Amanda

I was so happy when I got an email from Amanda's mom asking me about doing her senior portraits! We scheduled them for Friday afternoon, and through a turn of events ended up shooting earlier in the day than first planned. It was a good thing too, because by the time we finished up at Minnehaha Falls the rain moved in. It was about a half hour before her session was first scheduled to begin.
I hope you like your sneak peek Amanda, and have a great senior year!

Happy Birthday!

Today I was so super lucky to get to photography JJ for his first birthday! JJ has overcome so many obstacles in his short little life and it's a miraculous thing that he was home in time to celebrate his first birthday with his family. His family and their experiences in the last two years of having two babies with HLH have touched so many lives, including mine. I'm thrilled to be showing this sneak peek! I hope you like these Laura.
Happy Birthday little guy!

Abby

Saturday evening I had the pleasure of meeting up with Abby, her mom and sister at Long Lake Regional Park in New Brighton for her senior session. Abby is an accomplished cellist and brought along her cello for some images. This was super fun for me as I love doing new things and making each person's image unique! I just love her green eyes and freckled cheeks!
It was delightful to meet you Abby and family. I hope you enjoy your sneak peek and your senior year!

Kendall turns 1!

This is Kendall, you might remember her from January's baby contest. She was the winner of that contest which gave her a free session and 10x20 storyboard.
We met up for her session at Central Park in Roseville. It was a beautiful day and Kendall was much more happy about this session than she was her last session.
I just LOVE those dimples!
Happy birthday Kendall, I hope you like your sneak peek!









Kendall's winning image:

Senior Sneak Peek!

I was really excited when "B" called me for her senior session. I've know her and her awesome family for about four or five years. I can't believe she's a senior already!
We met at a local school that had a great walking path and nature all around. "B" plays the most beautiful blue guitar I've ever seen. She's developed that talent very well! And it doesn't hurt that her guitar matches her pretty blue eyes.







Every once in a while I like to play around with colorizing, textures and brushes. I thought this was a good image to play around with a texture called "Cracks" by Johnny Magnoski. It's of a cement walkway, but I erased out the cracks in it and added some love letter brushes, which are the words you see in the background. I also added yellow toning to give a sunshine effect. I think I like how it turned out.



I also loved the fields we used, the colors of the grasses and wild flowers.


These are just a few images I played with while uploading her session to my computer. I hope you enjoyed your sneak peek "B" and can't wait to show you the rest of your gallery!

Good News!

Rachel, I got a cute one and I didn't even have to clone around any heads! :)

Introducing...

Will. Who's been long awaited for! I love it when parents want to be creative and make their sessions unique! Thanks D Family for letting me be the lucky photographer you chose for Will's first session and for wanting to play!

It's not often

That I get to do family portraits, and when I do, usually I refer them to my friends who do more family portrait photography than myself. I've mostly been doing babies and weddings. But I just couldn't pass up the chance to be this family's photographer. I was privileged to be two of these girls youth leader a few years ago and just adore their family. Their oldest daughter has graduated and is shortly going out west for college and their mom wanted family pictures done before she left.
Thanks A. for being such a trooper and walking all over the place to all the spots I asked (and Dad for carrying you!), I hope your foot heals quickly and you'll be running around soon!

When I loaded their session into my Lightroom, I couldn't wait to play with this one. I'd asked the girls to stand out in the grass and suggested they could do any number of things, play with the grass, look at the lake, talk to each other... and this is what they did.

Sisterly love... naturally.

brings a tear to my eye.

A New Favorite

Krista and Brian

Yesterday was the photo session and reception for our friend's daughter, Krista, and her husband Brian. I knew Krista back when she was a teenager in the Young Women's program at our church. She's grown up to be a beautiful woman.

We had planned to spend about an hour at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, but it started pouring rain early in the day and the rain stayed all day long with gusts of wind. We found a few sheltered spots to play around in. I love sessions like these where there's no wedding to rush off to, and the dress doesn't have to stay completely spotless!

Hope you like your sneak peek and look forward to showing you more!

Another Storyboard Sample

You can click on it to see it a big larger. This one is three vertical images with black selected as the framing color. Frames will come in about 1/4 of an inch on each side. Prints come without the watermark of course.

Camille

I'm so lucky! I recently had a session with another beautiful baby girl!
This little girl's session was the result of a gift certificate given at her mommy's baby shower. I do have gift certificates available for free sessions and any number of prints you desire to give! So if you know someone who is expecting, and you know how much I LOVE newborn sessions, consider giving them the gift of a free session!

