Chris Stolle for Delegate

A couple weeks ago, we went to Virginia Beach to photograph a Republican candidate for the VA House of Delegates, Chris Stolle. We got to the shoot and that's when I realized the Obama 'O8 bumper sticker was on my truck!

Fortunately, Chris's campaign manager, Missi Sousa (a worldly young woman direct from Washington D.C.,) wasn't phased in the least.

We spent the day with Chris, going to various locations and photographing him with lots of different folks who work and live in Virginia Beach.

Creating images of a candidate for office is just like creating images for any product or service. Our job is to visually tell a story about that person. Chris' campaign was in need of specific images to help tell his story; illustrating key issues in his platform.

One of the images the campaign needed was a casual portrait.. His "day job" is an OB-GYN at a local Tidewater hospital. He's senior staff at the hospital; sees patients along with evaluating the hospital's response to patient treatment in general. But "Dr. Chris" as I called him the day of the shoot, didn't need another white coat physician portrait. What he needed was an "I'm a taxpayer like you" across the kitchen table portrait. An accessible, next door neighbor approach was called for. My goal was to create an image that would make a good first impression with a voter who is just getting to know Chris.

The frame above is what the campaign chose for the campaign home page.

Copyright 2009, Elaine Odell, Church Hill Photography.

Easter Bee

Honeybee keeping is making a comeback. All the news about 'colony collapse disorder' has gotten environmentally-aware folks into bee keeping, which is a good thing for all of us.

A photographer friend, David Stover, has been keeping bees for a couple years. Now, my neighbor Stacy Moulds and her husband Charlie Field are going to start here in Church Hill (they went to bee-keeping class last week!)

Yesterday, I walked out of the studio to admire the redbud trees we planted a few years ago. I was surprised to see honey bees all over the blossoms.

Trying to photograph the tiny honey bees was challenging (for me, anyway) and I realized (again) why I'm not a nature photographer. I'll leave that to the wildlife pros like Lynda Richardson.

I shot this with one of my back-up cameras, the Canon 50D, hoping the multiplier effect of the smaller sensor would help get me "closer" to the tiny bees. I used a medium zoom 24mm-135mm lwna, with a screw-on +2 close-up filter, 200iso, 200th of a second at f11.

A honey bee moves faster than a 2 year-old on twinkies. Using auto-focus, I struggled to keep up. Shot a bunch of frames...I like this one because it shows the all-important pollen ball on the bee's right leg. I hope this bee and all it's bee-buddies make it back to the hive and live it up!