Photosets

Niles North Prom ’12 Prints Available

First, I wanted to say Thank You to all the students and parents that allowed me to capture their portraits on their special night. While many of you were only in front of my camera for a mere moment, I hope these images captured before your prom help you remember a wonderful time in your lives.

And a bigger thank you to the Karlins for not only hiring me for the night, but allowing me to take over the largest room in their house to setup my travelling portrait studio, all while entertaining a houseful of guests.

Prints Available

Prints from Friday night’s portrait session are now available for purchase online at http://store.krisnelsonphoto.com/Portraits.

View Portraits

 

If you’d like to learn more about the ordering process, you can click Order Prints from the menu here on the website to read more.

The prints available online are from a professional photo lab, printed on your choice of premium photo paper, and shipped to wherever you’d like.

Alternatively, I am providing the Karlin family a few CDs that include all the photos from Friday night’s shoot, and photo release letters should you wish to have your photos printed elsewhere. Please contact them to borrow a copy of the CD and the letter.

Special Requests

Each photo available online has already gone through a thorough retouching process, but if you have any additional retouching requests, please email me at info@krisnelsonphoto.com with the details and the 4-digit photo number from the website below the photo(s) (the XXXX in _MG_XXXX) and I’ll try to respond to as many as time allows.

You can also use that email address if you’d like a Black & White print, a different crop for a photo, a canvas print, or a larger size than what’s already listed on the website ordering form.

Questions or Comments?

If you had any other general questions or comments, please feel free to use the comment section below, or on my Facebook page.

If you’d prefer to contact me directly instead, you can email me at info@krisnelsonphoto.com or send a private message at my Facebook page there, as well.

Thanks again, and I hope you enjoy your photos!

– Kris

New Photoset: MPF ’11 Week

You may have noticed that, as of late, the common theme in my Featured Photos category has been from my visit to Maui and the Maui Photo Festival & Workshops last month. Even though I posted my review last week and am still going through the last of the images I shot, I wanted to share one last post about where you can find all my shots from the week in one place. These not only include photos from the workshops, but also from the few days prior my family and I had to enjoy the island paradise once again. Also, as I do publish more photos from that week, they’ll automatically show in those sets, too.

But first, a few of my unofficial favorites in no particular order (please don’t make me choose an order).

The Links

This time around, there are two places where you can enjoy these images:

• MPF ’11 Week photoset on Flickr – including geolocation of where each photo was taken.
• MPF Week 2011 album on the Maui by Photo Facebook page.

More About the Trip

If you’re a regular Maui visitor or thinking about coming out for your first Maui Photo Festival event next year, and you wanted to learn a little more about what else there is to see and do while you’re there, check out the trip journal entries over at my Maui blog. As that page says, it was our sixth trip to Maui (since ’06) so as you would imagine, I could talk for hours about the island if you had any questions – and the time.

Anyway, enjoy these photos and the links, and I encourage you to leave comments on Flickr or Facebook under your favorites from the trip.

– Kris

New Photoset: Riverwalk Portraits

It was back in November when I shared my last photoset, which was also my first serious photo shoot with my newly purchased Canon 5D Mark II. That was until this past weekend, however, when we finally had a chance to make it down to this nice riverwalk trail down in Naperville on what turned out to be a lovely Saturday afternoon.

I won’t try to make excuses for not shooting more, but no one can really prepare you for what the first six months of parenthood really takes out of you. Still, if being out celebrating our son’s first half-birthday (if that’s your thing) wasn’t a good enough reason to break out the camera (and Maui is still 3 months away), what is?

Details aside, how about a few more images?

I’ve been very honest with myself that shooting portraits is currently outside my comfort zone. But if the birth of our first child doesn’t drive me to become better at it and document our son’s early years, I should probably just sell my camera gear and move onto something else.

With this recent photo shoot and the results I got from the baby shower in November, my confidence with shooting portraits is quickly rising. It really comes down to just more time to practice. Plus, standing behind a 5DMKII doesn’t hurt matters, either. I know you hear and read all the time about how good photographers can make great images with any camera gear, and I’m sure someone with more experience can get these same results with my Canon Rebel XSi instead.

So maybe it’s just in my head, but this dream-come-true of a camera body and the L-Series lens mounted on it are making me fall in love with portrait photography – something I never thought I’d say. That, and having such a beautiful wife and an adorable infant son in front of the camera can go a very long way, too.

Stay Tuned

So yeah, the portrait shutterbug has bitten me, and I want to do more shoots like this. Luckily, the timing is great because we’re leaving for Door County, WI this week for some much needed R&R, and there’s going to be plenty of time to fill up those memory cards during the trip. That will put some pressure on me in the digital darkroom once we get back to get those images online for our friends and family (and you, of course), but if I’m still buzzing about the shots like I was when we made it home this past Saturday, I think that will take care of itself.

But for now, check out the other photos from the Riverwalk Portraits photoset on Flickr. It’s a pretty good sized collection (in my biased opinion) for only about 15 minutes of shooting and the attention span of a six month old.

Enjoy,
– Kris

New Photoset: Cindy’s Baby Shower

As I shared last week, our friends and family threw us a baby shower earlier this month and I was able to test out my new Canon 5D Mark II. Not only was it a wonderful event, the 5DMKII made it incredibly easy to get some of the better looking portraits than what I had been shooting in the past. Not having a lot of time to process these photos in Photoshop, these images are mostly untouched with the exception of a little cropping here and there.

The official baby countdown is now at 15 days, so it won’t be very long before I’m completely out of my comfort zone as (1) the father of a newborn baby, and (2) almost a full time portrait photographer. Part of the agreement with mommy-to-be for investing in the 5DMKII was to make sure our photos of our future son will be both plentiful and beautiful. No pressure.

View all photos in Cindy’s Baby Shower on Flickr.

New Photoset: Nighthawks Game Photos

It’s been a few months since my last serious photo shoot at the end of February, but I got the call yesterday in the afternoon to come out and shoot for the Nighthawks Hockey club I used to play for and also coached.

I have a quite a long history with the team – which you can read about in this recent post over at my web development blog – and since I’m on the Board of Directors and was already going to the game anyway, it wasn’t that much effort to pack the gear and bring it with.

Up Closer

Seeing as this was just a JV hockey game in the hockey rink I practically grew up in, it was pretty easy for me to find my way over at the end of the home team bench and getting the most unobstructed view of the action I’ve had so far in any of the hockey shoots I’ve done. The majority of the photos were right from the bench area and not shot through the safety class along the boards.

Shooting with both my Canon 20D and my Rebel XSi at the same time allowed me to shoot telephoto for the far end of the ice and more wide angle for the action up front.  That, and having the extra room not being confined in single seat at the other arenas made this shoot very enjoyable. The low lighting was an issue as always, but I just left the ISO at 800 and ran with it.

Hack Job

When we last chatted, one of the primary reasons I’ve put things on hold was because I didn’t have time for processing in post. That was the case here as well which I spent a few hours on Sunday to process these photos.  Not something I had planned for my weekend, but that’s how it goes.

The saving grace was that the primary purpose of these photos was for the team’s Facebook page, so I knew going in that my post processing workflow wasn’t going to be the same as it is for my vacation and landscape shots. In fact, it was pretty much a hack job flying through about 40 of the best shots using Adobe Photoshop Elements on my Mac. For the intended purpose, it did the job.

More Photos

If you’d like to see the rest of the images, you can view the Nighthawks vs. New Trier photoset on my webnelly Flickr account. Not sure if I’ll take on any more games this spring season, but it would something I’d definitely want to pursue when the Fall season starts depending on where things are by then.

– Kris