Shea's Dress

Shea's dress fit her perfectly. Not just physically fit her, but it fit her personality. You see, Shea is one of the sweetest people you'll ever meet. She is bubbly, but not obnoxious, trusting, but not naive, fun, but not pretentious. She is a classic woman, with a modern elegance.

This photo was taken in the back corner of the lobby of Founder's Inn of Virginia Beach. We had an Alien Bee B800 with a translucent umbrella shooting through the window from the outside.

Jasmine's Instant Exposure

I'm about to start offering a Polaroid add-on to my portrait packages after doing a little trial run with Jasmine on our recent photo shoot. You can see more of Jasmine's shoot on Facebook.

Shea, The Bride

I had the distinct pleasure of shooting Shea's bridal portraits, and now that she is married, I can share them here.

This was shot in the Founders Inn lobby in Virginia Beach. My trusty assistant Craig is outside keeping the light stand company. I had an Alien Bee B800 shooting in from the outdoors through a translucent umbrella.

Grace In Her Backyard

My wife and I had the pleasure of spending time at the Tate farm in Windsor, VA to shoot Grace's senior portraits. I am a texture fiend, so walking around their farm is like Toys-R-Us for a 7-year-old.

Shot with the Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8 on a Nikon d700 with an Alien Bee B1600 with 48" shoot-through umbrella providing the light.

Sarah's Head Shot

This is Sarah Meeker. Sarah and I worked together in the independent theater scene in Virginia Beach, VA way back in high school. What's that? You didn't know Virginia Beach had an independent theater scene? Oh. Well, neither did anyone else.

Sarah is a very talented, obviously beautiful, and very sweet young lady who is finishing up her senior year at VCU. Heather and I packed up the kids and a bounce card and headed down to Richmond on a gorgeous Saturday afternoon. The weather was absolutely perfect.

I used my 85mm lens almost exclusively on this shoot, and also had the chance to experiment with some lighting techniques. I used all manner of modifiers and reflectors to get creative catch lights in Sarah's eyes.

Brother and Bride

This is my brother Jared and his fiance Kelsey. I was honored to be able to provide them with engagement photos that they will be using to announce the date of their wedding.

I'm especially proud of this shot because we only had the sun for about 20 seconds at this location before it ducked behind the clouds again. The one day I want direct sunlight for an outdoor shoot, it decides to hide. I got it though, and that shadow makes this photo.

Special thanks to my beautiful sister Phoebe for assisting me on this shoot. The wind would have surely taken my lighting gear down if it wasn't for her help.

Also, thank you to all the field owners out there who don't have prominently displayed "No Trespassing" signs.

You can browse the entire collection here, and I'll be periodically posting more photos in the coming days/weeks/months...

Stephanie

Here's a photo from a highschool senior shoot I had this past weekend in Hampton Roads.

Her name is Stephanie, and she was great in front of the camera. She wasn't shy, she was naturally elegant, and wasn't afraid to look into the lens. She made my job pretty easy.

A Dress In The Field

This is another bridal portrait of Melody. I had a lot of fun on this shoot, but not nearly enough time. We got rained on once we started getting comfortable, but we still walked away with several great shots.

I started playing around with textures in a few of these photos, to the prodding of my future sister-in-law Kelsey Essmann. I trust her eye and her taste, so I applied some overlays to this shot to give it a little more depth.

the women

I was hoping that this photo from the Crane/Charlton wedding would compliment the photo of the men that I took earlier in the day.

Going for a Vanity Fair cover idea, this probably would have been easier if it wasn't 20 degrees outside.

Wind-blown

Yes, it was cold, wet, but also windy. Jane is a real pro.

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.

Family Is Everything

This is a picture of the Soto kids during a recent family photo shoot.

Shot with my 15mm fisheye lens while laying on my back. Triggered a hot shoe flash with a pocket wizard that was laying on the ground next to my head, under a shoot-through umbrella that was stuck in the ground.

If you're looking for some fun family portraits before Christmas, I'm booking dates the weekend of Thanksgiving in Hampton Roads as well as December 14th through 17th.

Belinda At A Bus Stop

This was taken in Fredericksburg, VA in a commuter lot bus shelter. I love that it doesn't even look like glass behind her. It looks more like metal... and blood.

50mm lens, hot-shoe flash, shoot-through umbrella, and a beautiful model. That's pretty much all you need.

Princess Bride: Bekah & Patrick

When I was prepping for Bekah and Patrick's portrait session before their wedding, I asked them what their favorite movies were. I like to ask those kind of questions to people, just to get a feel for their personal style and taste. I then planned on doing a partial recreation of key poses from their favorite movies.

Lit with a single Alien Bees B800 strobe at 1/4 power through a beat-up shoot-through umbrella. The sun is high in the sky creating our fill light, and the strobe acted as our rim. We were able to get a partial silhouette out of this set up, and I'm very pleased. Oh, and that lens flare off to the side? That's real. I'd tell you if I was photoshopping these things.

Yoder!

This is Belinda. She is, as she would say, pretty much the best, ever.

It was wet, cold, and wet that day, and Belinda was a trooper. She willingly sat on a wet cast iron step for our last setup.

What you don't see here is the creeper that I had to hide in this frame. Fortunately, not a lot of tourists are on the street on a blustery Saturday evening.

Scissorhands: Bekah & Patrick

My wife and I had the pleasure of shooting the wedding of our two friends, Rebekah and Patrick. This is from our whirlwind portrait session. We were trying to escape from direct sunlight and have a healthy amount of portraits from the 45 minutes we had with them.

This pose is inspired by one of their favorite movies, Edward Scissorhands.

If you're getting married and need a photographer, let me know. I'm currently looking to fill up my calendar and my portfolio.

The Actual Moment

Michael proposed to Melody while I was taking photos of it all going down.

Yes, this is the actual moment that Michael showed Melody the ring. No, this is not a reenactment. You know it's love when that index finger pops up like that.

Lady In The Water

This is from an older photo session with Sara. We were losing the sun very quickly on the beach that evening, and I was juggling two models and one light in the sand. I'm so glad I didn't have to worry about cables. That is worth the price of the Pocket Wizards.

I did a lot of post production to this image. I'm not usually a fan of over "Photochopping" an image, but I like how this almost looks out of this era.