Alex and Ryan visited the home studio in Aberdeen in need of some new portraits. Alex is 5 years old and a very well mannered little gentlemen. I loved his energy and he came with his own ideas of how he should pose, which I loved and happily accommodated. He was also a great big help with his little brother, Ryan. Alex offered warm hugs to Ryan when he got upset or fussy which I thought was very endearing.

Ryan was a great ball of energy like most 2 year olds. With a little motivation from Mom, he had a great time playing “tag” with me and the camera, which is how I got this great shot. He was a very sharped dress man in his sport plaid sport jacket and green polo. Normally, the patterns on the sport jacket would be very difficult to photograph, but using a neutral brown backdrop allowed the jacket to work without being a distraction. Besides, how cute does he look in that outfit!

Ryan was getting a little fussy with being restrained to the backdrop area and instead of letting him get to the point of no return, we took a snack break so that he could calm down and get comfortable again. This is the benefit of only doing one or two sessions a day. I’m not rushing to get clients in and out of the studio so we can really take our time and let the children get acclimated to the environment.

Alex and Ryan love their Thomas trains and were very excited to share their knowledge of Thomas with me. What I really loved was how these two brothers played so well together. And I really wanted to capture that in this portrait. They have a really close bond and Alex is constantly looking after his little brother.

Enjoy this video of the session:

Baltimore native, Bethany, had some new outfits and some new looks that she wanted to add to her modeling portfolio. She scheduled a session and came up to the Aberdeen photo studio with bags of clothes that she wanted to try out. Bethany had a lot of looks she wanted to get that day so she scheduled a 4 hour session. We were able to get 5 different outfits in that time and a few different lighting setups to give each outfit a different look. This helps give the model diversity in her portfolio and makes her appear more established.

As usual, we tried to get the headshots done early so that the make up is looking its best and the skin is freshest. In this shot, Bethany is wearing a simple outfit that doesn’t draw attention away from her face or her look. Bethany has great dimples and I wanted to make sure that people looking at her portfolio saw that attribute. The line of her arm and hand lead your eyes right to those dimples.

Bethany wanted to try a high fashion look. In this outfit she chose stretch pleather pants from Bebe and a shiny top. Another prominent feature of Bethany is her long, thin legs. By using a wide angle lens and getting low to the ground, I can draw attention to her legs and exaggerate their length.

In contrast to her high fashion shot, Bethany had clothes for a more casual look. In this shot, her legs are bent which generally shortens them but being spread in two different directions still gives them a long look.

Showing her depth, Bethany concluded the shoot with a lovely white prom-like dress. Because the dress was so nice looking, I wanted it to stand out a little so I pulled down a blue background that complemented Bethany’s eyes and also offered a lot of contrast to the white dress.

If you are interested in booking a session for headshots or to update your modeling portfolio, please contact us. We offer 2 and 4 hour sessions both in our Aberdeen studio and on location if you want to do some outdoor photos now that the weather is getting better.

Bethany and Kelsie are cousins and have playing soccer together year round since they were little. They do a lot of things together and recently they’ve both been redecorating their rooms and decided they would like some portraits to hang in their rooms. They wanted something fun and unique so I suggested that we take some action soccer portraits.

We met at the soccer field at Patapsco High School in the evening to get a more dramatic sky for their portraits. Then I set up a net so that we wouldn’t have to chase down every ball they kicked. I set up the lights and within a few moments we were firing test shots and then once everything was looking good, I had them start kicking the soccer ball into the goal.

The shots came out really great. There was a dramatic sky adding to the background and the intensity on their faces as they shot for the goal was great. We had a lot of fun even though it was a little chilly that day but Bethany and Kelsie were great sports, pun intended.

Here’s a quick video of the session:

As for decorating their rooms, I showed them some new products that we are offering in our store. The first is an acrylic statuette. They come in 5×7 and 8×10 and are cut outs of the subjects of the photo. They look great on shelves or in this case, a trophy shelf.

The other product that they liked was the Wall Cling. In it’s basic form, it’s a giant sticker that can be placed (and re-placed) on a wall to decorate a room. Wall Clings are printed on premium Photo-Tex material with ranges from 18″ to 72″ sizes in height, which means you could you have a life size wall cling. The subject(s) are traced around on the screen and then laser cut. The adhesive used on the print is very gentle on walls and paint and can be moved numerous times.