The Written Picture

It Doesn't Feel Right Yet

I recently upgraded to this camera, and I'm still trying to work out all the kinks. My hands don't know what to do yet. I'm fumbling with dials and switches. But still, here are some early shots.

I'm sure I'll get there at some point.

But in the meantime, it doesn't help when this is what you have to work with:

Amen.

Mini Sessions now available

This is the fast-food equivalent of a session with me. A lot of people have asked for mini-sessions. I don't know if I'll do them forever, but I'm doing them for now as my schedule allows. Here are the details:

Mini-sessions will include:

• up to 15 minutes of shooting
• 1 location
• 1 outfit  

This is perfect for:

• people who need budget friendly Senior portraits
• children's portraits
• resume or professional head shots
• quick family portraits or engagement or anniversary photos
• profile pictures for Facebook or other social/professional networks

This is NOT perfect for:

• larger families (unless you only want a couple of large group photos)
• individual portraits of more than one child
• Senior portraits with multiple locations and outfit changes
• far-away locations

Details:

• $50 session fee which includes:
• 3-5 images on CD (I choose the images)
• all photos edited in color only
• $25 fee for editing the photos in black and white and "urban" or adding any text - name, year, etc. (note: $25 will include additional editing for all photos on your CD)

You can see my rates page HERE. Questions? Email me at kckenlin[at]yahoo[dot]com

Best thing about this time of year?

Yep. It's the shoes.

I love shooting seniors... especially when I'm wrong.

I'm not gonna lie. I love photographing seniors more than anything else. They're finally getting a chance to be who they want to be and this is their moment to express it. Sometimes, they're just taking senior pictures to make their mamas happy. And also because that's what everyone else is doing. But I still like to try to figure out who they are and how to show what I see. And how to get them to be who they are with a camera pointed at them.

At first I didn't figure Tanner was a smiler. He has a dirt bike and a cool car. He wears t-shirts and hoodies. He seemed like the type of person that doesn't smile a lot.

And that's OK.

I don't care if a senior smiles or doesn't smile. I don't care if their parents want them to smile. I am more interested in figuring out who a person is and photographing that. I hate posing people. Of course you have to do that a little bit. You can buy expensive posing guides to help you, but poses don't interest me. I'm interested in who I'm shooting. I'm interested in making them look how they really are to their friends and the people who love them. I don't want to make them into anything other than what they are - what they are is not only good enough, it's the best thing they could possibly be. But sometimes it takes a second to figure out who that is.

"How would you stand?" I ask. I might cross my arms, put my hand on my hip. "Like this?" They shrug. "What do you do if you're just hanging out with your friends?" That's when they slouch, shove their hands in their pockets, and lean up against a wall. And that's when I start shooting.

I snapped some photos to warm up and Tanner didn't smile or frown. He smirked. I loved what I was seeing. He looked cool and detached, just how I thought he should look. So I showed it to him. He commented that he hated his smirk, that it was crooked. His mom said that look usually comes with an eye roll.

"No it doesn't."

"Yes it does."

"I don't even know how to roll my eyes," he said, and then rolled them very dramatically. We all laughed. I didn't want to fight it. "OK," I said. "Don't smile at all this time and let's see what that looks like." Here's what I got:

Of course I did manage to get him not to smile a few times, though I had to work at it. Just so he could have that "cool" look after all.

I love it when I'm wrong. I love it when I think I know about someone and they surprise me. Taking photographs of people is a lot like reading a really good book. Just when you get to the best part, the book is over and you move on to the next one. Which is always a little sad.

Thank you Tanner and Tanner's mom for letting me capture that beautiful smile.

It's that time of year...

I've mentioned before that my little girl dances. Dress rehearsal was last night and we have two performances over the weekend. Here's what I'll be seeing and photographing:

Hope your weekend is just as good!

Georgia on my mind

When Georgia turned 60, her kids wanted to surprise her. Of the four of them, only two live close. Of the other two, one is a couple of hours away and the other is a whole state away. So they traveled home in secret to surprise her... not just for the day, but for the weekend. And that weekend included pictures.

When I photographed them, I thought about how easy this family seemed with one another. I loved how their kids all played like they see each other all the time. Like they still seem involved and close even though some of them live a state away.

And that made me think about aspen trees. I've heard that aspen are the largest living organism. Underneath the soil, down where you can't see, the roots are all tangled up and twisted together. The aspen survive as one living being even though the trees on the surface appear separate.

I think families are the same. And underneath where you can't see, you're always all tangled up with your family. For better or worse. In this case, it seemed for better.

So with that in mind, I wanted to take a portrait of Georgia at 60. But I didn't want the backdrop to be the usual things, I wanted it to be her family. Almost 40 years of her life have been spent as a Mom. It's part of who she. And it was my favorite shot of the day.

