Yes, I’m still playing catch up. I’m sure your summer is just as busy as mine. Our days are filled with getting the kids ready and out the door, trying to make it to work on time, rushing home for dinner, then off to baseball or some other event. Since the days are longer, it seems that we linger outside just a little later than we should. So needless to say you can only imagine how our mornings are spent with two very sleepy heads, but I wouldn’t change it for the world! Nope…not even for a million dollars. Some nights as I am getting ready for bed, I just say a little prayer asking for more days like these. They might be rushed, but they are oh so precious!
Today I have three fantastic photographers to share with you. These ladies are talented, creative and extremely artistic. Please do yourself a favor and check out their work. You will be in for a treat!
I’d first like to introduce you to Kelly Mack of Kelly Mack Photography of Melbourne Australia. I consider her work to be dreamy and delightful. She tells such a powerful story with her color that you just get lost in her images. You can check out her recent work on Facebook or visit her Blog.
Kelly’s Feature Image:
About the image…
1.) Why do you love this image? It shows the magic of childhood
2.) What were your settings with this image? f 3.2 / 1/640 / 800
About Photography…
3.) What do you love about Photography? Learning new things, meeting new people and living creatively.
4.) What type of Photography do you specialize in and why? I’m a bit of an all rounder at the moment. I haven’t found my specialty as i am port folio building. I love it all!
5.) A good portrait means: Connection
6.) Who is your favorite female photographer? Zoe Berkovic
7.) Where are you from? Melbourne, Australia
8.) Are you formally educated or a self taught photographer? I’m a self taught photographer however I spent 4 years at art school studying Textiles, print and ceramics.
9.) Where do you go for inspiration? Lots of different places, the internet, magazines, a walk through the city. The usual stuff.
10.) What is the one thing that you tell every client? To relax and have fun!
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Next, I’d love to introduce you to the talented Emily Southerland. Emily’s work is lovely and if you follow her blog, you know that she’s a crafting genius. She’s like the MacGyver of all things artistic. Make sure you check out her recent project on her blog. She’s featuring her darling daughter every day since birth.
Meet Emily Southerland of Emily Southerland Photography located in St. Louis, Missouri. You can see her recent work on Facebook or on her blog.
Here is Emily’s Feature Image:
About the image…
1.) Why do you love this image? I love this shot because it is a perfect sample of MY STYLE. I love fun, I love whimsy, I love spontaneity… And a little bit of funky thrown in. This family was AWESOME to play with!
2.) What were your settings with this image? ISO 500, SS 1/125, aperture 4.0, lens 24-70L, natural light
3.) What do you love about Photography? I love catching perfect moments in crisp, beautiful color/black and white. I love seeing personality in my subject’s eyes. I love being able to preserve the RIGHT NOW for myself– a big sappy sentimentalist!– and to be able to do that for others as well.
4.) What type of Photography do you specialize in and why? I specialize in portraits of babies, kiddos, and teens… With family moments thrown in. I do love photographing couples in love, but most of my work leans towards the younger set. I particularly adore babies and high school seniors. I find myself drawn to this instead of weddings/landscape/macro because I love the spontaneity you get when you can arrange the best times and places for photographs. I love that I can get most any subject to let loose and really become themselves in front of the camera. And I love the intimacy of working with people, but in small numbers.
5.) What are your favorite hobbies and pastimes? I LOVE baking– particularly cupcakes. And I have discovered a passion for sewing that has taken over my imagination completely. I’m an artist at heart, and love love love creating something out of nothing. Fabric just happens to be my medium of choice these days. As for pastimes, I love going to movies, eating amazing food, exploring markets fairs and festivals, road-tripping, and playing board games with family and friends.
6.) Who or what inspires you? I am inspired by wildly creative people, most of whom I find online these days. Etsy artists, other photographers, designers… I am in awe of the original ideas out there that still exist. How do they come UP with that stuff???
I am also inspired by vintage, boho, gypsy, Anthropologie, my nostalgia for my own past, and my mother.
7.) Do you have any personal projects? Indulging my own creative projects has been my creative lifeblood these last weeks of winter. So far, I’ve taken a belly photo for each week of my third trimester (you can find them here: http://emilys-little…el/baby%20bumps), made an elaborate set of snowflakes and hearts for Valentine photos of my son (found here: http://emilys-little…entine-boy.html), and done a LOT of sewing and crafting. having personal projects keeps my creative well full and I LOVE doing them!
8.) What would your ideal day be like? Wow— this will be fun! My ideal day would begin in a breezy apartment in Rome, Italy, waking slowly to the sounds of the city outside my open windows. My hubby would be with me, and my kiddos asleep in another room. After a leisurely breakfast on a balcony/patio, we’d head out to explore the city with a stroller, good shoes, and some spending money. I’d also have my camera and journal in my bag, so that if the whim stuck me, I could stop and capture some of our day on paper or in photographs. We’d enjoy a mild, sunny day in piazzas, getting food from street vendors, sitting by a fountain to drink Orangina while the kids splash their hands in the water. We might check out some outdoor markets, watch painters doing their thing… take the kids to an outdoor puppet show…When we get a bit worn out, we’d head back to our apartment and everyone would get a nap, me included… I’d read a great book to fall asleep, and the open windows would waft city sounds to us as we dozed. In the late afternoon, when everyone woke, my sister would come and make us an amazing dinner from fresh marketplace ingredients, then stick around to babysit while Joe and I headed out to have a date together– perhaps some cinema, maybe some outdoor musicians, or just a stroll to get gelato and enjoy the night. The day would end with some romance *wink* and since my man goes to sleep before me, I’d then burn the late night hours away doing something creative, just for me, be it a sewing project, some painting, some altered art… Something. And I’d fall into bed exhausted, but completely content. Mm!
