Signature Sessions Update

I’ve gotten a lot of great feedback on our Signature Sessions. This Sunday we’re going to Erie for a beach session and we’ve filled all the available slots!

Out next Signature Session is at The Hookstown Fair – we’ll be there all week and it’s a great place for senior photos – nearly an unlimited number of places to shoot! If you’re interested drop us a line and we’ll set you up with a session all your own!

We’ve added a Fall Session too, sometime in late October when the leaves are in their glory! I’m still workin out a special place to go!

Check out some of the images.

Hohla Family Portraits

Tina gave her family a nice present with a dinner and family portrait session at Shakespeares. It was fun to shoot groups that weren’t wearing tuxes for a change – much more laid back and friendly in a lot of ways because there isn’t that time schedule to keep.

Here’s one of the group shots. It was a rainy evening (like most this ’summer’) so we stayed under the back patio roof but the sky and clouds made for a nice backdrop.

There was a few moments to catch a candid or two. Here’s one I like:

And here’s one of Tina that I like, by the fountain.

Kim, John and Savannah

Kim and John came in this week for their engagement session and brought Savannah, their puppy. It was a lot of fun for all of us!

We did a few shots in the studio and then went outside where Savannah was having the most fun of us all – she flushed a bird and wanted to chase some rabbits.

Here are some high lights from their visit.

I’m looking forward to a fun wedding in December!

new senior stuff

We have some new stuff for seniors and they’re pretty cool. Locker Swappers are a like a wallet photo that is a magnet. You can give them to your friends and they’ll sick in your locker! They come in 5 cool designs.

We also have calendar magnets, with a year in Jan-Dec or Sept-Jun formats, with a photo.

How about a dry erase board for messages or a to-do list? These have magnets on the back or you can put them up like a picture.

The coolest thing is the Senior Poster! 4 images of your choice, with your name and year, and you have 4 designs to choose from and then the colors are customized to match the images, and it’s printed 12×18 in size. They look something like these!

Come on by the studio and check out these items and a few other things we just got in!

Home of The Fighting Irish

On my way back from South Haven I wanted to do something fun, or go someplace fun. Someplace I’d never been before (as if Lake Michigan, sleeping on a sailboat and such wasn’t enough) and I saw that South Bend, IN wasn’t out of the way. In case you didn’t know, South Bend is where Notre Dame University is located.  My mother loved ND. I think she’d have lived longer had I gone to school there LOL.

Once when I was very young we made an attempt to visit the University. My dad was working in Elkhart, IN and we had taken the train from Pittsburgh to see him. South Bend is about 30 miles west and my mother figured we”re this close, let’s go see ND. So we started out but it began snowing and while my mother wasn’t afraid of much, being in a car in the snow was the one thing she detested above all others. We turned around and went back to the hotel and she never did see ND, but the episode was so talked about over the years that if I too was ‘this close’, I’d might as well finish the journey. Or perhaps she’d come back and haunt me!

Over the year’s I’ve visited a number of College campuses and few impress me all that much. I visited Penn State’s Main Campus a few years back, and wow, THAT is where I would go to school if I had it to do over again. Well, that is until I saw ND. It’s impressive. VERY impressive. And I saw only a portion of it. I don’t know what they spend on groundskeeping there, but it’s got to be a much as the entire state of PA spends on it’s state parks systems. Seriously. Every tree was trimmed, every border edged, new sod was evident in several places, there wasn’t a blade of grass longer (or shorter) than the others. And I didn’t see anyone working on it, and the campus is immense so they must have an army of gardeners somewhere. Perhaps like the rain in Camelot they work in the middle of the night.

I could have spent all day taking photos, but here are a few of those I grabbed on my short walk around the place. While the campus is beautiful, Beaver Stadium out “Wow’s” ND’s football Stadium.

That little green rectangle is the field and the yellow bar in the middle is a goal post. It looks like they’re replacing the scoreboard.

This would be the ‘Touchdown Jesus’ mural on the Hesburgh Library. (The Word of Life by Millard Sheets)

Here are a few random photos from around campus

There are works of art all over campus. It’s cool. I now appreciate such works of art and think there should be more of them. I’ll have to get something for my yard!

And of course, the iconic Main Admin building with it’s gold dome. It’s why ND’s football helmets are gold in color.

And one last shot.  I wandered into what appeared to be a gym building, something like the CCBC Dome. there were hundred of girls playing volleyball, some camp I assume as all colleges have something like it over the summer. I did think how nice it was to have the A/C on full blast so no one would sweat too much. Then I hung a left and this is what was on the left half of the building.  It explained the temps!

So now I guess I can perhaps start trying to convince my kids they should go to ND, or perhaps Penn State main. That probably means I should start saving, like yesterday, huh?

