She wears 37 weeks well, doesn’t she?

About a week later, she gave birth to a beautiful baby boy.

I only wish I could’ve been present for that, but alas, she lives too far away.

Birth photography is something I have a great interest in, but have not yet had the opportunity to explore. It is, essentially, having a photographer with you during your labor and delivery process to document the experience of your birth. It can happen in your home or in the hospital delivery room. It is not invasive, and generally uses only natural light so as to not annoy anyone with the use of flash. The result is a tasteful, journalistic account of the birth experience, typically presented in an album of black and white photographs to cherish for years to come.

If you, or someone you know, would be interested in having a birth experience documented, please contact me at any time.

And yet…he’s still just a 4 year old!

I find this is the most challenging and rewarding age group to shoot. If you’d like your child’s portraits taken, please do not hesitate to contact me: aimeewigfallphotography[at]gmail.com

So, it’s taken me some time to both work up my energy, and find a balance that allows me to make time for new clients. That being said, I could not have started the ball rolling again with any better client than this beautiful mother and her two gorgeous children. It is fitting, actually, that they mark my return, as they were my last client prior to taking leave in 2010.

It’s amazing to see how much they have all changed in just one short year.

Last year:

This year:

Last year:

This year:

Such a beautiful family.

Stay tuned for new changes coming up! I’m working on my website and hope to have it launched by the end of the year. A new pricing schedule has been worked up for 2012. And, if you – or anyone  you know – is in need of portraits, please feel free to pass along my contact information. I am hoping to schedule one to two clients per month, as time allows.

As always, feel free to leave any comments, and/or share with your friends.

See you soon!

Mom and her two daughters, but I swear, they look like they are all sisters! I love all the colorful flowers in the background. Really makes their purple pop!

Note to self: check posture!!

I just could not get enough of this little cutie! She LOVED the camera…and the camera loved her!

Sometimes black/white conversions work well…sometimes they don’t. This session, the conversions worked.

Probably my favorite image from the entire session. I know it’s awkward to look at vertically, but it works better than having one upside down, IMO.

Such sweet sisters. Taking photographs is easy when clients are so beautiful and happy.

They’ve been engaged for two years, which I found quite refreshing in this day and age. It was lovely to see both their love for each other, and their deep connection of friendship come through in the images we captured.

Some of the more natural, unposed shots are among my favorites…

Editing these images was, again, a great pleasure, as most of the straight-out-of-camera (sooc) shots were exposed properly. My only goal was to enhance the richness of the colors and make the couple really stand out.

Which isn’t difficult when they are as good looking as these two!

I wish them a very happy wedding and blessed future together as they head down the aisle later this year.

This portrait building session was a real challenge for me. Even though we started at 5:30pm, the sun was still high and bright in the sky. Next time, we’ll make it 6:30pm to get better light. Images taken under the gazebo were much better, but still had issues in the background.

I learned quite a lot during this session. Several things I need to work on include: posing, paying closer attention to my backgrounds, NOT taking pictures of a toddler at a park (good grief! What was I thinking!?!), exposure…getting it right in camera makes a HUGE difference in editing, and I need to work on my ability to connect w/ the young’uns.

We got there, but it took us a while.

We started on the dock and used the water as a backdrop. I love how smooth it looks, you can’t even tell it’s water (which is good, given the lack of water-blue hues).  Her inner diva didn’t take long to shine.

I tried to remember: variety. Close ups (check), head/shoulders (check), 3/4 length (check) and full body (check).  Backgrounds were an issue…a canoe sticking out the side of her neck here, a building growing out of her head there. DoF helps, but you can still tell it’s a building. Where oh where is that lovely open field of green, with wild yellow or purple flower patches scattered throughout providing variation but yet clean, uninterrupted surroundings?!

Per my suggestion, she brought a change of outfit; which worked out well given the weather. In an effort to get out of the rain, she changed clothes, and we worked in another spot just off the lake…one of the campus building courtyards. Her black dress worked really well for this spot, which has various iron sculptures, brick buildings, concrete pillars, and dark reflective windows.

After changing clothes and location, the sky got a bit darker and though it never really rained very hard, light was getting more difficult to come by. I had concerns because I know that if I raise my ISO above 400, I start to get a lot of noise. But, at the time, I had no choice if I wanted to get proper exposure.  Fortunately, with proper exposure, noise is minimized, and my aperture was wide enough (but not too wide) to get good sharp images, despite the high ISO.

All in all, I was happily surprised with the results of these images, both straight out of camera, and after processing. She was such a natural, I didn’t have to worry too much about posing her, though I realize it’s still something to work on. Her hair and makeup was spot on (she is a beauty consultant, so makes sense ). Even though it rained and I was concerned about the location and the light, this is by far the best session I’ve had to date.

She was absolutely thrilled with the photos, and I was excited to see how easy processing can be when images are taken correctly in-camera. This session gave me a real boost, and I can only hope to achieve these kinds of results consistently in future sessions.

My coworker, Jenna, appeased me last week and let me take close to 200 photos of her for practice. She was graduating from college the next day, so it seemed like a happy time to take her picture. Just down the road at the local arboretum…we went for the yellow flowers and stayed for the greenery.

A couple of things I’m learning as I process the photos from this half hour well spent is that I need to work on diversifying a number of things:

1. Posing – I want my models to look natural, but hands (ugh!) and stances can be so (naturally) awkward.

2. Shot lengths – I do close ups well. Enough already! Do something else. Back up. Back up farther. Farther still! I was using the 50mm on these, so it really requires me to move around…a lot!

3. Focal point – I tend to use the upper right point of the 9 I can choose from. It’s great for ensuring good composition, but gets boring when my model is always facing the same direction.

4. Wide aperture – Just because the lens goes to 1.8, doesn’t mean I need (or should) go there. There are so many things to consider at that wide of ap. One day, I’ll be ready, but not quite yet.

Thanks for looking. Would love to hear any/all thoughts if you care to share.

This is my neighbor’s [damn] dog. She is the mother of 2 other [damn] dogs that live there as well. Normally, I like dogs. I grew up with two different dogs. Went so far as to own a dog, albeit for an extremely short period of time, because it, too, was a pain in the arse.

My son, who’s 3, thinks this [damn] dog is his dog. I assure him it is NOT his [damn] dog, and am quite thankful for that fact.

Usually, the [damn] dogs live in the neighbor’s house, but when she lets them out, she does not watch them, does not play with them, does not care who is affected by these [damn] dogs. She opens the door, let’s them out…30 minutes later, opens the door and let’s them back in.

Inevitably, those 30 glorious minutes of [damn] doggie freedom (though I assume there are several throughout the day, but can’t prove it), occur just about the time we get home from work and are attempting to enjoy a few minutes of family fun time in the yard.

Unfortunately, it generally amounts to 30 minutes of incessant barking through the chain link fence by this unmanaged, untrained, uncouth [damn] dog!