Sorry, this is NOT a picture of my son. This is a picture of one of my daughters dolls, that happens to be about the same size as him. I was playing around with lighting and also with my new Canon EF 100mm Macro lens and took some shots to see how the lighting and lens was working. I then worked on it in Lightroom and gave it a split tone look that kind of makes it feel cross processed. I will be shooting the portraits of my on tomorrow, but for now you get an old Cabbage Patch doll. Xavier Roberts would be happy.

Tags: Cabbage Patch, newborn, Photography

My son was born this morning at 7:36! We are very excited and happy! Here are a couple of pics from my iPhone.

Tags: baby, iPhone, son

Here is a video of my daughter practicing for her first dance recital.

A short video from the party bus after my brother-in-law’s wedding this past Saturday. It was a good time and a great weekend!

Tags: Bus, Emily, Kyle, Party, wedding

So I was playing around with designing some Photoshop templates for things, and this is one of the designs I came up with. Let me know what you think!

Tags: design, floral, frame, photoshop

This past Saturday I got to photograph, actually my first, wedding. The happy couple was Gao and Jerry. I actually booked this wedding in kind of a different way. A good friend of mine, Chang, had been talking to a friend of hers about me knowing that his sister was getting married. He had said that he would ask if she had a photographer yet, but Chang never heard back from him until about 3 weeks ago. He called her and asked for my number. Well, he called me and I spoke to him that night, and he said he would talk to his sister. The next day he called and told me that they were going to book me, and I guess the rest is history. I found out on Saturday that they did have someone else in mind originally, but that he had to back out, hence the phone call to Chang. I was completely honored that they decided to go with me, and they are such a great couple! The entire family was so nice and generous. I started the day shooting at her brother’s house, and from there we went to Heritage Hill. A friend of mine hooked me up with his girlfriend that works there so that we could get in and use the grounds for pictures. It is an amazing palce with lots of old buildings and interesting textures. It was a blast to shoot there. The first picture in the post is in front of an old cheese factory, and the second picture is in an old church on the grounds. From Heritage Hill we moved on to Josten Park, and finally to The Ravine where the reception was held. There was no actual ceremony for this wedding, because the couple was already married in a traditional Hmong ceremony this past summer. The weather was beautiful that day, so we got a lot of nice outside pictures. The couple then danced and partied the night away with friends and family. It was a great day indeed!

Tags: Gao, Jerry, Photography, wedding

Today, while I was doing some scouting for a wedding that I am shooting next weekend, I thought I would really give the GPS Tracker App for my iPhone a test. The app works along side a web site called InstaMapper. What it does is set the iPhone to track your position using the same satellites that a “normal” GPS unit would use. The iPhone 3G has a GPS receiver built into it. This allows you to upload in real-time your exact position (well within the accuracy of the GPS unit, usually with in 50 to 200 feet) to the InstaMapper website. You may be asking yourself why in the heck anyone would want to do this. Well, the answer is this: I drove all over Green Bay today to try and find some cool places to shoot the couple next weekend. How in the heck can I expect to remember where I was? Well, one of the features of this solution is to be able to download all this data in a format that can then be added to the EXIF data in the photos I took today. Using this technology, I can open a link right in Lightroom that will bring me to a Google Map showing me pretty close to where I was when I took the picture. Then I can simply look back through my location phots and easily get the GPS coordinates and a map right back to that spot. The picture in this post was taken at a location I knew about, but if it had been some place new to me, I feel confident that I would be able to find it again to take more pictures.

There are some down falls to this app however. First, it can be the only application running, so I couldn’t listen to Pandroa and have this going at the same time. you could start the iPod and then turn this on. You also can get calls, but when you do, you have to turn it back on and you don’t get any data tracked while you are on the phone. Also, having the GPS running and the data being constantly uploaded eats the battery pretty quick. I kept mine charging in the car while driving, and took it out with me while walking and I had no problems with battery life though.

For what this app does, it is an amazing addition to the photographers tool bag! Best of all, it is FREE so it doesn’t hurt to try it out!

Tags: GPS, InstaMapper, iPhone, Photography

I am working on designing some new logos for the business. Please let me know what you think!

Tags: design, logo

On Saturday I got to to do a really fun photo shoot. I was able to photograph one of my friends two little girls. They are very cute and I had a lot of fun photographing them. In about an hour I shot well over 300 pictures! I had to whittle those down to the best of the best and I ended up with 44 great shots. Of those, these are my 5 favorite. I love the expressions and how they turned out.

Tags: baby, Huffman, kids, portrait

Here are some new pictures of Addison. I think it is something a little different than what I have done in the past. I have been exploring new lighting and new photoshop techniques. I think the results are better than what I was dong before.

Tags: Addison, photos