Senior Portraits- Jake

About a week ago, I had my first Senior boy session of the year at the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. I got to photograph Jake, a self-proclaimed non-smiler. To be more specific, he said he didn't do well smiling for photos. Jake is a football player and since his high school's football team won their first State Championship game the day before, he had plenty of reason to smile. I think he managed to do okay with his session considering he's a non-smiler. Here are a few photos from that day.

Family Session in the Park

Blogging is not high on my list of things to do. I realized I hadn't written a blog post in well over a month and it's not from a lack of sessions, just a lack of time (and maybe motivation). I've been fortunate that I've been fairly busy with a variety of work, but I haven't made a peep about it except to my friends and family. Since talking to my family about my jobs makes their eyes glaze over with boredom, I thought I'd post something here.

About two weeks ago, just after Thanksgiving to be exact, I had the honor of photographing my son's former kindergarten teacher, Teacher Dana, and her family. Teacher Dana's children were in town for the holiday weekend so we met at Laurelhurst Park for their session. We were lucky to have a dry and mostly sunny day for the session. (I feel like I write that a lot!) Here are a few photos of her lovely family from their session below.

Twice As Nice- Senior Portraits

As the title of the post implies, I photographed two girls (yes, twins) in two different locations this weekend, sisters Shalene and Kaile. I've known the girls for a few years, yet I was still taken aback by the fact that they are seniors this year. Time really does fly by! I took their portraits at Laurelhurst Park and at Tanner Springs Park. (Thanks Jessica for introducing me to the location). I tried to get individual photos of the girls in most of the same spots but still produce images that are as individual as they are. I also took photos of the two of them together for their parents. Here are a few photos from their session.

Senior Portraits in the Pearl

Three weeks ago, on a steamy 94 degree day, I ventured to the Pearl District to take Senior Portraits. I got to photograph the lovely Jessica in Tanner Springs Park and the surrounding area. Despite the heat and the sweat (we were both sweating buckets), I think I managed to get several really nice shots. Here are a couple of images from her session.

Head Shots

I haven't blogged in a while, but it's not because I didn't have any sessions to blog about. I had some sessions this summer that I could have blogged about, but the summer pretty much steamrolled right over me.  Yep, I'd put "write blog post" on my "To do" list every week this summer and some how life got in the way and it didn't get done. So now, as summer is winding down, and school has started (for my kids), I am sitting down to finally write something.

One of my most recent sessions was head shots for Kellie, a real estate agent. I have actually taken photos of Kellie before (about a year ago), but in most of the shots I took of Kellie, she wasn't wearing her glasses. Kellie choose a photo to use as her head shot for business purposes and on Facebook. Since I'm Facebook friends with Kellie, I got to read as people complimented her photo (the one I took), which made me feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But. . . people kept telling her the photo she chose didn't look like her because she didn't have her glasses on. Sigh.

So, Kellie called me up and told me she thought she needed another head shot with her glasses on. We set out on the Reed College campus to take her new head shot with her glasses on. Here is the new pic and the old one, side by side.

Braces

My daughter's birthday was a few months back. We had planned to take her twelve year portrait on or near her birthday, but as with my son, germs and weather and extra-curricular activities seemed to dictate our lives and our possible portrait times. As it got closer to summer, we decided we need to take her portrait before her braces were put on. Of course, in one of my mom-foul moments, I didn't confirm which orthodontist appointment would be the one where she would get her braces put on. Once we were at the appointment, it was too late to back out, but we still hadn't taken her portrait. We decided we had to embrace the braces, and once the initial braces pain went away, we snapped a few photos of her sparkly new mouth jewelry.

Hammock Family

A few weeks ago I had the opportunity to photograph the lovely Hammock family. I'm posting these photos now, not because I'm a slacker, but because I had to wait until after Father's Day to post these photos. The portraits were taken as a surprise Father's Day gift for my boss (at my part time job). We were lucky to be able to catch a break in the rainy weather in order to take their photos. I was fortunate to get several great photos of the family together and individually. Here are a few of my favorites.

Teeth

When I took photos of my son last week, I immediately had the blog post title in my head. I was going to title it "Eight Seconds" since that is about the amount of time my son cooperated for his photos. I actually spent about 10 minutes from start to finish taking his belated "Eight Year" portrait, but the actual time he cooperated was much less. We were delayed with illness, weather, illness and weather, allergies. . . (you get the idea) for the last three months.

I finally forced him to sit still for his eight year portrait last week on Tuesday. I think the timing was perfect, because the very next day, he knocked a chunk of his front tooth out. The tooth was a "permanent" tooth.  I spent Wednesday afternoon at our dentist and at an endodontist. His tooth is now fixed and it's almost perfect. If you look closely at his tooth now, you can see a slight discoloration. The discoloration may have to be touched up in photos from now on, but at least he still has a tooth, he didn't need to have a root canal, and of course we're lucky he didn't have more serious injuries. Below is a "pre-injury" photo from his session, of his all natural teeth; it may not be the best photo from his session, but it shows his teeth (which I took for granted on Tuesday, but appreciate today).

