Readin' up on Landon

Check out the first shot of this blog entry...

There's Tuesday's senior... Landon.

Symbolically sitting.... in the middle of the road.

He didn't think it has symbolism... he just figured his photographer was wack and enjoyed putting him somewhere he shouldn't be for a picture.

But I see it as much more.

It's my job to get a read on seniors... figure out what makes 'em tick in a matter of minutes and then bring that out. I hear that alot from folks... "you really brought out their personality." That could be... I guess... I think it may just be a result from making people COMFORTABLE with having their portrait made. Chicken and the egg? Perhaps.

Regardless... Landon here was such an easy goin' guy. Never too high... never too low. Even keel. You guessed it... middle of the road. (insert groans here if you want.... but there's truth to what I say).

Mother Jana was along for the ride Tuesday... and she definitely was tilting towards the side of the road that was the friendly/excited/chipper/needing-surgery-to-remove-the-smile-from-her-face end of things. And boy was this gal organized.... Granted, it wasn't a Rockstar session with 16 outfits... but the ones we did have were pressed, presentable and, I must say... excellent choices... Solid colors... long sleeves.... BRAVO!

Oh yeah... check Landon's Dodge Pickup. 1993... only 50,000 miles or so... killer ride... personalized plates... LLREAD. Sweetness.

"I'll take Rebels for $500, Alex"

Ok, forgive the Jeopardy reference...

My Monday was filled by a gal from Gladbrook-Reinbeck that was taking advantage of a school inservice day to get her senior pictures done. (that's just savvy planning by Mama Laurie!) Sleepin' in on your day off? No way! Time to rock the senior session!

And that's just what we did as Alex kept me hoppin' from beginning to the very end. I won't say that she saved the very best for last, because her other images are kickin', too... but the first one you see here is dang cute as the dichotomy of a princesses' frills are clashing with the cleats of an athlete in perhaps the most unique image we captured Monday.... and it WAS the last thing we did that day. ;-)

Call me crazy... but it was kinda nice getting a break from all the sunshine we've been having of late so I could get to some spots that are normally reserved for overcast days. Case and point... Alex had mentioned that she wanted something in the middle of a road... Check it... it's probably my fav.

Special thanks to Laurie for throwing her hat into the ring to win our coveted Positive Mom of the Year Award. (ok... there isn't such a thing... but you get the picture). In addition... hats off to sophomore lil' sis, Kayla, who gave up her morning off to join us for the festivities.

Your voice, was the soundtrack to my summer

Summer 2009 expired this week and one of our last seniors of the season was the long awaited and much anticipated Anna Jo.

Anna and her mother Val and sister Haley and I have crossed paths many times over the years between sessions at the studio and dance pictures for the Dance Konnection and promo images for Five Star Real Estate where mom works.

Val had called early on knowing full well where she wanted to send her daughter for senior images. I was pleased with their decision, but not surprised as Val has been a great deal of help during our now annual trek to the Marshalltown YMCA/YWCA Cutural Center for the flat out CRAZY night that is picture-night for the aforementioned Dance Konnection, led by the photographer's former 2nd grade buddy-slash-reading period torrid-elementary school-lover, Kimi Kups-Benson. HA! ;-)

Anyway... Mama Val is always TONS of help, not too mention that Anna too has stuck around to the bitter 11 p.m. end to help load up stuff in the H3... and was this past year, awarded the coveted honor of driving the Hummer around to get it into position to load up. She got another chance to do just that on Friday as she was big pimpin' in Montour as she was rollin' down the gravel on Washington Street like no other.

I couldn't end this blog without mentioning something I thought was very cool. Anna is most likely 17 or 18 years old and has a 6th grade sister in little firecracker Haley. While, in many cases, I see this dynamic falling into the likely scenario of the older sibling being WAY TOO COOL to give the middle school aged turd the time of day.... nothing could be further from the truth in this case. Haley came along for some sibling shots and, while maybe they were doing a great job of faking it... I got the impression that Anna truly enjoyed the company of her little sis. They had actually planned together the image that you see below, but we have several others that show how close they really are. I dig that. Hats off, big sis.... you're the bomb.... and an excellent example for Haley to follow. ;-) Mom should be proud... and I have no doubt that she is.

Jumpin' ahead with Justin

With guys like this, I normally have a strategy...

He's really only here for senior pictures for two reasons.

1) To look cool with his snowmobile and 4-wheeler.

2) Because Mom says so.

And not necessarily in that order.

So, being the 16-year veteran that I am... I've learned that if I'm to keep the attention of a fella that REALLY would rather be somewhere ELSE than having senior pictures taken... I had BEST push the ONE thing he's looking forward to ..... till the END of the session.

Why? So we keep his attention, of course!

Thursday morning, I had to go off script, however. It was another in what seems like an endless run of beautiful sunny days... So, with that in mind, we needed to get that snowmobile and 4 wheeler photographed as early as possible. So, we did that right out of the gate.

The good news is that we got some really good stuff with Justin's toys. The bad news is... Justin lived up to expectations. ;-) Grumpy at the end... Justin was never far from a big 'ol smile though between the barrage of razzing from his photographer, mother Brenda and her boyfriend Tony. Ok... that's not in order either. Tony was the razzer extraordinaire.

Interesting side note: Tony was telling me that he worked part time for Larry's Towing in Marshalltown. I then drew on the ONE time I had anything towed in my life. Prior to owning the H3... we had the legendary blue 1991 Plymouth Voyager mini van. We were 2 hours away in Corydon, Iowa, to photograph a wedding when the transmission quit. I told Tony that I was pretty sure that I called Larry's to have it towed back to Marshalltown. Mind you this would have been 1997... so my memory had faded a little.

Tony asked me again where this was... I said... "Corydon.... way southern Iowa... near the Missouri border." He says, "Hey! I made that run that night."

I remember feeling sorry for the guy that got told on a Saturday night that he was gonna have to drive a 4 hour round trip to a small southern Iowa town and back. I now know who actually had to do it.

Small world.

All Jordans, all the time...

Something musta been in the water 18 years ago.

Was there a soap opera star named Jordan that everyone liked?

Is it the influence of Michael Jordan?

Whatever it is... we've seen a plethora of Jordan's this senior season as Wednesday afternoon saw our SECOND Jordan of the day... and FIFTH overall this year.

Garlich, Seymour, Merschbrock, Street and finally Meyer have all graced our presence in the past three months... and if there's one common thread... they ALL have sweet senior pics, enuff said. ;-)

So Jordan No. 5 came in as Sister No. 2 as we photographed Jessica (MHS '07) a couple years back. I could be wrong... but I don't remember photographing the four-legged show-stealer that we had on Wednesday.

The name? Meatball. How sweet is that? Meatball gets my vote for the best dog name ever. Scroll down and check out our bulldog guest.... it fits.

Finally, the other highlight of the day came at the very end as we got some killer images of Jordan with her Pontiac G6. The very LAST image we did of the day is the very FIRST image on the blog here. Jordan and her mom and I won't soon forget it as we all 3 were laughing hysterically as our senior nearly slid right off the hood while trying to get this shot!

Nothing ventured... nothing gained.