Hansen Photo Shoot

I did a shoot for some family friends the Hansen's. They had family in town for the holiday and wanted to get a few shots. The have a great home for taking pictures, a beautiful Alaskan log cabin. The only problem we ran into is that Jan thought that he wanted the house to be nice and cozy so he fired up the wood stove. As you can tell by the picture above we posed the family right in front of the stove. Needless to say it got a bit warm for the shoot. What you can't see is that I had stripped to my underoo's because it was so hot. OK, maybe I made that part up, but it was hot and the thought did cross my mind. Fortunately we were able to get some shots outside where it was close to -75 F. OK, maybe I am a compulsive lier, but it was around 0 F. The shots outside were a bit quicker because no one was wearing jackets and the photographer was cold. There are quite a few more pictures here.(Click it!) The outside setup shot is here (see if you can spot the ghost of Christmas past). The photographer even got a shot of himself courtesy of Becky. Need to stop talking in 3rd person, seriously annoying. ~Erik

Reed and Annie Photo Shoot

I did a mini photo shoot for my brother's family. They are here for a week or so and wanted to get a family photo. It had just snowed so the trees look very nice. The only problem was that it was really quite cold(0 F). They were adventurous and took off their jackets for a few shots. Living on the edge. Luckily the shot was taken in the front yard and they could run into the warm house. Here is the setup shot and a few more here and here. ~Erik

An ice fishing shack?

A buddy of mine wanted some family pictures, I am noticing a pattern here. Yeah, I spent a good part of this last weekend taking pictures. His wife wanted some indoor pictures but he wanted something a bit more outdoorsy. What is more outdoorsy than an ice fishing tent in Alaska. With young kids I thought that they were pretty brave to take them outside for the photo shoot. You can see that the pictures turned out pretty good. I think that it was about 15 or 20 degrees outside, not really warm but they did have a heater in the tent. Here is one of the setup shots along with this one. As always there are a few extra in the photo stream. I have to say this was one of the toughest lighting setups I have done. All in all it was a good shoot. ~Erik

Dude, was that a fart?

I did a photo shoot for the Law family this last weekend. Sometimes the kids can be a bit grumpy and it is hard to snap them out of it. One of my favorite tricks it to make farting sounds then blame it on the kids. You can see the picture of Trent above (in the yellow), not too happy. All it took was a little fart sound, assigning the blame to one of the kids and wallah, nothing but smiles. Don't believe me look at the shot below. The only side effect is that parents have to spend weeks undoing what it only took me minutes to do. A couple more shots here. Light setup, shoot through umbrella camera right, one strobe behind for rim light. ~Erik

Family Photo Shoot

Angela has been hassling me the last few months to get a family picture. If you follow the blog you will have seen that I have done photo shoots for quite a few different people. Unfortunately that hasn't left much desire to try and rope my own kids in for a formal family shoot. I will say this, the kids did very well for not having anyone taking the pictures. You can't see it but I was triggering the camera with a remote on a 2 second timer. Not really ideal but it seemed to work. Apparently the kids have had a camera stuck in their faces enough times that they know to smile and look at the camera. Also we are not above bribing. I know we shouldn't negotiate with terrorist, but candy goes a long way. There are a few more shots here. Lighting setup was a big softbox camera right with AB 400, shoot through umbrella camera left and rim light for the middle shot right behind Owen and Kaitlyn. Sorry for the lighting info. ~Erik

Some Like to Bounce...

One of the problems that I run into as a photographer is that there usually isn't enough natural light for the lenses that I have. One way to get around this is to add a flash, the problem with an on camera flash is that it can leave the subjects looking washed out. Almost like the paparazzi's just shot them. If you have a flash that has a swivel head just aim it at the ceiling or a big white wall. This will give you smoother lighting that looks much better. In these pictures I used a flash to bounce off the ceiling which made for nice even lighting. The lighting looks pretty natural which is nice. If you are shooting people you have to be careful that you don't get ugly shadows under their eyes. You can aim at a wall or you can shoot from above them looking down. The shots of Angela and Owen below where both bounced off the ceiling but I had them look up. You can see the nice catch light in their eyes. I cheated a bit because I used my off camera flash setup but it works the same as an on camera flash.