9.) Do you have happy and depressed moments during your creative cycle? This is such a pertinent question right now! I am extra pregnant these days, so 2011 has been a strange year for me so far, photography-wise. I usually barrel into a new year with ideas, schemes, goals, and creativity, ready to grow as an artist and grow my business. But this year, knowing I’ll not only have a maternity hiatus in the spring, but also have a slower year altogether as I learn how to be a mama to two, I’ve let myself “let go”, creatively. So I suppose you could consider this a “slump”. I am content with it for now, trusting that there is a season for everything, and that inspiration comes from all corners. I have faith that when the season to expand my photography comes again, I’ll be refueled and ready.
10.) Do you have any personal projects? Indulging my own creative projects has been my creative lifeblood these last weeks of winter. So far, I’ve taken a belly photo for each week of my third trimester (you can find them here: http://emilys-little…el/baby%20bumps), made an elaborate set of snowflakes and hearts for Valentine photos of my son (found here: http://emilys-little…entine-boy.html), and done a LOT of sewing and crafting. having personal projects keeps my creative well full and I LOVE doing them!
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Finally, I’d love to introduce you to the gifted Niki Strbian of Niki Strbian Valokuvaus located in gorgeous Finland. I am such a fan of Niki’s work. Her use of light and gorgeous settings keeps me coming back week after week for more. Please check out her recent work on Facebook or on her Blog.
Meet Niki Strbain:
Niki’s Feature Image:
About the image…
1.) Why do you love this image? Because it was created in an instant, because it tells about my love for hats and accessories and because it shows how photography enriched my life in so many ways. Not only I get to meet so many great people, not only families share their love for each other in front of me (even in such reserved country as Finland). On top of that photography taught me that there is nothing like bad weather. I used to be a sunshine junkie, but now I know that every minute of every day, independent of the weather conditions, there is something worth capturing out there. So I better get my butt out and capture it.
2.) What were your settings with this image? ISO 800, f/2,2, 1/2500 shot with 50/1.4
3.) What do you love about Photography? Everything. Anything. Connection with my clients. The excitement of finding locations. Seeing the light everywhere. Meeting the coolest people. Being free. Rocking 7 days old newborn babies in my arms. Making people happy. Creating memories that will last generations. Having a job that makes sense even for 5 year olds.
4.) What type of Photography do you specialize in and why? I specialize in newborn and children photography and in boudoir photography. Photographing a newborn is every time such a special experience. They are so tender and fragile and delicate, but at the same time strong. I love children, I love playing with them and children usually love me. I could not photograph landscape because I would be utterly bored. Children are everywhere, they don’t stop to pose, so you don’t have half hour to think about the perfect shot. It’s not like photographing Angelina Jolie where you tell her to sit down and be beautiful and she does. With children you have a split of a second if you are lucky. And I love the excitement of it. Maybe that’s why I enjoy boudoir as the total opposite kind of portrait photography. I enjoy making every woman feel beautiful and bringing out the lioness in her.
5.) What are your favorite hobbies and pastimes? Reading and actively spending time with my family. Reading is a dangerous activity, when I take a book into my hands, I fall through her pages into the story and I only emerge at the end of it. Hungry, thirsty and sleep deprived, and realize that I have a family too. So I only can afford reading once in a while. but with my family we go to school for circus artists, we ski in winter and swim and treck in summer.
6.) Who or what inspires you? I am inspired by my clients’ homes, hobbies and life styles. I am inspired a lot by fairy tales and movies and very much by my fellow photographers.
7.) Who are some of your favorite singers/bands? Luis Armstrong and Ella Fitzgerald
8.) What is your favorite movie of all time? This is a tough question. We watch every year before Xmas Love Actually, but I adore Disney movies and The Flight Across the Cockoo Nest. And a handful of Czech movies and Slovak movies too. I don’t really have a favorite movie, but I do like Al Pacino movies and Jack Nicholson’s earlier movies. And Meryl Streep in just about anything.
9.) What would your ideal day be like? It would be around 100 hours long, start with yoga, opulent breakfast in Tuscany, continue with swimming in the sea and reading, include a trip to a small medieval Tuscany town, a visit to a gallery, late afternoon photoshoot with a large fun family in their castle and on their vineyard and end up with a great dinner (four or five course, black truffel pasta and full bodied wine) with all the people I love. So it would be a laaaaaarge company. Oh and a midnight walk with my husband along a secluded beach. And maybe a drawing from my kids portraying our family.
10.) If you weren’t a photographer, what other profession would you like to pursue? I would not want to be anything else than a photographer. This is my dream that I never knew I had.
I’d love to say a big THANK YOU to these three talented ladies for allowing me to share a little about them and their photography today. Next week I will be featuring Rachel Abrele of Arna Photography.
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