My Senior Spokesmodel from Sherwood High School, Krista has a passion for Softball. We hit the softball feild for some amazing shots. Don’t limit your sports portraits to just the basic team pictures. Senior portraits should represent who you are as well as incorporating your passions for life.

Great intention was made to keep up to date on my blog. Once again I seemed to get behind. Time for a fresh start with a new year. I will be adding some new posts of some great sessions that I had in 2011. Keep a watch out for the new and improved Photos by Jeanine. This year I will be adding ready for the wall prints. These come in all metal (hung with a float on the back), framed, gallery wrapped, and standouts. I also am featuring a new designer series of ready for the wall prints that feature between 3 to 5 images. More posts to come with great new features. Remember I will travel around the entire Portland/Vancouver Metro area of Southwest Washington and Oregon.

A few weeks ago I spent a somewhat damp Memorial Day with Austin and his mother Pam. Mission: Graduation portraits for announcements. Despite a small breakout of rain in the beginning of his shoot we got some great shots and he was quite the good sport. We shot at George Rodgers park in Lake Oswego. This was the first time I had been to this park. It was beautiful. It has nearly every type a background a photographer would want. Loved the cute bridge and beautiful backdrop of the Willamette River. Hope to get back there when the river is lower and I can use the beach area as a backdrop as well.

Light can be our biggest friend or our biggest foe depending on what the goal of your photo is. The old standby of having the sun to the back of the photographer is by far the best rule most of the time. There are reasons for this. If you take a picture in direct sun light and the sun is behind the person you are trying to cature in your frame you will find that their face may become dark and shadowed and everything around them will be clear. A great way to fix this problem can be with fill flash. Fill flash is when you use your flash in daylight when you typically would not use the flash. This give light in front of your target as well as behind and no more shadows. With a camera that can be controlled this can be an affective means of helping this situation, it can however blow out your picture (make it too bright) if your iso setting is too high or you have a lot of reflective area around you, like water. Another situation that can occur is having direct sun overhead. This will give your subject the dark circles under their eyes, shadowed face if they are wearing a baseball hat, and shadows under the nose as well. If you are in bright sunlight the goal is to try to find a shaddy area to take the picture. Sometimes this can be done with your own body acting as the shade if the picture is taken when the sun is starting to go down. In the example below the picture taken of my daughter Cameron at the pumkin patch is on a bright sunny day. I stood infront of her, taller than her, so that my shadow would block out the sun on her face. If you have an extra body or two to help out with this you would be amazed by the outcome of your photo.

Shade can be your best friend on a sunny day. Sunny days provide the photographer with lots of light and a shaded area provides the adequate amount of light but controls the direct sun light that can ruin your photo. This is also a great place to shoot to pop out any colors that subject might be wearing. If you find you need a little extra boost of light, use the fill flash to help out. The picture of Esmeralda below on the green grass was taken on a very sunny afternoon in a park. I had her sit on the grass in a great shaded area with the sunlight in the surrounding area. A great shot with no shadows.

The best times of day to take pictures is during the golden hours, sun up and sun down. The sun provide beautiful warm light, not harsh and bright. This is a great time to go against the rule and have the sun behind the subject. Use a fill flash or a great reflective area behind the shooter (glass windows on a building, waterfall, swimming pool, etc) and shoot away. Another great trick if the sun is very bright infront of the subject is to have them close their eyes and then you do a count down of 3, 2, 1 and then have them open their eyes quickly. The sun at the end of day is remarkable, however it is also eye burning bright on the subject if they look into the sun. Taking a profile can be done to show off the subject but does not show the pain in their eyes. In the picture above of Laura, I did the count down trick as she looked at the sun setting in the distance. The picture below of Kira was taken in a waterfall at Esther Short park in Vancouver around 7 pm in the middle of summer. The sun was filtering through the trees and the buildings behind me were reflecting great light off the windows.

Have fun with the light. Try new things and remember that sometimes we can’t help but have shadows under the eyes if we are at an event or location where there is no shade and the sun is overhead. That’s ok, it might not be the best photo, but it will help you remember that day and the events that happened. Taking pictures is not always about having something to put on our wall. We want to remember those times, so snap away.

My most favorite part of taking pictures is looking into the subject’s eyes. However, sometimes it can be just as inspiring to not see their eyes. Having the subject either look off into the distance at something or nothing at all can draw you in. The viewer of the shot may wonder what they are looking at, what is so interesting, what is pulling their attention away from the camera. A story can be created by the viewer as they ponder the unknown.

In an alternate way you can have the subject looking at something within the picture frame. This gaze can be upon someone else or an item. Again this tells a story, but you know what the story is about this time. It could be a couple staring into each others eyes with love and passion, a parents love for a child, or two friends enjoying their time together. The attention is given to the subject or item and without words tells the story.