After Dark

Spent a couple hours yesterday (my day off) and drove around until it was too cold and too dark to see what I was doing…here's just a shot or two from yesterday. 

 

A long exposure set around 15 minutes in order to get a couple star trails.

 

Other links

Just to let everyone know I also have more photos up on my website
and on my Facebook as well. 

Come check things out!  

Emily, Senior 2011

 Traveled down to Sioux Falls this last week to meet with Emily for her Senior Pictures. She was tons of fun to work with and the 2 1/2 hours we spent taking pictures went by SO quickly. But we had a blast and got tons of great pictures.

I couldn't believe how easy it was to make this girl laugh, we had a blast! 

 

Running around…

When I was running around Prinsburg as well as Waubay (yet again) I snapped some more photos…how unlike me. So I thought I'd share some…

Watson Family Pictures

The last couple weeks I've had the opportunity to be able to go not only back home but to photograph some of my family members. I had tons of fun getting to photograph the two families, both with small children with vibrant personalities all around. 

 

Landon & Kelli

Had a session with a wonderful couple today, my friend Landon and his new fiance Kelli. Unfortunately it was around 95 degrees when we went out, but we made the best of it!  Here's just a sneak peek of their session, can't wait to shoot another one in the late fall and their wedding after that! 

Alright, so it's been awhile since I last updated, but that's just because there's been so much to do!

I have recently moved to Watertown, South Dakota and am finding that I am absolutely loving being in a much smaller town, and spending as much time as I possibly can out on the farm. 

Not to mention that I've had tons of opportunities for shooting being out on the farm, I'll have to upload a couple of my favorite!

This is just some of the beautiful roads that I get to travel back home everyday, and I swear it's gets more lovely every time. 

 

 Our horse, Buddy.

Darwin in his tractor, out bailing hay. 

Beautiful bird that has been flying around the farm, I have no idea what kind of bird he is but he's very friendly and photogenic.

Portfolio Show

Well the 2010 Portfolio Show was last night, and let me tell you, it was a BLAST. 

I was a little nervous at the beginning of the show however I quickly warmed up and started having fun with not only the people around me but also with the people that were walking through the door. I was lucky and ended up being the very first person inside the door since my portfolio was chosen to represent the class. I got some great people that came by my booth, and ended up handing out a lot of business cards for the photography side of what I do. Also got a couple compliments on some of my illustrations that I had. 

All in all it ended up being a great night and although I was nervous to start out with I had a great time and immensely enjoyed myself. It was a great time with great food and even better friends!

Tuesday Ramblings

It's an absolutely Beautiful Tuesday afternoon today, and things couldn't be more stressful. 

Actually it's not that bad at all. 

Today consists of a morning at work with a set of 3 month boy girl twins. They were super cute and extremely easy to work with and make smile. The harder of the appointments from this morning was a two year old boy who was cranky and didn't want to leave his mom's side. We eventually got him to settle down though and get used to the studio and ended up getting some great photos. His mom was so excited to see something other than the crying shots that she'd been getting the last couple times they'd been in. 

Other than that just getting prepared for the Portfolio Show that takes place a week from today. I'm starting to realize that I was not as far ahead as I thought I was and am now praying that I can get things done correctly in a timely manor. At least I have everything printed out that I need, which is a godsend since the air conditioner in the building is out and paper is starting to curl like crazy from the humidity. 

I do also get to shoot a couple later this week. It's a young couple that I went to high school with several years ago…and they're leaving for Japan in less than a week. The husband is with the Airforce and they got their orders just a few short weeks ago, so they decided that they were going to take some family photos for everyone in their family as well as of themselves. 

I'm definitely looking forward to working with them and will get some photos uploaded soon!

Still working on my website, and still a little "confuddled" about what I exactly want to do with it. I have plenty of ideas of what I want to do and how I want it to look, however the execution is the hard and difficult part to accomplish. 

However on a much much brighter side of things here in classes we are beginning production on both the books and the invitations for the Portfolio Show at the end of April, and I'm beginning to see the beginning of something that I think is pretty great. It's a great feeling to see something that you designed (albeit some changes) come together in production and go out to real live people.

I can't wait to get out in April and get to the show and be able to show everyone what I can do, I'm rather excited for it.

I'm also pretty excited about working on some pieces for an Amphitheater that is going up just south of Hill City, SD. We will all be working on pieces from the logo to tickets, brochures, and even signs that will be going up around the area. This is the type of work that I enjoy doing and I don't want to have to wait til Wednesday for information or until next week to start on this project!

Considering…

I'm sitting at home at the moment, currently working on this, my blog…but also on a multitude of other projects as well.

Currently I am contemplating on whether or not to enter into a photography contest being held here in town, and although there are certain pictures that I personally favor above others I am having problems thinking about it from a judge's stand point. After all, what may be a special moment or photo to you may just be "another photo" to someone else. The viewer can't see what you saw at that moment, feel what you felt at the moment, or even begin to understand what may make that photo special to you, the creator. 

This is what you need to express to the viewer (and to those pesky judges) as well as showing something that may not be "the norm" or just give the audience something unique to remember you bye. 

The photography contest that I am debating entering is a nature photo contest. I'd like to believe that since this is my favorite subject to photograph and since there's so much leniency with the subject that this would be a breeze for me to decide…not so much the case. In other words…easier said then done. I have so many photos to choose from that for the last two weeks I've been debating and switching back and forth from photo to photo that all I've really accomplished is just getting myself more and more confuzzled. I have however, now, narrowed my choices down to two, of which I will print and mount both, set up, probably stare at for a few hours, decide, and submit. 

I'm also pretty sure which one I'll go with (and I'll predict it now…the Waubay fence line).

Well for now, I suppose I'd better go back to the drawing board and continue to work on other projects for the moment.

(Do you have Any idea how complicated designing and building a website is? Much harder than I ever anticipated…perhaps it's because it's my personal website and I have a tendency to be overly critical of my work…hmmmm, who'da thunk it).

This is photo one, considering…

This is photo two for consideration…

Blog!

Hello!

This is my first post on my new blog…awdesignandphoto.

Soon to follow will be more exciting posts and photos from different shoots of people, things, and exciting places I've visited.