Halloween At the Office

On a quite Sunday, we went to Richmond's financial district with our model, Beauregard Marie. I worked in NYC for years and wanted to find a location that reminded me of the marble office plazas in mid-town Manhattan. I also wanted to replicate how the early morning/afternoon sun hits at such a strong angle this time of year.

I had Beau walk back an forth, and up and down those steps a lot. We tried various camera angles and lots of different hand positions with the jack-o-lantern. Getting the swing of the pumpkin and the briefcase with just the right stride took us a while to figure out. Beau did a great job, and was very patient.

For lighting, we supplemented the natural open shade of the office plaza with a battery powered off camera flash, creating a "kicker light" from the right side (notice how the main light reflecting onto the subject at a right angle--not what you'd naturally see at noontime in open shade). We added a few orange gels to warm the light to give it that early am glow. In all those years on Madison Avenue, I never actually saw anyone walking to work with a candy-filled pumpkin. But if I had, I'd have smiled like a jack-o-lantern.

Image Copyright 2007 Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Dream Home

Architectural photography is something we love to do. This home was designed by Perry DesJardins, a creator of extrordinary residences throughout Central Virginia. Infact, if you go to Perry's website, you can see the front of this house on his home page. This image was created by layering a number of different exposures within the image file. We set up the camera before sundown, and left it in place till dark. We added some stobe lighting there and there to open up the shadows. My assistant that day, Karin Sabine, hand held the strobe and walked along the set popping the flash at different areas. Some of the later exposures were as long as 8 seconds. The goal was to let the structural lighting appear as it does to the human eye. Nice digs.
Image Copyright 2007 Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

A Country Wedding

The Powhatan County homestead known as West Wind (rolling hills and a turn of the century farmhouse restored by the bride and groom) was the site of a super-fun wedding on September 15, 2007. From the git-go, the couple (Colleen McGary and Al Kupeski) told us they wanted to focus on enjoying the company of their family and friends. The last thing they wanted to do was pose for a lot of pictures and be kept away from enjoying their wedding celebration with guests. So, with the couple's permission, we captured the day in a photojournalist style. Between me and photo assistant, Beth Furgeson, we captured over 300o images that day. It wasn't till the very end of the day, with the sun gloriously setting and giving us the hallowed "golden hour", that we were able to get the newlyweds to settle down and make their official "wedding portrait". Luckily for us, the groom has a spiffy John Deere that doubled as the perfect loveseat and bouquet-tossing platform for the bride. See the whole shoot at http://www.churchhillphoto.com/al.
Image Copyright 2007 Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography, LLC. All Rights Reserved.

Engagement Portrait

Recently we had the pleasure of meeting Leigh and Matt. They commissioned our studio for their engagement portrait. What really works about this image is the relaxed pose. We always try to have couples close together and touching...just like they do in real life. After the shoot, we posted the couple's proofs online. This is the image they chose for their announcement. We find that online proofing helps clients share the images with friends and family. In this case, it was especially helpful since she lives out of town, as do her parents. To see what our online proofing system looks like, you can view this couple's shoot at www.churchhillphoto.com/leighmathew.
Image Copyright 2007 Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography, LLC. All Rights Reserved.