JAMES HODGINS PHOTOGRAPHY

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.

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Stay tuned for our Monday night

blog post for all the info.

Your Business Portrait shouldn’t look like a mugshot,
unless it’s a mugshot by James Hodgins Photography

Mug Shot Day December 18th,2010

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When we photographed the Leroy family earlier last week, I also photographed the daughters individually (In case mom wanted to create a wall college from the session).   As photographers we tend to stick with what we learned, and that is when photographing a portrait, try using a lens of at least 85MM or more.  I tend to use my 85mm F1.8 or my 70-200 MM F2.8 so that I can create a shallow DOF so that my subjects pop our of the image.    For this image below I thought I would break out my good ol trusted 50 MM.  A very standard simple lens (for most of us that started photography using “Film” this was the standard lens, no it’s all zooms that comes with the camera body).  I forgot just awesome this cheap lens is at achieving the same look.  I now have 2 50mm lenses, one is a macro lens for my closeups, but the other I bought a long long time ago for $149 and now they are available for $139 at most retail stores.    It’s small, it’s plastic, but it’s SHARP!  Personall, I think all photographers should carry a 50mm in their arsenal of equipment.

Well I am all set to get back into the grind and start pumping out more kickbutt images.  I had a great week at our Inferno Convention and I came home motivated and drained at the same time.  I now have taken a few days off doing nothing but Xbox and Quading (Thank you Mr. Kinsella) and today I gutted my work station and recreated a workstation “Suite”.  I found that I didn’t have enough desktop space to really get into multitasking.  Too many things todo and not enough space to do them in all at once.  Well that isn’t the problem anymore.  I upgraded my desktop to a AMD Phenom II x 4 processor with 8 gigs of ram and Windows 7 64 bit system with dual monitors (soon to be triple).   I have now installed versions of all my workflow software and increased my arsenal with a few new additions that I have been planning on purchasing for a while.  So starting tomorrow, it’s back to the grind and posting every day (or close to it).  Once I get my video editing software installed I will be posting more from our inferno.  Here is a quick snap of my new workstation.

Note: No staples employees were harmed in the making of this workstation.

We are posting this now as we have had many requests to accommodate those parents that have  already received their “Crappy School Pictures” from their childrens school  and are little bit “dissapointed” with them.  I have had moms tell us that they will not even order any of the images because A. They do not look good.  B. Their child is not smiling & C. Well, A & B were reasons enough so we are going have a “Crappy School Picture Day” at the James Hodgins Photography Studio.  We will give you all a heads up on the date or dates, the packages etc.  The session will be no more than 15 minutes and you will be able to view the images immediately and walk away knowing that you have a great image to show off to all your friends and family.  I was very surprised at the quality of  school images some companies are producing and there are a few factors that  contribute to the final product.  School photography is an assembly line production “Next, sit, look here, smile, click, Next”.  How can your child feel comfortable in this environment?

We just finished photographing Mya’s school portrait and I will be honest this was the first image I captured.  By the time she stepped in front of the camera she was comfortable, talking, smiling and having fun.  Stay tuned for this upcoming promotion or sign up for blog notifications to be notified on all the details.  If your interested in a session now and you can’t wait call Joce and we will squeeze you in.