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Post or email me with your best guesses as to what Kate Middelton's dress will look like, and be entered to  *** WIN A FREE ENGAGEMENT SESSION FROM STRIKING PHOTOGRAPHY! (Entries accepted until 2:55am Friday Apr 29!) ***

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The Sweet Smell of Success: Lawson Lavender

If at first you don't succeed, try, try again.

This is the lesson learned from a recent shoot I did for a great local company called Lawson Lavender. Lawson makes and sells the best-smelling lavender products my nose has ever encountered, from candles and soaps to natural household care products like glass and countertop cleaners. Run by the ever-vivacious and awesomely spikey haired Stacey, she and her family actually grow their own lavender on a farm in rural Missouri, harvest it, dry it and then use it to create the Lawson Lavender products. So Stacey approached me and asked if I could do some product shots for them, as they were launching a brand new etsy.com site.

Dirt...



She showed me some examples of photos she liked, and given the adorable gnome that is part of the Lawson Lavender logo, I suggested we play off that and have a "magical forest" theme to the images. Ya know - red spotted mushrooms, 

plus plants...

lots of ferns, perhaps a friendly snail or two? Imagine where a gnome might live, and you'll get the idea. Based on this first concept, I built a set in my studio, beginning with stacking bricks on a table, covering them with a painter's drop cloth and dumping a bunch of potting soil on top. I began adding in greenery

...equals a gnome-y wonderland.

(my son "helped" by trying to add in some fake plastic bugs which I vetoed), sprinking moss and rocks. In the end, it looked like this:

Loved the shot. Got the whole magical fairy land thing going, the light slanting in as if shining through the forest trees. Add in a cute little mushroom and call me the Fairy Godmother. I can see the gnomes capering about as we speak...

Only one problem: it completely did NOT jive with Stacey's new etsy.com site.

When you hire Striking Photography, be it as your wedding photographer or senior pictures, or for a commerical photography shoot such as this one, my number one priority is to produce images that are an appropriate and real reflection of the subject. It may be a technically perfect shot, but if it doesn't work for my client's objectives, then my job is not complete.

So, I came up with two completely different concepts and went in a whole new direction with the shoot. Voila!

Much cleaner,

more modern take on the products. What makes the first image awesome was that the colors worked with the product labeling, whereas the second concept played off of the actual usage of the products (cleaning products shown in a kitchen or bathroom, a candle by a bedside, etc.).

In the end, Stacey was pleased with all the ideas but chose to go with the last image, showing the products in the environments where they would actually be used.

And I got to play in the dirt with my kid, which was pretty fun too. 

The BAD news about the Flashbus Tour with David Hobby and Joe McNally

Just got back around midnight last night from the Flashbus Tour in St. Louis, featuring David Hobby and Joe McNally, two photographers I greatly admire. The BAD news about the Flashbus Tour is that as I was speeding along the freeway back to Kansas City, my entire box of dark chocolate Raisinets upended themselves and spilled all over my lap and onto the floor, where they were squished into a chocolately mess by my feet as I was driving. And I had only finished less than half the box, people. *sigh* Thankfully I was driving my husband's car ;-)

 The GOOD news about the Flashbus Tour was... pretty much everything else! For those who don't know what this "Flashbus thing-y" is (was?), check it out here. Alas, it is fini, kaput, done, and St. Louis was the final stop. But I am very thankful I was lucky enough to attend and learn a whole lot from these two accomplished photographers. Between the two of them, they have quite the client list including numerous years working at the Baltimore Sun, Sports Illustrated, Life, Time, Fortune, National Geographic, photographing many national celebrities... you get the idea. This ain't their first rodeo, iykwim.



by keepon



The first half of the day was conducted by Mr. Hobby, who did an excellent presentation of how to build lighting schemes from the ground up. The second half was more of a live demonstration of Mr. McNally shooting tethered and using a slightly different technique. I enjoyed both of them and learned a lot. They also gave away a lot of swag, and I won a pretty sweet Manfrotto photo vest for being the first person to present an uneaten banana from my bag! Yessss!!!!! LOL


 However, although I definitely squirreled away many a technical nugget to incorporate into my own shooting style, what I really appreciated most was the inspiration I received. Here were two incredibly successful photographers, and while undoubtedly savvy businessmen, they were also amazingly generous with sharing their knowledge and experience. Photography can be a very cutthroat industry sometimes, so that was cool and inspiring to see. And if I may venture briefly into slightly political territory (I promise not to make it a habit), as a woman and thereby definitely a minority in the crowd, I felt very comfortable and welcome at the event. I was not talked down to, nor did I feel I received special treatment. It was simply a non-issue.

So expect to see some of this new and exciting knowledge informing my work at Striking Photography over the next few months! A whole bunch of seniors should be rolling through here soon, as well as some business headshots, wedding work and more...

And may you, dear reader, continue to grow and learn, whatever your field of work may be!