today's portraits, tomorrow's treasures

Soulful Jo

Thursday, March 8, 2012 Posted in Children, Photography Competitions, PPW (Professional Photographers of Washington), Studio Portraits

As I’ve received all my prints and have started preparing them for the PPW (Professional Photographers of Washington) annual print competition that’s occuring in a few weeks, I realized I didn’t post the last portrait that’s being entered. As the saying goes, I’ve saved the best for last!

For those that know me, I think you’ll recognize the young lady in this portrait as my oldest daughter, Joanna. I’m not sure who is more excited about this image going to competition…. me or Jo…. but I am truly blessed to have someone like Jo who is not only willing to to be my model and has been so patient with me these past four years as I’ve turned a passion for photography into what JKE Photography has become. Beyond being my model, she also loves sitting with me at the computer as we go through the proofs and designing the portrait. I just LOVE her energy and enthusiam!!!

Without further adieu, presenting:

Soulful Jo

Thank you, Joanna, for lending me your smile (or lack of one when asked) and always telling me, “Daddy…. I LOVE what you did here! You know what I like most?????” on almost every portrait you see.

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Embracing their future

Monday, March 5, 2012 Posted in Maternity Portrait, Photography Competitions, PPW (Professional Photographers of Washington), Studio Portraits

Here we have the third of four portraits being submitted to the PPW (Professional Photographers of Washington) annual print competion. Now this port did fairly well at the SPPA (Seattle Professional Photographers Association) that I posted about here but I didn’t score over 80 as was my goal. So after listening to the judge’s critiques and then speaking to one of them afterwards, I decided not to give up on this one yet but to see if I can make any post-processing changes to improve the score at the next level. So I:
1) Removed the ‘distracting’ keyline.
2) Tilted the portrait back to bring the belly into one of the power points which also had an effect of making the portrait more about the maternal belly.
3) Played with the lighting, but mainly reduced the light on his shoulders and back so that they weren’t brighter than the belly as that’s where I wanted the viewer’s focus to stay.
4) Change the title from “Embracing the future” to “Embracing their future” to make it more personal.

So here’s the final version, sent to be printed and later this week, being sent down to Olympia to be prepared for judging.

Embracing their future

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Great-Grandma’s Dress

Monday, February 27, 2012 Posted in Children, Photography Competitions, PPW (Professional Photographers of Washington), Studio Portraits

Well…. chalk up another portrait ready for the PPW (Professional Photographers of Washington) annual print competition! After receiving feedback from SPPA’s judging panel on the previous version of “Great-Grandma’s Dress” (seen here in a previous blog, I decided to take it back to almost the original capture and come at it from a different approach. The comments I heard were that the portrait just seemed a little cramped and that the image of the little girl didn’t really portray her as…. well…. little. So I added space (where there was none… thank you photoshop!) removed the painterly brush strokes (to respond to another comment that since the title was about the dress, they wanted to see more details) and played with the color a little bit so that the pinks in her dress didn’t over power the pink in her face and removed the distracting keyline.

Wish me luck!!!

Great Grandma’s Dress

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The calm before the storm

Thursday, February 23, 2012 Posted in Black & White, JKE Photography, Maternity Portrait, Photography Competitions, PPA (Professional Photographers of America), PPW (Professional Photographers of Washington), SPPA (Seattle Professional Photographers Association), Studio Portraits

Soooooooooooooooo…. the Annual SPPA Print Competition went well… but not as well as it could have. All four of my images scored between 76 and 79 (out of a hundred) which is good. But not great. I want GREAT! 80+ is my mark. Getting my first 80 or higher on a PPA sanctioned competition is my goal as it’ll be my first print merit in my belt towards a “Master of Photgraphy Degree” which requires thirteen (in addition to twelve other merits). The Annual SPPA Print Competition was a great start and I plan to use that experience and comments heard to make changes and prepare for the PPW (Professional Photographers of Washington) Print Competition at our Spring Conference coming up at he end of March.

One thing that I learned at SPPA is that one of my four portraits, “Mason”, just isn’t going to cut it and while I believe I can make changes and edits to the other three to bring their scores up….. “Mason” needs to be replaced.

I’m very proud and extremely excited to introduce “The calm before the storm”

I have high hopes for this portrait!!! Wish me luck!!! Now if you’ll excuse me… I have three other portraits to work on.

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Getting ready for the annual SPPA Print Competition

Monday, February 6, 2012 Posted in Photography Competitions, SPPA (Seattle Professional Photographers Association)

Well, cutting a little close this year but I recently decided to enter four portraits in the annual SPPA (Seattle Professional Photographers Association) Print Competition WHICH IS TOMORROW NIGHT!!!! Since last night was the deadline to submit digital files (because I didn’t want to print them just yet), that gave me… well… about 2 hours to prepare them, come up with titles, pay the entrance fee, and send them off. No worries!!!

(Okay… I vow that next year I’m not going to wait until the last minute)

Here are the portraits that have been submitted and if you’ve been on my Facebook page (http://www.Facebook.com/JKEPhotography) I’m sure you’ve seen them before:

Great-Grandma's Dress

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Embracing The Future

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Mason

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Soulful Jo

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Wish me luck!!!! Can’t wait to share how I did!!! (unless I did poorly at which point I might wait a few days)

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