Bergholtz photo shoot

Yesterday I went and took a few pictures of a co-workers family. They usually get pictures of the girls and send them out in Christmas cards. After we were done shooting the girls I got a couple shots of Mike and Chris. The ambient lighting wasn't all that stellar but the pictures turned out pretty good. The set up is here and here. Also there are more pictures here. ~Erik

McCormick Photo Shoot

I did a photo shoot for a great family, the McCormicks. They just had a little girl and wanted to some shots. We took pictures of the rest of the family also. We had a really good time and the pictures turned out nice also. Like always there are a few more on the photo stream.

Pond Baby

Did a shoot with the Ponds today. I think the highlight of the shoot was when Lachlan took a whiz on Pepper. Unfortunately didn't get than one with the camera. Here are couple of my favorites from today. There are more on the flickr photo stream. ~Erik

Sunday photo shoot

I have been working on some lighting techniques from Strobist. This is a single light setup and can be seen here. I used the white backer board to even out the lighting. The picture of Angela shows a bit of disdain as I made her model when she wasn't feeling to hot. She had the stomach flu in the morning and was still gracious enough to model. The colors worked out nice since Owens outfit matched the wall I was shooting against. Better to be lucky than good. Enjoy the pictures. ~Erik

Keller Family Photo Shoot...

Here are a couple shots from the Keller's photo shoot. With 3 boys under the age of 4 they did very good. Things were getting a bit cold and I was asking the kids to keep smiling. The boys weren't having too much fun until Kali decided to start acting really weird for them. It made the boys smile, don't know what's up with Kali. She takes after her mother. Crazy. ~Erik

Monkeys

Can't get enough of these lights...The sun finally came out for a bit so I had to go and shoot away. The only problem that I have is getting the kids to agree to take pictures. The fall colors have stuck around for quite a while this year. I think because we haven't had very many sunny days that would drop the temperature. I have a few shots that we took on the Kenai bluff also, that I will post later. If you can't wait I have uploaded them to my Flickr photo stream.

Pond Photo Shoot...

I did a photo shoot for some of our friends. They are getting ready to have a kid and wanted some pre-kid shots. I have a few more shots and the lighting set ups that I used on my flickr photo stream. Check it out. Good luck with the kid...~Erik

Trip to Homer

We left the kids with the Grandparents and went to Homer this weekend. We had a great time. I will post a few other pictures later when I have more time. This was a photo shoot that we did at Bishop's beach in Homer. There is a bit of a story, but the image is just Angela and I acting very mature. ~Erik

Sorry I am so lame...

Visit my family blog. It is kept up to date. AlaskaMassey

Dr Nels Anderson photoshoot...

Our family physician (Dr Nels Anderson) is running for State Senate this November. He needed some pictures for his campaign and Pepper volunteered me. I told Doc that you get what you pay for... but the photo shoot ended up being really fun. He is running on the Democratic ticket and will be running against Tom Waggoner. Doc is an intriguing fellow. He spends his spare time with the Boy Scouts, gardening, family and is a fertility expert. I am a registered Republican but I like Doc enough that I would be temped to cross party lines. Good luck with the campaign Doc. ~Erik
Visit Dr Nels Andersons website.

Camping and Photo Shoot...

We went camping at the beach this weekend with some friends and had a blast! It was cold and windy, but the sun was shining and it was beautiful. The kids loved playing with their friends and all the kids played really well together, especially considering their lack of sleep the night before. The kids loved the four wheelers. Erik borrowed one from his parents along with a trailer to pull the kids behind it. They thought it was so fun! We also enjoyed some great food and fun campfires. Grandma and Grandpa even stopped by to say hi on their motorcycle. All in all, it was a great weekend. Thanks to the Swansons, Ponds and Hansens for letting us tag along.

This next set of pictures is Owen and I. Erik got an umbrella to diffuse the flash a little and was so excited that he wanted to do a photo shoot, so he talked me into getting dressed up and being his model. These are a couple of our favorites. Owen is making his new "cheese" face in the first picture. He likes to say cheese now when we take pictures. The second picture is later the same day after "his brains started squirting out of his head" (as Kaitlyn said). He hit his head on the rocking chair. After the initial shock we wanted to take pictures - he just wanted to stick his finger up his nose. Erik says after major trauma he likes to stick his finger in his happy place.