But I think the best comment came from a friend on Facebook who saw it: "Just a small glimpse of how one person can touch many lives."

Amen.

Happy Birthday, Georgia!

Happy Mother's Day to me

These are the only things I'm going to do today:

I might shop for one of these:

Or maybe one of these:

Or maybe even one of these:

 

Hope your day is just as non-productive!

Inspiration comes from the strangest places:

They might come home amazing.

(This was inspired by a comment I left on this post. The more I thought about it, the more I decided I wanted to tell it here.)

Last summer, my little boy (who was days from his 6th birthday) suddenly started bruising everywhere. Inside his mouth. Under his eyes. On the end of a finger. Everywhere. It ended with a trip to the E.R. and a ride via ambulance to a Children's Hospital almost an hour away and the underlying fear that it could be Leukemia. After a day and a half in the ICN unit and a team of hematologists, we were told that it was a severe case of ITP. Basically, his immune system started attacking his platelets after he'd been mildly ill with a cold and low grade fever. Normal platelet counts are 150,000-450,000. 10,000 is considered critical. Our little guy's count was 2,000.

I went from an after-hours call to the doctor, to Prompt Care (where I was taken out of the room and questioned), to the E.R. (knowing the police would be called if I didn't show up), to a Children's Hospital in the big city. I went from hinted accusations to nurses hugging me and wishing us luck.

I couldn't break down because you can't break down in front of your children. Not about this anyway. I couldn't say, "I'm so afraid. Will it be OK?" Because I had to be the one telling my little guy it would all be OK. Everyone around us remained cheerful. They had to be. "Wanna watch cartoons, buddy?" "Here pick out some stickers." "Wanna take a ride in this bed?" But then to me, their voices lowered. "What men have had access to him?" "Are you with him 24 hours a day?" "If you see blood when he goes to the bathroom, get us immediately."

At 10:00 p.m. we got the news that we'd be traveling to a children's hospital. I thought I would lose it. I was trying so hard not to throw up. I can't do this, I kept thinking. I can't ride in an ambulance with my 5-year-old. I considered asking the nurse for a bowl in case I did throw up. There was no way I could take that trip. There was no way I could ride for an hour, waiting to see the outcome.

Four EMTs arrived (the children's hospital has its own ambulance). They were cheerful and talkative. They looked normal. We looked normal. Inside I was dying. I cannot do this. I cannot face this. I cannot handle this.

I was the one who rode in the ambulance while my husband took our daughter to her grandparents' house and then met us later. So other than having my little boy in the back, I was alone with strangers.

I broke the trip into pieces. Just get up into the ambulance. Just get through that. Then as we started moving. Just drive. Don't worry about what's coming. Just watch the road. I didn't think I had enough strength to walk into a children's hospital, to watch my little boy be put into a room. I will start throwing up when that happens. But my biggest fear was that on the worst night of my life, I would have to talk about the weather for an hour. I can't do this. I can't be normal right now.

The ambulance driver was a pilot who'd served in Iraq and Afghanistan. Two different deployments. And he was young. So much younger than me. I can't imagine the things he'd seen. He was very quiet, but when I asked about his service, he talked a lot about it. The hardest part, he said, was coming back and seeing our headlines - NBA star not getting enough money, stars divorcing, etc. That was the hardest thing to get used to after the things he'd seen.

One of his jobs was to fly patients to say goodbye to their families. Sometimes to the states, but more often to Germany or another closer location because there wasn't time. They couldn't have made it.

"Were they conscious? Did they know they were being flown to say goodbye?" He nodded. Yes, sometimes. It was his job to give these families their very last moments together.

And he'd loved serving.

For me, the pairing was perfect. If I would've had to listen to someone cheerfully chattering about anything insignificant, I would've lost it. I felt like he was the only one willing to let me feel the seriousness of what was happening. He was quiet, somber, reflective. I think it was his experience that gave him the ability to know what I needed. He'd been in this position many times. He'd seen real suffering.

I'll never forget his name. I'll never forget his face. I'll never forget how he said that helping people was his passion, that to know that he made a difference to someone meant everything to him. And I'll never forget how it felt to be delivered to the hospital and then to watch him walk down the hallway and feel like everything solid was slipping away.

I can't imagine the horrors of war or what soldiers and medics over there have to see. They might come home wounded or scarred in body and spirit. They might come home broken, drunk, addicted, hopeless, lost. But there is a chance that they will come home amazing. That this will make them better (as cliche as that sounds). That someday on the worst night of your life, they will be the only thing that makes sense. How amazing they must already be to have signed up for that.

If you are serving in this war, thank you.

If you have served in any war, thank you.

If you have served and kept peace, thank you.

I think you are amazing.

* * *

P.S. My little guy is fine now. While it can take months to get better, 4 weeks later, his platelet count was completely normal. His doctors were amazed. And to that, I give God all the glory, but that's a post for another time.