The Battle

When we go into a portrait session, we let every client know we want to try and accomplish 3 things, that we're after 3 types of pictures for them. We want the picture for Grandma so she can hang it on the wall and admire her grandbaby. We want the photo for them personally...the shot that makes them appear how "they" want to appear to the rest of the world. Then we want the image that is their true, real, genuine, 100% unique self.

That's where the battle begins. Sometimes that's where the battle ends, too.

It's very hard to be your "real" self when there are a couple (or more) people staring at you with what looks like telescopes on the front of their cameras. Throw in a mom, a dad, a sibling, a make-up artist, a costume designer, a boyfriend, etc., etc., etc....all throwing in their 2 cents or if not that, at least "looking" at them...oh my, how could anyone be themselves in that kind of an environment?

The Corny, Ridicules, Artificial and Phony smile and facial expression (we'll say C.R.A.P. for short) problem begins as soon as you're born. We're brainwashed as soon as we plop out of mom. Clean the little gooey thing up, put a little cute hat of pink or blue on us, tickle or pinch us to get a cute little reaction...and our start to putting a mask on the real us, our C.R.A.P. face, has begun! We say "cheese" the whole, entire rest of our lives, it seems. Let's not even get started on our 12-13 years of school photos.

Now don't get me wrong, we absolutely HAVE to get some C.R.A.P. shots. I want them of my kids, I hang them on my walls, I tell everyone who sits in front of my camera to give me at least one! We have to have C.R.A.P.!!! But at the same time, we all have to be aware and freely admit that those photos are not going to be the ones that last the test of time. Just think of all the famous portraits out there...Karsh's photo of Churchill, McCurry's Afghan Girl, or even DaVinci's Mona Lisa. Real expressions, real emotions...Real Good!!! Not a cheesy smile in the bunch.

So if you see me look down at my camera screen and say "man, that looks like crap", don't be alarmed. It probably is a pretty good photo of you. But be prepared, I might be just about ready to ask you to do a couple of frames minus the smile...

Jeffrey

Katie and Tom

This shoot almost never happened. But we're oh so glad it did!

We received an email saying pretty much this : "I'm a Lieutenant in the Air Force stationed in Alabama and am looking for a photographer in the Athens, OH area to take some photos of me and my boyfriend. I've seen your stuff and liked it and wondered if you'd be available Sept. 18-19 as I have a 30 hour window of time to see him then."

You would be surprised at the amount of weird emails and requests you receive once you put yourself out there on the World Wide Web as professional photographers. We get requests from India, Britain, Ethiopia...you name it, saying that they love our stuff, want to hire us for whatever price we say, and will send a cashier's check right away. We are usually real nice to everyone (just in case someday a legit person wants to fly us to Ireland for a shoot) but usually after we ask a few questions and tell them we like to meet in person and go over ideas and logistics, well, they just seem to disappear.

Katie responded to our "nice" return email with a photo and a phone number so that we could talk in person. The photo was of her an Tom being goofy at Ash Cave in the Hocking Hills so all of a sudden we knew this was a real request. Cool beans.

Heather gave her a call the next day to see if we could possibly get it to work out for the both of us. Katie turned out to be great to talk to, just a sweet, kind, "real" person. The whole story turned out to be this...Tom and Katie met here at Ohio University a couple of years ago. He's still here studying meteorology and in the Air Force ROTC while she is in Alabama finishing her training and expecting to be deployed to who knows where in the near future. They have several friends in relationships in the military and have seen first hand the life changing trauma that can happen to those who choose this life...not just death but limbs lost...scars emotionally as well as physically...sometimes years of separation. They wanted to capture this moment in time to look back on no matter what happens in the future...this moment of love and health and youth.

Yeah, pretty heavy stuff. In fact it makes me a little teary-eyed just writing it! Wow.

We decided that we would meet them at Ash Cave to do the photo shoot early on the Sunday morning a couple of hours before she had to zoom to Columbus to catch her flight back to Alabama. Ash Cave was on her way to the airport, they loved it there, so it just seemed to make sense. Now if the weather would cooperate!

Luckily, it was beautiful out. 70ish degrees, feeling like fall, a little misty. We met them at 9 a.m. so there was no direct sunlight into the Ash Cave canyon...just soft, pretty, indirect sunlight. A perfect morning. They were soooo fun to shoot! With them knowing it was going to be awhile before they would be seeing each other again, they just couldn't keep their hands and lips off of each other. They were cute...passionate...sensual...and so in love. What a pleasurable way for me and Heather to spend a Sunday morning. Capturing moments in time. Recording love.

Good luck Tom and Katie!

Jeffrey

Beautiful People, Beautiful Day

What happens when you have a 75 degree and sunny day, a cool farm with chickens and barns and cows and pitchforks, and throw into that environment a gorgeous couple saying I do? You get two wedding photographers smiling from ear to ear, that's EXACTLY what you get!

Daniel and Ashley were sooo fun to work with. We had met with them at Casa Cantina a few months ago, just before they were heading to Hawaii for work, to discuss the possibility of us shooting their wedding. Heather and I both immediately loved their bubbly personalities and kept hoping we would be the lucky ones chosen to photograph their special day. They weren't sure if coming back to Ohio made the most sense, where exactly the wedding should be...just a lot of things to work out logistically with moving AND getting married.

A few months later we got the email saying it WAS going to be here in Athens and, yes, we WERE going to be their photographers...and we went whoo hooo! Well, maybe not out loud but we were mighty excited on the inside ;) They had decided it would be at Daniel's family farm a couple miles outside of town...red barns, hay fields, ponds with fountains, apple trees...well, you get the picture, just about perfect!

Outside weddings are always nerve racking for photographers. What's best for the "feel" of the wedding (sunny skies with not a cloud in view) is not necessarily the best light for photos...and rain is even worse. I guess what we are always hoping for, and never have gotten yet, is a nice, cloudy day with no chance of rain and that beautiful soft light blanketing everything in sight for 8 hours straight. Our 2nd choice would be a bright sunny day. We got our second choice.

So we were going to be dealing with some squinting, some harsh shadows, and it being at 4:30 and in the middle of a field we would be fighting with certain angles looking directly into the sun. No problem, just part of the job.

It was an awesome day. The families...friendly and warm. Ashley and Daniel...breathtaking and handsome. Yep, we had to fight the sun and there were times that there was nothing you could do but take pictures with squinty eyes and splotchy patterns of light filtering through the trees on faces...but it all worked out. They were in love...they were happy...and our cameras as well as everyone else there was able to see it, capture it.

Thanks for choosing us Mr. and Mrs. Brown...

Jeffrey