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Winter Senior Portraits with Taylor Ann

This winter in North Idaho ended up being a total flop when it came to doing winter senior portraits..  We had a little bit of snow early but then, in the heart of the winter when it was time to actually start doing some sessions with my senior models there was not even snow to be found on Schweitzer Mountain Resort.  I even ended up traveling to Glacier National Park at one point to see if I could find any good winter conditions there, I was able to find a bit of snow up high, but there was still a lot less than I would have expected.

Thankfully there was a day when we got a surprise snow storm so I contacted Taylor Ann, my Class of 2016 Senior model from Newport and she just happened to not be in school that day.  I quickly gathered up some gear and headed out to meet up with her.  Of course the weather was par for the course and as soon as we met up it had warmed up and started raining in town.  Since we we were together and had the time we thought we would see if we could find any snow at a higher elevation and the search paid off.  We found just enough snow to grab a few fun shots and call it a day.  We had nice overcast conditions, falling snow and some nice white snow on the ground so for this shoot we worked completely with natural light.

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Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington.   Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of  dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work.  Jason is also a Sponsored Pro for Interfit Photographic (http://interfitphotographic.com/)

2014 Senior Style Guide Hot 100

SSG Hot 100 ButtonEvery year Senior Style Guide accepts submissions from senior photo artists throughout the world.  The contest has 10 categories and they choose 10 winning images per category for a total of 100 winning images.  This year I entered the contest for the first time and was pleased to find out that I had a photo that made the final cut!

The image that was selected was of Sandpoint High School senior Preston Cole.  The category for this photo was “Urban” and it was taken on the backside of an old warehouse near the loading docks.  This was a slightly tricky photo to make as you will see in the behind the scenes photo of our lighting set up.  Here is the finished image of Preston.

urban strobist "off camera flash"Here is what it looks like straight out of the camera:Now the lighting set up.  This image was made using two strobes, one boomed directly above Preston with a 7″ reflector and a 30 degree grid.  The point of this light was to light his shoulders and hair as well as the rail, stairs and a little spill on the door.  The idea here was to mimic a light on the building above the door.  For the main light I used a strobe with a 47″ gridded octa, the light was positioned to create a lighting pattern right between Rembrandt and Loop when he was looking at the camera.  The photo was shot with a Canon 5DIII with a 24-70 f2.8 lense at f10.BTS "Behind the Scenes" "lighting set up"urban strobist "off camera flash" So now let me explain what was tricky about making this photo.  If you look closely at my assistant Mark you will notice that the lip on the loading bay was very narrow.  It was too narrow to fit the base of the c-stand so we had to use one of the rubber bumpers for the third leg.  The bumpers, as you can see, are not level with the loading bay floor so left to itself the stand would not be stable.  To solve this we used all of our weight bags on the back legs and had Mark putting his weight on the stand and NEVER letting go!   Here is a close up for you.2014 Senior Style Guide winning senior photo of Sandpoint senior Preston ColeTo close I just want to say thank you to Vickie Black and the crew at Senior Style Guide for putting together the Hot 100.  I am grateful for the opportunity to enter the contest and very excited to be selected.  I am excited to work with the upcoming class of 2016 and look forward to making more great images for them. Who knows maybe one of those will make the cut for next year’s contest!

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington.  Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of  dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work for www.idahosports.com, The Coeur d’Alene Press, The Bonner County Daily Bee, Priest River Times, Newport Miner, Living Local and a handful of other newspapers and publications.

 

Cole’s Senior Photos (Priest River Photographer)

Cole and spent some time at a few different locations around Priest River for his Senior Photos.  We had some great fall colors and Cole was great in front of the camera and to top it all of the end of our session featured a great sunset with some amazing clouds.

Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

 

The Pend Orielle River and a great natural light show made a great backdrop for the final part of this senior photo session.  It does not get much better than this for environmental portaiture!Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Priest River Photographer, Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Priest River Photographer, Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Priest River Photographer, Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Priest River Photographer, Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Priest River Photographer, Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Priest River Photographer, Sandpoint Photographer, Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Jason Duchow Photography is located near Sandpoint and Priest River Idaho and serves throughout Idaho and Eastern Washington.   Jason specializes in portrait and wedding photography, often with the use of  dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work for IdahoSports.com, The Coeur d’Alene Press, The Bonner County Daily Bee, Priest River Times, Newport Miner, Sandpoint Newsline and a handful of other newspapers and publications.

Jim’s Senior Photos (Priest River Photographer)

The first time I photographed Jim was at a basketball game in Coeur d’Alene back in 2010.  The defending state champion Priest River Spartans looking for strong competition were playing the Coeur d’Alene Vikings and during a stop in play I was taking photos of the Priest River fans from across the gym.  One of the fans noticed I was taking photos, stood up and pointed at me, I took this photo.

The reason I remember this is the fact that it started something that continued through the rest of the season, at every game I would look for Jim and he would look for me so we could get yet another photo of him doing the “The Point”.  We tried to mix it up every now and then and get a variety of “Point” shots.

Now a couple of years later I have had the privilege of taking Jim’s senior photos as well as some photos with his sisters, yes we had to sneak in a pointing shot.

Alright, enough pointing fingers let’s get on with some senior photos!

Right around sunset we were at a perfect spot and the sky was amazing.  The next shots were all taken at the same spot only minutes apart, we simply turned different directions and were able to get very different looks.


 

Drew’s Senior Photos (Sandpoint Photographer)

Here are some of the final images from my senior photos shoot with Drew in Sandpoint.

 

James’s Senior Photos (Sandpoint & Coeur d’Alene Photographer)

James, a Senior at Lake City High School in Coeur d’Alene recently joined up with me for his senior photos.  He was particularly interested in some of the dramatic lighting that I do and I was more than happy to oblige.  We started out making sure that we had a good selection of photos that pass the strict standards that Lake City has for their yearbook submissions and then using as many as 5 different lights we worked on some dramatically lit portraits of James in his full football uniform.

 

 

Jeremy’s Senior Photos (Priest River Photographer)

I have a lot of fun working with Jeremy on his Senior photos, we had a beautiful Mercury Cougar to use for the photos and then took an ATV ride to a location overlooking the the Pend Orielle River.

Kelsey Bradbury – Class of 2013 (Priest River Photographer)

This last Saturday I spent a good part of the day with Kelsey taking the first round of her Senior Photos at her grandparents’ home near Priest River.  Kelsey’s Grandfather graciously set up some hay bales for us to use and they worked out great!  You would not have even known it was 40 degrees out as Kelsey braved the cold in a sun dress, cowboy boots and for a few photos her dad’s hat.

Since it was a bit chilly still we are reserving most of our outdoor portraits for the warmer, greener months and spent the majority of our time on some studio style portraits.

The last part of our session we broke out the uniforms and did some sports themed portraits.

I had a great time spending the day with Kelsey, her Mom Sandy and Grandmother Jeanie.  We had a lot of laughs and a lot of fun, I can hardly wait for the weather to get nicer so we can schedule round number two!

Nick’s Senior Photos (Sandpoint Photographer)

Since Nick moved to Sandpoint a little over a year ago I have had the opportunity to capture images of him out on the football field and the basketball court.  Now in his senior year I was honored to have the opportunity to take his senior photos.  Here are some of the final results.

Nick’s brother was gracious enough to volunteer to help me fine tune my lighting while Nick was preparing for the next series of photos.

To finish  out this post, here is a football themed Senior Poster

George’s Senior Photos (Sneak Peek)

I had the pleasure of spending a couple of hours with George on Schweitzer mountain where we went to take his Senior Photos.  I have been trying to get the editing finished, but one thing after another has come up and kept me away from the computer, so to hold George over for a little while longer here is a sneak peek of a couple of the photos I have finished.