When I started my photography business, I had to decide who or what I wanted to work with. I've tried all different kinds of photography and I really love doing portraits the best! I specifically chose to photograph families, graduating seniors and sports athletes of all kinds.

Photographing families can be the most challenging of the three. It can be difficult to get large family groups to all look at the camera at the same time. As you could probably guess, someone is always distracted by something and they look away from the camera for noises or comments from other family members. Little kids can also be distracted or unhappy to sit for even a few minutes to be photographed. I usually bring along fun items such as bubbles, stuffed animals or even Nerf footballs to photo sessions to help take their minds off of the "Photo session."

Seniors are great to work with! I feel like they take direction easily and really have a sense of the way they want their photos to look. I bounce ideas off of them and go in the direction I feel that they are leading me. I really focus on getting them to relax and get genuine expressions from them.

Sports portraits require working with equipment in some form. That's great because it gives your hands something to do besides just going in a pocket or just hanging by your side. Getting the athletes to do movements that they would perform in a game situation is the key to creating a memorable image. I'll get dancers to perform recitals, basketball players to do jump shots and football and baseball players to dive and catch a ball.

I also like to do themed portraits where make up and outfits are required. I also like to add composite elements in Photoshop to take the image to the next level of "Wow!" I recently worked with a model who was dressed up as her favorite comic book character called Harley Quinn. You can see the resulting image on the main slideshow of my website.