Storyboards

Along with this sneak peek I wanted to mention my storyboards. They are 10"x20" and can have from two to five images, most arrangements of vertical and horizontal can work.
It's easy to find frames for them because it is a standard size. Usually they are sold with a mat that has three spots for 4x6 or 5x7 images. You just take out the mat and insert your storyboard print. The background around the images can be white, black or can be picked from a color in one of the images to help with color coordinating.

Aria

A beautiful name for a beautiful baby!
Last weekend mom brought her over for a few shots. She was just so sweet the whole time and let us get a variety of shots. Because I've been knocked out with a cold this week I am just barely getting to them, sorry mom! I'll have a couple more to come later.

Wedding Formals

Today I'd like to address the topic of wedding formals.

You've taken a lot of time and spent a lot of hours scouring over photographer's galleries and portfolios when hiring a wedding photographer. You've chosen your photographer for a reason. Perhaps it's their artistic images that captured you. Maybe it was their personality. Perhaps you really loved the albums they offered.

Now that you've signed your contract and sent in your deposit your photographer may ask you for a list of family members you'd like to have included in your wedding formal pictures.

I've had a lot of brides give me a variety of lists, some very minimal, because they want me to focus more on artistic pictures for the day. And some brides have given me a more extensive list, wanting to make sure they are photographed with each member of their day, which is fine with me, but takes a lot of time and also cuts down on the time I can spend doing more creative work for them. It all depends on what the bride and groom really want, when placing images in their wedding album.

There is one issue I'd like to address with future brides in particular, when considering on who to have photographed in your wedding formals. You and your groom are coming together to create a union.

Mark 10: 7-8 (KJV)

For this cause shall a man leave his father and mother, and cleave to his wife; And they twain shall be one flesh: so then they are no more twain, but one flesh.

This is a union between two families. Two families becoming one. You will now belong to his family, and your groom will belong to your family. There is no reason to have individual pictures of yourselves with your family members. There are several reasons why it is not necessary. First, it quite often ends up with redundant images and burned up time, which will make less time for more artistically inspired photography. It can also wear out the whole family having to wait around for their turn in the pictures. In the end it can end up being one long portrait session instead of a wedding session. Please consider having only one image with you and your family together without your bride and groom, and then one image with both of you with the entire family instead of individual pictures of you with each of your family members.

When deciding what images you really want in your album to look back on in the next 50 years, think about what is most important to you. When choosing your photographer, what images were you drawn to most? Are pictures of your family what you will hold most dear, or will you want more artistic images?

You make the call.

© 2009 Jennifer Klingensmith

Don't Rule Out!

Don't rule out winter for a fun outdoor portrait session!
Bright winter-wear shows up beautifully with a snowy white backdrop, and so many unique ideas and poses can be done, that can't be done any other time of year!
Besides, who's seen a kid play in snow with a frown?

{ New Look }

I am playing around with a new look this month.

I loved my old colors, but had been using them for a couple of years. It's time to order new business cards and I really wanted to get into something more classic with a splash of color. I'm still looking for just the right music for my website, and that might take a while.

The splash of red color might change with the seasons.

I went through my galleries and updated them with newer images, which is great because not everyone stops by the blogity blog to see the latest and the greatest that I've been working on.

My next project is to create images of the different products that can be purchased through me with your images.

In January I will be having a contest for the babies I photographed this year to let one of them win a Free First Birthday session by getting the most votes on their cutest baby picture.

This coming spring I have a unique giveaway to announce, so be watching for that as well as a contest to win a lucky mom a free session for MYther's Day.

A Sneak Peek Play

( click to see larger image)

This is sort of a sneak peek for one of my Extreme Bridal couples (you might recognize them as my October '07 wedding couple), and also a play with texture. I love how you can see the city behind them through the glass.

I was really happy when this couple called me to do another session. Their wedding had been in October and it had been cold and rainy all week before their wedding and so the ground was wet and her dress was a little light for the weather, which made it a little hard to get some good stuff, so it was nice to get it out into the world when it was warm again and we didn't have to keep it totally clean!

This was taken in downtown St. Paul by the Capitol on one of the bridges that go over 35E.

| Amy & Ed |

This cute couple found me through one of my brides last year (Thanks Mara!), and I'm so glad they did! They just celebrated their 3rd wedding anniversary last month and wanted some fresh relationship pictures. I had a lot of fun planning for and carrying out their session.

Their session was done mostly down on Grand Ave. in St. Paul. Weather seemed to be threatening this session at the beginning of the day, we had some good downpours and the storm spouted off some tornado activity east of us, but thankfully the weather cleared up just in time for their session, and we made some good use of a puddle!

We ended the evening down by the train tracks and a brightly colored wall.

Thanks you two for a great evening! Hope you enjoy your sneak peek, I couldn't resist playing with them while they uploaded! I can't wait to finish working on your session and share it with you.

(click on image to see larger version)