Author Archive: ken

Yesterday I went to the Bass Mansion open house. For those of you that don’t know what the Bass Mansion is, it’s a historic home that is the hub of St. Francis University. It was built in 1889 and rebuilt (as the result of a fire) in 1903. It’s been many things over the years and is now going to be used for receptions as well as office space. The university just finished a major rennovation (about $6 million) and yesterday invited the public in to see the results. The building is breath taking, to say the least. It’s amusing to see how people lived back then. For instance, the bedrooms were nice and ornate, but not as large as I expected. Anyway here are some snapshots from yesterday.

The exterior of the mansion

The ceiling of the conservatory

The dome ceiling of the ballroom

A bedroom door

Intricate inlayed floor

The Dining Room

The mural on the wall of the dining room

Thanks for reading, if you ever get the chance to tour this building it’s worth your time. It’s beautiful.

-Ken

The photo below was shot last about two weeks ago while I was doing the Elph Project. That’s why I’m late posting it. The photo was created by blending strobe lighting with the ambient room light. The only room light was created by two small table lamps. If you’ve been to my studio you noticed the sitting area is kinda dark. Natasha, the subject, was lit with a combination of both the ambient light and also a small strobe. An f/1.2 lens was used to create the background blur and control depth of field.

That a great thing about photography, the number of different techniques that create unique looks is only limited by your imagination.

Thanks for reading.

-Ken

This weekend I shot senior pictures for a Canterbury School student, Lauren. We had a blast and got a ton of good photos. I just started working on her proofs and thought I’d share a few shots. I need to get in the habit of blogging every week. After publishing photos every day last month, I’m kinda blogged out. 🙂

Anyway, here are a few shots of Lauren:

Ok, thanks for looking and reading. That’s it for today. I’ll be updating things again next week.

-Ken

I decided to try something new for me. The goal it take one photo a day for a month. I’m not going to put any boundries on subject matter or style, but I am going to constrain myself to shooting these photos with only a Canon Elph SD1300 camera. It is a 12 megapixel point and shoot camera. The whole point of doing this is to see if eliminating all the techical aspects will allow me to concentrate on subject matter and composition. While photography is always a technical art, being forced to rely on composition may teach me something. In any case it will be a fun endeavor.

I am going to start on October 1st and try to post a photo each day for the month. They may be artistic, humorous, or simply snapshots. I not sure what I’ll shoot but it may be entertaining and educational. In any case, it will likely spark some new ideas.

I think it’s alway good to try new things and consider new and different perspecitives. It’s how we learn and grow. Anyway, we’ll see how it goes. 🙂

Oct 31 - Commercial Shoot

Oct 30 - Tasha's Clothes

Oct 29 - Stop

Oct 28 - Cloud

Oct 27 - Fabric

Oct 26 - Rain

Oct 25 - Cork

Oct 24 - Gate

Oct 23 - Zero

Oct 22 - Lights

Oct 21 - Brick

Oct 20 - Shadow

Oct 19 - Rice

Oct 18 - Tree

Oct 17 - Sleepy Kate

Oct 16 - Spinning

Oct 15 - Five

Oct 14 - Dressing Room

Oct 13 - Steering Wheel

Oct 12 - Shower

Oct 11 - Water

Oct 10 - Cold Cup, Warm Day

Oct 9 - Flower

Oct 8 - Lettuce

Oct 7 - My Office

Oct 6 - Arby's

Oct 5 - My First Camera

Oct 4 - Kate and Abby

Oct 3 - Self Portrait, from the equipment locker

Oct 2 - Front Door

Oct 1 - My Chucks

This week I shot a working model (Emma Meyer) who recently signed with the Ford Agency in Chicago. We shot a variety of looks and poses, although I am only posting one shot. She was lots of fun to shoot with and is a really talented model. As usual I have been also shooting more commercial work. The shots below are are for a tool and die company’s sales brochure.

Emma in blue fabric.

A bit for a vertical mill machine

A machine die at f/1.2.

Once again, thanks for reading the blog and I’ll try to have something more interesting for next week.

-Ken

OK, I apologize again for waiting so long to post a blog entry. A couple of weeks ago I attended a workshop by Joyce Wilson, a legendary fine art photographer. I was going to post something about what I learned and the way I view fine art photography. I got started on the post and then kept making changes to it. As a result, I’m still not happy with it. So I’ll just post a couple of photos from various projects (both commercial and portrait) I’ve been working on.

Well that’s it for today. I will work on the fine art post soon.

Thanks for reading!!

-Ken

Sorry, I’m behind on updating the blog, but there’s been a lot going on the past month. I should be able to keep things more current going forward.

This past week I got the chance to shoot some senior pictures for a Canterbury student, Emily. It was a really fun shoot, although rain kept us from shooting at one final location.  Overcast days make for a great shooting environment, especially when you bring lighting gear. 

Using an Octobox and Strip box.

Natural light

In the studio.

That’s it for now. Thanks for reading!!!

-Ken

While visiting with my brother-in-law and sister-in-law this week, I saw an interesting window scene. The afternoon light made for nice light and provided some diverse dynamic range to the window sill.

This was shot with all natural light. However I have to admit, I did add a McDonald’s napkin stuck to a straw as a fill reflector to light the back side of the bottles on the right of the image. It’s always a photographer’s job to improvise to get the shot. 🙂

Lots of stuff going on, but not a lot of time this week to work on the blog.

Thanks for reading!!!

-Ken

Thanks to everyone for their thoughts and prayers. The past couple of weeks have been difficult for me and my family. Getting back to work has been a good thing and has helped in dealing with the loss.

Lately, I’ve been shooting a variety of stuff encompassing commercial and portrait photography. Here are a few samples of a senior shoot from this weekend.

This is a sample from a commercial shoot from last week. Clutches rock!! 🙂

That’s it for this week. Thanks for reading!!!

– Ken

Sorry, I didn’t post anything last week. I had a death in the family and was unable to update my blog. Hopefully, I’ll add something this upcoming week. Thanks for reading and thanks for understanding.

-Ken