Friends Are The Best Guinea Pigs!

Through our Church, we were lucky enough to meet many wonderful people.  Many of them grace our blog and website as our favorite guinea pigs :).  Eric & Leah Schiller were two of the first people we met at our Bible study and we've remained close friends with them for nearly 4 years now.  They needed Christmas card photos and we jumped on it!

Christmas Studio Session - Rochester, MN Studio Photographer

We had a blast this past weekend with a Christmas session.  While wrapping up presents the night before, Jen & I planned out a few photographs for the session, including some cute ones with the kids in Santa hats and trimming the tree.

I love this shot of the three kids

Father and son

All the family

Newborn Session - Rochester, MN Newborn Photographer

One week ago we welcomed our first infant into the studio.  Josh was as cooperative as a baby could have been during his session.

Blue Screen Fun!

One of the elements of this job that makes us jump out of bed in the morning to get to work is the freedom of experimentation.  When some friends mentioned they'd like to attempt a farmer look with their little boy, we glanced out the window to see that Minnesota weather had put a halt on anything fun outside.  The lightbulb went off and we got to work.  Here are a few of the before and after shots from the blue screen fun we had with little Christopher.

Here he is sitting in the wagon.  We couldn't resist trying to get a cute Radio Flyer shot.

And we were able to with a little magic!

We were told Christopher was a big fan of playing with tractors, so we wanted to get a shot of the little guy looking like a farmer.

And a little more magic...

There really are no boundaries with photography and technology nowadays.  Having been trained in Photoshop has opened doors for photography capabilities we can't begin to count.  Jen & I are at our happiest when we are behind a camera or a computer making a photograph for clients and it shows in our work!

Studio is operational!

Our studio is up and running!  We're now scheduling appointments and have our new sign out front to welcome guests:

We've had some fun posing to this point, with Gus, our pug...

As well as jumping in front of the lights ourselves a few times...

I even had a few minutes to play...

We're very excited.  You can now book your studio session or event photography.  Contact us at info@midwestlifeshots.com or give us a call at 507-280-6400 to schedule an appointment.

A stroll through the park...

Jen & I had the opportunity to photograph the Olson family recently.  Lindsay, her husband Chris, 3 year old son Ashton and 1 year old son Aidan joined us as we walked trails, posed nicely and played randomly.  It was a very enjoyable morning and we came away with some great photographs!

Gale Woods Farm wedding - Minnetrista, MN Wedding Photographer

Allison Ishizaki and Jason Helgren tied the knot on September 28th, 2008. Gale Woods Farm was the setting for what turned out to be a beautiful day. More pictures are coming, but I couldn't resist putting up a few right away. Congrats again to the beautiful couple!

Bob & Dawn Davis

Always furthering our photography skills, Jen & I attended an all-day seminar with Bob & Dawn Davis, two photographers from Chicago.  The two work as a husband/wife team, which was intriguing to us, obviously.  Bob is the photographer and Dawn is the photoshopper/album designer. 

Having filmed Tony Parker and Eva Longoria's wedding and being a go-to photographer for Oprah, I was very interested in seeing what Bob could teach us.  We learned much about lighting from Bob.  He took us outside to show us high speed flash sync.  Here he is taking what I call the "rockstar" photo of our friend Robin and her daughter Brynn:

For the geeks out there, this is the result of using high speed flash sync in manual mode.  It stays strictly TTL the entire time for metering and there is no flash on camera.  Now back to plain English :).  Here is Bob showing me the result in camera:

It was a great day and we learned a lot from Bob & Dawn.  We email each other back and forth now and Jen & I look forward to a future session when they tour again.

Website Is Up!

After months of preparation and many revisions, I'm happy to announce that our website, http://www.midwestlifeshots.com/ is up and running!  Take a look and feel free to provide feedback.  The homepage has a slideshow on it with music to peek at some of our work.  If you want to browse the client section and see a gallery of a client, type "ellie" as the password.  A special thanks to those friends and family members who were willing to be guinea pigs during our experimentation.  With our studio opening on November 3rd, we are now set to accept appointments and have another month to practice.  If anyone would like to be experimented on, send me an email at scott@midwestlifeshots.com or comment on the site.

Here's a screen shot:

Christ Community Church concert - Rochester, MN Event Photographer

Christ Community Church is our Church home in Rochester, MN.  We offer our services to them free of charge and love to help showcase their activities.  Recently we were able to photograph a concert held for their Impact Teenage Ministries group, where the Christian rock group Bensonwells performed.