The Vacation I didn’t get to take

I’ve never been a big vacation person. I guess my parents weren’t either so perhaps I can blame them, or perhaps it’s my fault that I didn’t become an engineer or get some job where I get a paid vacation every year. I’ve done better now that I have kids, or at least I’ve tried to do better.

Some of this was brought to my attention the past couple of days. My brother in law, Dave, works for GM and was transferred last summer from Indiana to Ohio. He’s originally from Maryland has been sailing for years and has a 32 foot sailboat on Lake Michigan at South Haven. He’s one of those furlowed GM workers this summer and figured to take the time off and sail his boat to a it’s new home port in Ohio. Sounds like a great thing to do, a great vacation if you want to call it that. It’s going to take him about 10 days. He’s got to sail just about the whole length of Lake Michigan, then Lake Huron and then across Lake Erie.

But that’s not what had me wishing I could do a ‘real vacation’ if that’s even a definable thing and not an just some idealized thing I have in my head. I guess my idea of a vacation comes from a mix of ‘Jaws’ (folks that rent a house and spend a week at the beach in a resort town) and my wife and a friend that spent their childhood vacations at Ocean City or Myrtle Beach. I’ve gone to Erie and Presque Isle but it’s not got that resort town / boardwalk feel to it like in my perfect vacation vision.

South Haven, Michigan is indeed a resort town. A very cute, perhaps almost too cute, resort town. There is the main street which is a cross between downtown Beaver and the boardwalk at Atlantic City. Tons of people in the stores, shops and on the street. A block over is the waterfront with it’s bars and a few kitschy shops. All very colorful and with a victorian overtone. The center of all of it is the harbor and river with lots of marinas and docks, and a very picturesque draw bridge. To the north along Lake Michigan is North Beach, and to the south, well, South Beach. I’m used to Presque Isle sand, mason’s sand, play sand and even sand at a beach or two along the atlantic – but this sand is more like flour – super fine and soft. And the beaches are huge compared to all I’ve experienced except perhaps along the ocean. And very clean – no dead fish, feathers, driftwood, etc.

I’m told they get crowded in the afternoon and that’s something else I’ve not experienced. The photo above was at take around 10 am. Had I not been working on Dave’s boat the evening before I’d have been here for a sunset photo as this faces almost due west. Speaking of sunset, it’s much later there than here. It’s the same time zone, but as you move west ‘time’ changes and it was as light there at 10 pm as it is here at 9  or 9:15. Of course the sun gets up much later to compensate, but it’s just weird to have real daylight at 9:45, which in our case was a good thing as we were moving the boat from the storage marina to the municipal one when the fuel pump died. It was my first time going under a drawbridge. It was also the farthest West  I’ve ever been. And the first time I’d slept on a boat – it’s a weird experience, at least at first.

But it is a resort town. All the Porsche’s and Lexus’ and well, the $400,000 boats at the docks make that pretty clear. We had dinner at Clementines and the food was great. They have this chicken alfredo made with pepperjack cheese that is out of this world. I’d love to have spent a week here having the ‘ideal’ vacation. I’ll have to put it on my ‘bucket list’ I suppose and bring the family.

here it is (on the small screen)

This is the commercial that will start running at the Cinemark in Monaca/Center in a few weeks! See anyone you know?

Kelli and Dave got hitched!

This was a wedding I’ll remember for along time! Kelli and Dave are a great couple to work with and that shows in the photos.

The ceremony was in a small church in a cornfield, St Johns, built in 1829.  Kelli wanted a church with a short aisle so it would be easy for her dad to walk her to the front.

There are several advantages to small churches. Most are bright inside, the pews are full with your guests, and I can be close for pictures without being in the way. This is the ring exchange as shot from the back of the church, not an easy shot to get in a cathedral.

And here’s one showing the entire church. I like this shot!

Did I mention the cornfield? It made  for a nice setting for some romantic shots.

They held their reception at the Conway Sportsman’s Club where they are members and met. Kelli likes to shoot skeet and Dave says she’s really good at it. So of course we had to do something like this, right?

And they requested this shot, which I must admit is a first for me – and I enjoyed every minute of it!

The lake is at the sportsman’s club and made a wonderful backdrop for a few more romantic shots.

Cake smashing isn’t as popular as it once was at weddings, but it’s still as much fun as always!

And I’ll end with a dance shot.

Urban Adventure

The rainy weather held off and actually it was just super nice last Monday evening in Pittsburgh.

Here are a few quickie previews from the shoot, just about dark on the North Shore. There is a story that goes with the bike I’ll have to tell you when I post more pictures next week.

Mindy got to practice some with makeup, and as the evening drew to a close she tried something a bit more fun with the eye makeup.

Our next Special Session is set for late July and it’s going to be a bitch, I mean, beach. We’re going to Presque Isle in Erie! If you’d like to come along give us a call!

Mike and Jenn

Mike and Jenn were in for their engagement photo last week. Their ceremony will be next summer.

This is the image they chose for the Signature Frame that will be at their reception.