A night with Henk van Kooten

What an Awesome class! On March 25th, Pictureline sponsored this class and our hosts were Kenneth and Marylyn Linge. I love you guys :)
The emphasis on the class was "how to create your own creativity." Henk has not been big on organizing or structuring his photography. He has always concentrated on the art of photography. But about a year ago he decided to get structured and begin to tell his story. Henk has put together a DVD and book titled "One day with Henk van Kooten."
The DVD & book talk about the "10 point system." Check it out. Henk is a great artist and his work is very unique and different. Something he does with each person he shoots is, facial analysis. Henk can look at a person and tell where they belong in the picture and allot about their personality just by their facial language. He broke down several of his images and described why each person was in their specific location and why he placed them there. It was amazing. I think we subconsciously do that but I'm going to consciously implement that in my shoots. Drake Busath talked a little bit about this last year at a class he was teaching. Henks work speaks for itself, go check out his site.

Henk van Kooten
Christina, Henk's beautiful wife. She's the business and salesperson behind their studio

Marylyn and Kenneth Linge

Matthew Jordan Smith @ WPPI March 19th, 2008

Matthew Jordan Smith is best known for his beauty and fashion photography. He is also the photographer for "America's Next Top Model." Before I met Matthew I had already made up my mind that I really loved his work. We have all seen his beautiful work in magazines and books etc. The image that I saw last year of Cynthia Nixon with a red background really caught my eye. Matthew is a very nice and big hearted guy. When I was talking photography with him he was very humble, knowledgeable and polite. Later after reading his bio and more about his current projects I realized what a great guy he is and how much he gives back. You can read more about his book titled "Lost and Found." on his website. This book focuses on the struggles that families face when a child has been abducted. This is just one of the example of his personal projects, that helps other people. Matthew is an amazing photographer! He has really polished his technical skills. Matthew has a rule of never showing a single image. He shows his images typically in pairs. I've seen this look for years and I never knew it had an official name. Matthew calls it the rule of opposites. We all know about the rule of thirds but how cool is the rule of opposites. Last but not least Matthew tells us to DREAM BIG!

Here's my example of rule of opposites.

Catherine Hall @ WPPI March 17th, 2008

Catherine was so amazing! She talked about trust, educating our clients and fear. In my own words Trust is the way our clients feel safe with us. When they have faith in our skills and feel a strong connection to us they can relax and be themselves. This is vital. Once we have gained the trust of our clients we can begin the process of educating our clients and helping them achieve what they want from their photography. Fear is a big part of each of our lives. We experience fear on a daily basis. It is an emotional response to something in our lives. It can be as simple as a job interview or as scary as skydiving. Of course going to a job interview is not jumping out of an airplane but if you are unprepared and not ready for the interview it could be scary. The same for skydiving if you have been educated, trained to jump and have a professional instructor tethered to you, you know it now comes down to your will to do it. Here's the link to Catherine's blog.

Young Guns @ WPPI March 16th. 2008

Sunday night was our first class and it was with the Young Guns. The Young Guns are 12 of the hottest young photographers out there, period.
I was inspired to hear from each of the speakers. Each photographer had there own style of shooting, marketing and connection to people. To me the main theme behind all that we learned was to be yourself, show who you are, tell your clients story and overcome your fears. These ideas really apply to our entire life, no matter what business we are in!














Rhett, Mike and Ryan after Young Guns.

Steelers Rock!

I always encourage props at any shoot, it's always more fun! Kari just happens to be a huge Steelers fanatic. Her props included a Steelers toe ring, the Terrible Towel, a Steelers throw blanket and of course an NFL football. These props were a perfect way to show Kari's personality and add to her classic style bridals.

WPPI '08

Long over due for me, Two years to be exact. It's amazing how life just flys by when you have the best job in the world, a crazy schedule and a beautiful little family.
My goal this year is to discover a few new albums, new templates, fresh work flow ideas, tungsten lights and just have fun!

My first camera

This is my very first camera. It's an ITT magicflash 110 camera. I can't find much info on it but I know that this camera was made in Hong Kong between 1960-'68. It was a gift from my Mom back in 1984, I was 10 years old. How funny, I still have this old dog. Cameras have come light years since the 110 days. Thanks again Mom!

Creativity

cre·a·tiv·i·ty /ˌkrieɪˈtɪvɪti

–noun
1.
the state or quality of being creative.
2.
the ability to transcend traditional ideas, rules, patterns, relationships, or the like, and to create meaningful new ideas, forms, methods, interpretations, etc.; originality, progressiveness, or imagination: the need for creativity in modern industry; creativity in the performing arts.
3.
the process by which one utilizes creative ability: Extensive reading stimulated his creativity.
[Origin: 1870–75; creative + -ity]