The Men

When I'm taking portraits of a group of men, the one thing I use as inspiration for posing and composition is "Oceans Eleven".

Taken with the Nikkor 24mm f/2.8 and lit with an Alien Bees B800 with a shoot-through umbrella and a Nikon SB28 bare as the backlight. This was taken in an almost completely dark room, but the low-light autofocus of Nikon cameras is unmatched.

Mr. and Mrs. Charlton

I don't usually like posting photos of clients until they have seen them, so now that Mike and Melody have their photos, I am going to blog them. Of course, if you know Mike, and are friends with him on Facebook, you'll probably get to see them all pretty soon.

Here is their first dance as Mr. and Mrs. Charlton. I snapped this with the 15mm fisheye lens I try so hard to use sparingly. It was perfect for this shot, but really hard to get away with. I shoot with prime lenses exclusively, which may seem like suicide for wedding photographers, but it's worked out pretty well so far. I use two bodies and four focal lengths to choose from in my shoulder bag. I could use some more telephoto lenses, but my style centers around the wide angle more than the tight crop, as you can see by the photo above.

The Walsh Family

Taken in Historic Yorktown, yet another "Olde Towne" just outside of Newport News, VA, my friend Craig Kuhns, my wife Heather, and our kids assisted me on this family photo shoot. It was a little chilly, but so easy because the Walsh family is so good looking.

I used my Nikon d200 fixed with a 24mm f/2.8 lens. I love the d200, it's a perfect camera for me right now. Of course, I dream about the d3, but I think the next logical step for me is the d300 or d700.

Melody Crane...

...back when she was a Crane.

This is a shot from Melody's bridal portrait session. We got rained on, but we still had some pretty amazing locations.

Now that Melody and Mike have gotten married, I'm able to share these images. I'll post a few more in the next few days and weeks, but this one might be my favorite from the bunch.

Jane Zook

Jane and I have been wanting to do a proper photo shoot for a while now, and it just so happened that the only day we were able to pull it together was a freezing cold, rainy day in December. She was amazing though, she has such a natural beauty that it's hard not to walk away with dozens of great photos, regardless of the temperature. She was a really good sport, doing everything I asked of her, which included standing in the middle of the road, in the rain, in the cold, in traffic, without a coat.

She certainly got a lot of stares from the bundled-up people in Ghent.

Doug and Sara

It's hard to get a photo of my parents. Either my dad is behind the camera, or one of them isn't in the mood. When one is ready, the other is busy, or sleeping.

This was taken at Sandbridge in Virginia Beach during our Thanksgiving vacation weekend. We just wrapped up a family portrait in really cold, windy weather, and I grabbed mom and dad for a couple quick shots.

Lit with one Alien Bee B800 outfitted with a shoot-through umbrella. My very faithful photo assistant Craig Kuhns reminded me that we didn't have any modifiers on this light. It was straight flash to battle the sun.