Lilia and I were in the same German class throughout high school, but I probably hadn’t seen her since high school graduation. It was a welcome surprise when she contacted me after seeing my post about holiday mini session. It was great having them stop by the studio to get their Christmas photos taken.
When I decided to try out the whole holiday mini session craze, I reached out to my siblings to see if their kids could be my models. I was happy that my sister, Abby, and I found a time that worked I got to photograph my darling nieces, Adylie and Avery, and put my holiday setups to work. Originally I was thinking we’d spend most our time using the fireplace set. However, we spent the majority of the time on the wintery setup and even hand the opportunity to have a indoor snowball fight with Avery.
Lael stopped by my studio in late July since she's looking to get into modeling. I didn't have much room for creativity in these photos since the agency she was meeting with had examples of the shots they were looking for.
In late February, I had the pleasure of having Roland come into the studio for some new headshots. Roland and I have known each other since our college days when we both attended Bradley University and were part of the same fraternity, Pi Kappa Phi. It had been awhile since I had last seen him so it was nice to have the chance to catch up with him a bit during our session. This was also an interesting session since he wanted to have some shots with facial hair and some without it.
Solomon stopped by my studio in the morning on the last Sunday in January since his yearbook portrait was needed by the school on Friday that week. It was a real pleasure getting to know him during his session. He seems to be a very smart guy so I can only imagine what this senior from Kenosha Christian Life School will be achieving later on in life. At the time when he stopped by studio, he had applied to quite a few colleges and was still in the midst of deciding where he would be going next year. I also appreciated the fact he can light up with a great smile and pull off a more serious look as well.
My Thor portrait session was a long time coming so I was happy that I finally knocked it out last month. See one group of my friends that I hangout with occasionally have different members of the Avengers that they consider to be their character. At some point I decided that I should Thor in that group since I was growing out my hair at the time and plus it seemed fitting since Thor's human alias was Donald Blake.
The inspiration to do this shoot actually came a bit later when I found a Thor t-shirt at a thrift store in the spring last year. The cape ended up getting added in later in the year as it was part of my Thor costume that I wore for Halloween. The thing that really lead to me finally making this portrait session happen was that I decided it was finally time to get a haircut. That decision was kind of a combination of changing things up in the new year and also I just wasn't the biggest fan of having long hair. The very next day after this portrait session, I went out and got my first haircut in over a year and a half and I have to say I don't regret it one bit.
Plus, I figured I wouldn’t lose my status as Thor since in the Marvel movies Thor was no longer sporting the long locks. As a friend of mine pointed out, I can still wear my Thor costume for next Halloween with the minor addition of an eye patch if I’m going for being him from Thor: Ragnarok. Then again I could just skip the eye patch altogether since Thor get a replacement eye in Avengers: Infinity War. Sorry if that spoiled it for anyone but you’ve had plenty of time to see the latest Avengers movie. It has even been available on Netflix for over a month now.
Last week, I rented my friend’s studio space in downtown Waukegan and did my first ever mini session! Everything went well with the exception of the little girl not being the biggest fan of my strobe. Right now, I’m even looking forward to getting back into the studio again this weekend for another Christmas session. This was so inspiring that in 2019 I plan on hosting a few mini sessions in my own studio. So be sure to keep an eye out for those dates.
Last Thursday was my first time having a photo session specifically for a 1 year old when I had Promise in the studio. It was also the first time where I had a session that included a cake smash. The main challenge in sessions like this is usually finding a way to get some cooperation and attention from the child. Promise was no different as she was intrigued by all the space in my studio and wanted explore the area in the room beyond the backdrop. Another challenge was getting her to look in the proper direction and seemed to be pretty interested in ceiling even though it wasn’t running at the time. Finally, going into the session I was hoping that she would one of those babies that would really get into the smashing the cake. However, as you can see in these pictures, she wasn’t very eager to make and mess and play around with her cupcake.
My second photo session of 2018 was my nephew, Je'kori, coming into the studio a little over a week ago. My sister had been trying to bring him in for a personal photo session, but we had a tough time getting it together during the holiday season. I was happy that he finally got to have a portrait session with me and I'm also happy that so far I'm staying on track for having at least one portrait session per week.
On the first Saturday of 2018, I had my first photo session of the new year as Bhargavi and her husband visited my studio. I'm hoping that this is first of many portrait sessions that I have this year. In fact, one of my resolutions for this year is to have at least one portrait session per week. I haven't quite settled on who I will be photographing this week, but I surely have some ideas for people to contact.