Mini Sessions

After a slight lull in photography jobs, I have suddenly become a busy bee. With the arrival of spring has come the arrival of photography jobs. Within the last week, I have had three photography jobs. One of those jobs was the mini sessions I did at the Lewis Elementary Garden Fair. Another job I had was taking some head shots of agents and office building photos for a real estate office in Lake Oswego, and a third job was photographing a friend's newborn baby. I'm not planning on sharing all of the different types of photos I took this past week, but here are a couple from the mini sessions in the garden.

Best Friends

Garden Fair Mini Sessions

Spring is here! (Though if you live in the Pacific Northwest, you might be thinking otherwise). Spring in Southeast Portland means it's time for the Lewis Elementary Garden Fair. "What's the Garden Fair?" you might ask. The Garden Fair is a plant sale and art market held at Lewis Elementary School. The proceeds from plants and art sold benefit the Lewis Learning Gardens. This year the Garden Fair will be held on Saturday, April 23, 2011 from 10:00am to 3:00pm (admission is free).

"What does this have to do with you and your photography?" you're probably thinking. Well, I will be at the Lewis Elementary Garden Fair holding mini portrait sessions in the garden. I'll be doing ten minute mini sessions (every fifteen minutes) from 10:00am to 1:00pm. Customers will have the option of two packages ($25-$30) and a percentage of the proceeds from the mini portrait sessions benefit the Learning Gardens. If you would like more information about the sessions, you may e-mail me at: mgnettlephoto@gmail.com. If you would like more information about the Garden Fair, you can check out their site: http://www.lewisgardenfair.com/.

Below are a few of photos I took in the Lewis garden.

Invitation

A while back I photographed a friend of mine Rene and his partner Joshua. Recently, Rene and Joshua decided to take a big step in their relationship, and in July they will hold a commitment ceremony. Upon deciding to hold the ceremony, they asked me if I could duplicate a photo invitation that they saw online using a photo from their session.  I didn't copy the one they liked exactly, but I made one similar to it with a  few small changes. Here is my final draft below. Oh, if you've visited my blog before, you may have noticed a change at the top. I have a snazzy new logo designed by my awesome cousin Nic!

Old Pic, New Edit

About a year or so ago, I took some portraits for a real estate agent who was in need of a better head shot. At the time, I did some editing to his photos, but I just couldn't get him to not look tired. Since I never could get the photos to look close to how I wanted them, I never added any of them to my official portfolio. I recently discovered a few new ways to soften skin and make eyes pop. I decided to play around and try them out on this photo. I'm not sure if I like how these particular techniques look on a man, but it's always fun to try new things.

Floral Dreams- Wedding in the Pearl

I hate to admit it, but the month of February has been kind of slow work-wise. I had to postpone one portrait session and delay my son's eighth birthday portrait due to illness (and a lovely chapped nose, his not mine). My first job for February (and probably my only job this month) was for Floral Dreams. Floral Dreams did the floral arrangements for a wedding in the Pearl District at the American Institute of Architects. I had the opportunity to go on-sight and photograph the arrangements at the venue (as opposed to our alternative background of fleece in the Floral Dreams workspace). Here are a few of the arrangements from Saturday's wedding.

Floral Dreams-Bridal Show

Last weekend I had the opportunity to attend the Portland Bridal Show as part of my on-going photography work with Floral Dreams. Floral Dreams had a booth at the event showcasing many amazing floral arrangements. Several of Floral Dreams' arrangements were featured during the bridal fashion show. I photographed both the fashion show and each arrangement (mostly bouquets). Here are a few from the fashion show and of my favorite bouquets.

Yes, that's a mini pineapple in there!

Those are real roses.

The Year of Awesome

New year, new post. Okay, I know that we are five days into 2011, but considering that we still have 360 days left in the year I think the word new still applies.

I haven't posted in a few weeks, mostly because I haven't had any photo shoots or jobs. I spent the last few weeks working on a few print orders. I also spent the rest of the time with my family just hanging out at home enjoying a little down time. Even though just hanging out at home may seem a little boring to some, I was more than happy to get a little break. (My days are usually divided between my part time job, working on this small business or shuttling my kids around to various activities).

Having some down time gave me the opportunity to reflect on 2010 and to dream about 2011. I had a pretty great year in 2010. In 2010, my husband and I paid off our student loans and successfully lobbied for and got an IEP for my daughter's dysgraphia and dyslexia. I saw my little sister get married to an old friend of mine, and my husband and I finally went on our dream vacation to Paris, France and Italy. I also stepped outside of my comfort zone and started this blog and a SmugMug page to "put myself out there" and show off some of my photography work. Although there are probably quite a few more wonderful things that happened in 2010, the above mentioned are definitely the highlights.

I hope that 2011 will allow me to continue to grow my small business and meet new people. I have high hopes for the year. I have actually dubbed it "The Year of Awesome" at home because I truly hope to have a great year both personally and professionally. I hope everyone reading this has an awesome year as well. Happy New Year!