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.