Stowell Photography Blog

A couple of weeks ago I got a call from Julionna who is from Wyoming. She wanted to get her Senior pictures done while she was visiting in Utah.
We had a lot of fun, and got some really nice shots.

The first location was at the Harley Davidson Store in Lindon.  I love this location, this was my first time shooting here, and I really love the color and patterns at this location.

The second location we went is near the river bottoms in Provo.  The stream and green grass was a nice look.

She brought her cowboy boots, since of course she is from Wyoming!  I love it!!  I love when clients bring props to show a little bit about who they are.

She also wanted a few pictures in her soccer uniform.  We ran out of daylight, but had a little fun with the strobes.

We had a lot of fun.  Thanks Julionna for a great photo shoot.

I have been really bad at posting to my blog.  Maybe, I will be able to be better at posting here.

A couple of weeks ago, I had the privilege to take senior pictures of Melissa.  We had a lot of fun, this was the first time I have taken pictures in downtown Provo, Utah.  I got there an hour early so that I could scout and find some good places to go.  I was able to find a bunch of different places, but we ended up staying at the first location the entire time.  The variety of different types of shots in one block location was great.  There was even a graffiti wall which we didn’t take any pictures.

This first picture was taken in front of a cool green door.  Having her look towards the open sky gives her eyes a nice look.  This is cropped in really close.  I love the detail that comes from the 24-70 lens.

This time of year is great.  We were able to find a great backdrop for this next picture.  The tree had new blossoms and it was perfect for this shot.   Melissa loved this chair and brought it along for the shoot.  I love when clients bring props that help bring out their personality. The colors came out great and worked perfectly with this chair.

We moved the chair into the parking lot next.  I REALLY love how this next picture turned out.  It is a really fun and comfortable pose.  I love how it looks with the parking signs in the background.

This next shot was taken against one of the building walls.  Guess what the green background is?  The dumpster.  I loved the rich green it gave.  With such a shallow depth of field, you are unable to tell what it is.  I also added an overlay to this picture.

I am going to end this post with a fun picture.  She is going to hair cutting school, so we did a fun picture with her scissors.

I had the opportunity to shoot another senior portrait session in downtown Salt Lake City.  What a fun location.  We just parked the car and walked around from one location to another.  Each location offering something completely different.

Despite having another cold day, Kaylee did an excellent job and it was a fun outing.

I love this first picture, her blond hair against this red/black wall turned out awesome.  Having such distinct colors really stood out with Kaylee.  This shot was taken near the end of our session, the colors of this wall are very rich, being mostly by my lighting.

The next pose she had in mind from a picture she had seen from a family members senior pictures.  I love it.  She looks great and the angles really make this shot.  Thanks for the pose idea!

This next picture was taken at the same location.  I tried doing a cross processing look but only about 40% of the cross process I allowed to show through.  This really brings out her eyes.  I love the sharpness and blueness to the entire photograph this look gave.

This fun graffiti wall was actually our very first picture.  It was not a planned stop, but it was right next to where we found a parking spot for the cars.  The majority of the graffiti is behind a locked gate, but this little section was perfect to get some fun graffiti shots.

The next location was a more modern looking structure.  It was the first time I have seen this location, but I love the repeating columns that you get.

Now we just turned and walked about 100 yards and we lose the modern look and change back to old busted bricks.  Love it!!!

Towards the end of the shoot we found a dark alley with this great door.  Just crazy the things you will find.  I love her blond hair against these dark colors of this door/wall.

Another red wall!

When we were taking pictures at our first location, we had some guys come out of the building next door and ask us if we wanted to come in and take some pictures inside.  They were at the location doing some pluming work, so of course we couldn’t pass up a unique location shoot!  It was really dark in the building, so the lighting is fully my strobes.

Another alley towards the end of the shoot, as you can see it is getting darker.  I really loved all these shots in the alley.  So much fun.

The last shots I am going to show here were taken at the Gallivan center.  More modern city type shots.

I really had a fun time shooting this session, I had an extremely hard time picking pictures to show on the blog.  If Kaylee has as hard of a time picking out which pictures she wants, then that is a good indication to me that it was a successful photo session.

Enjoy Kaylee.

Leave me a comment on what you thought.  You can view the entire album here:  http://stowell.smugmug.com/Portraits/Kaylee-Rogers

My last photo shoot of the year 12/31/09 was Sage’s senior pictures.  Sage did a great job posing for these pictures while toughing  it out in the freezing temperature.  It was a pretty chilly day, plus the alley’s that we shot the pictures in were a little breezy.  We went downtown Salt Lake City for these shots.  I had a few alley’s picked out ahead of time and we hit 3 of them. The fun part about this location is the different style pictures you can get.  One of the locations they change the graffiti often so you never know what you are going to get until you get there.

It is funny to see the faces of the people you bring to some of these locations.  They don’t look like anything great, but the pictures usually turn out good.  One thing that I have learned about photos is, less is more.   Rather than looking for a location that has it all, often it is the location that doesn’t have too many distractions, has cool patterns and older textures.  Keeping the images simple and less distracting will often bring the best photos.

This first picture is one of my favorites from the shoot.  There actually is a lot that I love, but a few things I like about this one.  I like the simple small smile that she is giving.  Her legs are positioned which gives her good lines as well as shows off some fun graffiti on the window.  I did a little post processing with this image.  I added a texture to it, where you can see it showing up in the window and some on the bricks behind Sage.

Here is another picture in the same location.  It has a cross processing effect applied to it.  I am a fan of this type of look.  I like the muted colors and the fashion look.

Next we moved to our second location.  This location is an alley with a  graffiti wall.  This graffiti is what gets changed every so often.  It was a fun location, I love how the colors came out in this first photo.

The final location for our shoot was another alley.  This time it was a staircase on the back of a building.  I love the leading lines that it brings to the pictures.

I hope you enjoyed these images.  If you would like to see more from this shoot, they can be found at http://stowell.smugmug.com/Portraits/Sage-Lewis