justin’s session:
Those are Album Covers, in case you couldn’t guess. We print them as 12×12s.
Thanks for looking. You can learn more about the different sessions we offer high school seniors by following that link.
Okay, here’s the truth. I’ve only had a few guys choose the beach session, and I’m not always certain about how it will turn out. We reviewed Phil’s beach images yesterday, and they’re a reason for more guys to get to the beach. Strong, artistic, and full of attitude - I love these shots of Phil.
I’ve been super busy lately, and I apologize for so few Senior posts this summer - there just hasn’t been time to get things published. But, we’ve worked with some amazing people, and I’ll try really hard to get as many of their images up on this blog in the next month as I can. Here’s the story on Alyssa, who goes to Gray New Gloucester.
Twice before we had to reschedule because of bad weather, and on the drive over it started raining. I was certain we were going to have to reschedule again, but really hoping for a miracle. Rescheduling beach sessions is hard for us. At Focus, we only shoot at the beach during the last two hours of daylight, when the light is prettiest, and so we can’t just reschedule people for the next sunny afternoon - when you only shoot at the beach for two hours - those are usually booked. And Alyssa had a two hour session, so another rain out was going to be a huge problem. I don’t know how Alyssa got so lucky, but in the ten minutes it takes me to drive out to Cape Elizabeth from our studio, the sun broke through. The beach was a little moist, but if you look at the images, you’ll see that getting a little wet doesn’t bother the hardcore.
Check out how cool she is. Anytime someone brings me a prom dress to the beach, we’re going to get some awesome images. If you’re wondering what to wear for your senior pictures, you can never look bad in a gorgeous gown in a place where it’s not supposed to be.
Oh yeah, she got in the ocean at the end, and couldn’t stop her teeth from chattering. Fortunately, she got some awesome images while she was freezing - the pink surrounding her is the reflection of the sunset. I keep forgetting to tell people to bring a towel, so if you have a beach session coming up, be forewarned….
Alyssa - your images rock! I was able to pare them down to about eighty that I can’t wait for you to see.
For more information about cool senior pictures, follow that link. Thanks for looking - I’ll get more up soon.
So you thought I only posted the babes here on the Focus Blog, didn’t you? I understand, you jumped to conclusions, and assumed I didn’t care about the guys we photograph. Never mind that we offer three of the coolest sessions a guy could ever get - downtown, rockstar, and superjock. Maybe next time you’ll cut me a little more slack.
This is Harrison, who totally crushed it during his two sessions. If you see him skulking around Falmouth, let him know what a stud he is.
Hey, do you love the cross-processing on 1 and 3? That’s an old school developing trick, where we’d develop our print film in slide chemistry. It was really big in the fashion world, and I think it works well with strong portraits. Obviously, we don’t do that to every picture, and most of Harrison’s senior presentation wasn’t so tricked out. But some images just need to be special. HDR fans - image 4 is for you. A little something we do for a lot of the rockstar sessions. Thanks for looking.
Friday night we attended and photographed the Make A Wish auction at the Marriott in South Portland. Make A Wish is an incredible organization, and if you don’t know them, please take 3 minutes to visit their website to learn a little bit more. That will tell you about the mission, the kids, and some of the wishes granted here in Maine. But it won’t tell you anything about the dedication and hard work of the people who put this event on, nor about the awesome generosity of the attendees of the auction, as well as the donors of the auctioned items. We were amazed.
At most charity auctions, people might bid on tickets to a sporting event. At Make A Wish, that event was the Patriots-Colts game, in Indy, with roundtrip airfare for 4, and rooms at the Marriott in Indianapolis! Everything about the event was over the top, starting with the magnificent rooms and catering of the Marriott (which pulled out all the stops - from sushi to lobster ravioli)!
Thank you Make A Wish for letting us be involved. And to everyone who won the bids for our items, we’re hoping you’ll get thos scheduled before the snow flies.
Here are a few of my favorites - there is a slideshow and a gallery on the site. Click here if you’re interested. Thanks for looking.
We’re just hitting the busy part of the high school senior season, and I was asked recently if I could show some of my favorite posters. These aren’t just large images - they’re often many images combined into a single photo, to show movement, story, hobbies, etc. better than a single image could. So here are a few of my favorites…
You can get more info about our senior experience on our website. Thanks for looking.
This is a family session we did last week on the coast. Okay, a little late on the blogging, but we’ve been really busy since the 4th. Look for a lot of catching up in the next week or so.
So this is the Weeks family from Brunswick, who tempted me with the idea of a family session on their new boat, but then yanked the boat out of the photoshoot at the last minute. So this is a special appeal to our blog readers - I need a family shoot on a boat. It doesn’t have to be a ridiculous yacht, or even a powerboat - sailing would be awesome. And don’t get me wrong - I don’t want to be on the boat. I want to be on the dock, or an island, or even another boat, while you and your family come sailing by. Maybe flying a spinaker, I don’t know. Definitely looking nautical, navy and white would be great. If you’ve got the boat, the family, and are willing to find the clothing, (and no one in your family has three heads), the photo session is on me. Tell your friends down at the marina.
Enough about me and how I was cheated out of the picture I really wanted - these pictures on the rocks are awesome.
Learn more about us on our website - www.focusphotography.info. Thanks for looking. Will
Happy 4th of July!
Independence day has always been one of my favorite holidays - Thanksgiving, New Year’s, Cinqo de Mayo, the 4th of July, and maybe Christmas, not in any particular order. The other 4 are all about the food to me, but the 4th is all about fireworks, crowds, and summer. There should be more summer holidays.
Here’s the secret to really powerful fireworks images - long shutter exposures. Set your camera on manual, and stop down your aperture. Make sure you’re camera is on a tripod - you won’t be able to do this hand held. I like 1s/f11, depending on the night, with a film speed of no more than 400. Fireworks are burning super brightly, and you want to capture some of their great colors, and a lot of their motion. That’s why you want an aperture of f8-f22. The exposure time is more subjective. Since you’re not trying to get a good exposure of the sky, or anything else around you, don’t bother metering. Just leave the shutter open long enough to catch some of the motion that an exploding firework makes, without catching so much that it blurs. But I can never predict how long that will be, so here’s my fireworks trick. I set the camera for a 15 second exposure, but cover the lens (with a hat or a paper plate) just until I see the rocket going up. Then I uncover the lens, let the colors streak out, and place the plate or hat over the lens again. That way I don’t have to worry about exactly when the fireworks go off. I’ll add more later….
Okay, a rainy night, tough on fireworks all around. Truthfully, we didn’t go down to the Eastern Prom because we thought they would be washed out, but I hear they still went off without a hitch. Send me a link to your own images if you got anything good. I’m posting a panorama of the Eastern Promenade with fireworks from last year instead.
I’m sorry I wussed out this year, as I always love Portland’s fireworks display. I guess there’s always next year….
Connection studies are a very contemporary photo session, with an emphasis on the bonds between people. We ask our connection’s clients to dress in black, long sleeved clothing to keep the focus on the relationship between the subjects, and not on what they are wearing.
Connection Studies are shot on both black backgrounds, for artistic black and white images, as well as on medium tone brown images, which complements most homes decor.
I’ve been shooting a lot of Mother/Child sessions lately for a fall exhibit we’re planning. I’ll post the dates here when we have them firmed up.
