Here are a few of my favorites from Tatiana's senior portrait shoot on Sunday. We started out inside for some shots on white seamless, and then moved outside as the afternoon light got nicer. Another day with great weather, but the mosquitoes were absolutley epic. Seriously, I need to get an industrial fogger for these shoots or something. Tatiana got eaten alive. In a couple of the photos you can actually see mosquitoes hovering around her. It was ridiculous, but she managed to keep smiling through all of it.

A few more photos from day two of the senior portrait shoot with Andrea and Allison. This time we hit some locations in Ashland, and then headed up to a section of the Souix River near Washburn. It was another beautiful afternoon for photos and not nearly as buggy. These two were supposed to be my guinea pigs for the underwater portrait experiment, but we had to bail out on that plan because the bay is too full of silt from all the rain we've been getting. Not to mention, really freakin' cold. Such is life. We may give it a shot on another warm afternoon in early fall if mother nature cooperates. Plan B was using the local pool, but I just found out that it's closed until mid-October for repairs. That leaves us with Plan C...and once I figure out what Plan C actually is, I'll let you know...In the mean time, more shoots this weekend. Busy busy.

We had beautiful weather yesterday evening for a senior portrait shoot with Allison and Andrea. Instead of booking each of their sessions separately, these two decided to do their shoots together split over two days, so we have more photos tonight too. Yesterday, we drove down to Mason, Wisconsin, to find some locations out in the country. It was a bit of a haul, but we found some great spots and the sunlight was perfect. Aside from a new hatch of mosquitoes it was a great shoot. Keep your eyes peeled for more in the next few days.

This is why one must always remember to empty the office coffee pot before travelling for two weeks. When I was getting ready to leave, I went over my packing lists again and again. I packed lenses, checked my memory cards, charged batteries, counted out clean socks. I had everything. I was ready. But there was still that nagging feeling that I had forgotten to do something. What was it? What did I forget to do?...Oh.

Hmmm, so it goes. I decided to go out for coffee this morning. Other than that the trips were great and now I'm back on my home turf processing everything from the road. And cleaning the coffee pot...

Well, I'm back from my trip out to the East Coast. Above you'll see my toes enjoying the Atlantic Ocean just outside of Portland, Maine. Great trip. Met some cool people, got some good photos. I could spend a lot more time exploring that area someday. I'm back in Washburn for a few days before I'm off to Michigan next week for more photos and interviews. I'm not even going to unpack most of my stuff, just leave it all in the cases ready to go. After the week in Michigan I'll be back home for a little while. Travelling is fun, but it'll also be nice to be home for a while.

Had a great senior portrait shoot this weekend with Amy. Above are two of my favorites from the afternoon. Haven't had much of a chance to process the other images yet and I probably won't until the end of the week. I'm in Vermont today for a photo shoot, another in Maine tonight, and then flying out of New Hampshire tomorrow afternoon. Kind of cool to check out the East Coast a little, never really been here before. Everything is so close together. Watch for more photos in the next couple days.

Well, good news, someone must be reading this blog: I got a handful of calls this week about the Underwater Senior Portrait Challenge and it sounds like I've got two brave souls in the Ashland area who are ready to give it a shot. Awesome. I'm not going to say who they are until after the shoot (which should be in the middle of August), but I'm super excited. I went out again this weekend to practice in the water a little more before the big shoot. Underwater photos are way harder than normal photography. There's a lot more to think about all at once, including how long can you actually hold your breath while you get things set up. Anyway, none of my friends wanted to pose for a practice shot, so I found this little fella. What he lacked in beauty he made up for in patience.

Turn a little, smile with your eyes, perfect...click...hold that...click...okay, now pout for the camera...perfect, click...okay, take a break, there's some water over there if you want some...

We swam around in circles for a good ten minutes before he got bored with the whole scene and moved on. Kind of cool. Watch for some real underwater portraits in the next few weeks.

Ring, Ring. Hello?... What's that you say?... You'd like a few aerial photographs? I'd love to but I don't have an airplane...Oh. Well, if you have a private, luxury airplane and an excellent pilot I can borrow, that should work fine. I suppose I could make a little time in my busy schedule to do that. Let me see when I'm available to do something like that...How about... any second of any day..Ever.

Let me sum up of the rest of the experience this way: TOTALLY FRICKIN' AWESOME. Special thanks to Pilot Dave Mauer for giving me some great angles over the City of Ashland and the Apostles Islands.

I had some time this weekend to experiment more with an underwater camera housing I got a while back. The photo above is one of many lovely self portraits that I made while playing with it. Obviously, the subject leaves a lot to be desired, but all in all I think the picture is pretty cool: interesting background, good color, nice light, and most importantly, a rockin' perspective that you don't get to see every day. That of course got me to thinking (always a dangerous thing), how can I use this to do something cooler than just taking pictures of me holding my breath. So here it is folks, Hired Lens Photography announces the The Underwater Senior Portrait Challenge.

You think I'm kidding. I'm not. I'm looking for some brave high school student (or two) in the Chequamegon Bay Area that wants to take their senior portrait underwater. I'm offering a 15% discount to anyone that will use one of the poses from their portrait package to do an underwater shoot. The rest of the session can be normal terrestrial-based photography. Why do I want to do this so bad? Because its different, because it's a fun challenge for me as a photographer, and because I think it will look really cool when it's all done. And  that's always the goal: great photographs. So who's with me? Worst-case scenario, you choose one of the other, more standard photos from our shoot for the year book and you still have a good story to tell. Think about it, and contact me if you're the bold aquatic subject I'm looking for. This is the chance to do something really different.

It was a great 4th of July Weekend up here in the middle of nowhere. Beautiful weather, cold beer, and dangerous explosives. What more could anyone want? We spent some time on the beach, caught the parade on Madeline Island, and ate more grilled items than anyone should really consume in one weekend. Here are a few snapshots to comemorate America's 234th birhtday: