JAMES HODGINS PHOTOGRAPHY

While it’s raining and gloomy outside  I can’t help but think about the great summer we had photographing family portraits.  Most of our family sessions took place at peoples homes on the lake or at their cottages.    This summer we plan on creating more stunning outdoor family portraits for our clients and we can’t wait to start planning our summer season.  Already we are booking up the summer months so if your are interested your start thinking about it now, or betting yet give us a call so we can start planning.

Today I had the great privilege of photographing  Louis L’Allier PhD  Associate Professor, Classical Studios at Laurentian University.  Louis needed a photograph of himself to grace the next cover of   www.avoslivres.ca/magazine.  He also wanted something for himself to use as his own bio pic on the back of his published books and works.    Louis picked a great room attached to the L.U’s Library that provided some great ambient light along with some warm incandescent backlight.  I opted to mix the ambient with some Off Camera Flash to create an image where Louis would “pop” out of the frame, but still have the background compliment the rest of the image without being distracted.  I’m not sure which image the magazine will use for their cover, but the below image is one that Louis and Myself liked for his own use.  The book in the portrait is a  very old (hundreds of years) Greek Book that is part of the Greek History Louis Loves and teaches.

Here is a photograph I took while presenting a live webinar for Photography Schoolhouse on how to “pose” a female.  Along with everything else “female” posing is just as hard to understand.  It takes practice and when done correctly, should look natural and comfortable. You would never know that these to beautiful ladies just met a few minutes before I setup this shot.

I just couldn’t resit capturing a portrait of these two friends.  Everyone who owns a pet know that they are more than that, they are our closest friends.

Playing around with some images from one of our recent family shoots.  After receiving several canvas clusters from our lab, I thought I would create one from this session.  Sometimes it’s not about having 1 big image for the wall, but clustering several images to occupy more space.  You can hang multiple prints strategically placed on the wall, or you can cluster them all together on “one” print that occupies the same space.  Soooo many possibilities.  I love showcasing the complete family this way.

When Marissa came into our studio for her portrait consultation  last week she made the mistake of telling me that Sean wasn’t one for pictures.  Especially since the session was going to be held on his birthday.  Me being me, I sent her home with some “smiling” exercises that I jotted down on a piece of paper to give to Sean for practice until the session.  Of course, there was nothing on the paper, but boy I would have loved to seen his face as she explained it to him.  LOL.    We had the pleasure tonight to photograph Sean & Marissa along with their beautiful Husky “Willow” on their 75 acre lot West of Sudbury.  Fields, creeks, trails, this property had it all.  After getting the tour from Sean we quickly jumped right in to the portraits making sure we got Willows attention from the squirrel, wind, smells and everything outdoorsy.  As the sun was starting to set, we found some great spots with nice lighting and backgrounds.   Marissa & Sean, thanks again for having us out at your house.  You have a gorgeous property and we both enjoyed photographing the three of you.

We just finished Darcie’s Fire Hot Maternity session a little while ago in the studio.  You might remember Darcy from her Firefighter Calendar Shoot we did last year for the Sudbury Fire Fighters.  Well, in true Firefighter spirit, Darcie wanted something different for her session, so she brought in her bunker gear and her belly and we set fire to the studio to get this shot.  Just joking.  We did however have to make this image the last, because after this, the studio was too smokey to continue.  It really didn’t matter as we got the image that she wanted in the first few shot.  Thanks Darcie for making this Maternity Session something “different”, and HOT!

The Pappano’s were back with another kickbutt family portrait.  It’s been almost two years since their last one (Take a peak here), and this time they brought the Pinkerton’s and McNabb’s to throw into the mix.  Joce and I couldn’t believe how the Pappano girls have grown into beautiful young ladies in such a short time  and there was no shortage of smiles from each of them during the session.  As I said in my earlier posts, we LOVE photographing families!!! It’s so much fun, especially when the family are having a good time throughout the session.   We have  4 (FOUR) generations in this family and Jerry (Great Grandmother) has just as much energy as anyone else in this portrait.  We have sooooooooooooo many good images to post in the future, and of course I always will post one, but I thought I would post two, just to show you how we wrapped up the session.  Thanks again everyone, it’s families like yours that keeps reminding us why we love photography.

Do you know what goes on Monday evenings at Ramsey lake when it’s nice outside?  Pretty well everything, including dragon boat practice (try finding a parking spot).  We were scheduled to photograph the Lavoie family earlier this evening at Bell Park to show some Sudbury Rock and Water, but made  a last ditch effort to change locations to someplace that wasn’t as busy.  Luckily Bob had a family cottage on Ramsey that has been in the family for over 90 years and was conveniently located minutes away.  Waiting for the sunlight to simmer down we walked around the property utilizing rocks, docks and driveways.  The first photograph had me chest high in the water to place the sunlight behind them for a more pleasing image, luckily I wasn’t wearing white shorts.

Thanks again Bonnie, Bob, Kurtis, Brenen, Bennett & Remi.  We had a great time with you all tonight.

Sometimes you get a bunch of dogs that can just sit, stay and listen.  When this happens, you can forget about the ducttape, crazy glue, and hot glueguns.