Alright, alright, we know… we’re slackers.

Luckily, blogging has taken the back burner to Communion Sessions.

This year (so far) we have been very fortunate with the amount of people calling for these sessions.

It’s always fun to see the miniature brides in the studio.  They feel so pretty at first, and try to act composed… until about 10 minutes into the session.  That’s when the personalities start to peek out, and the fun starts.  Nobody would hang a photo of their beautiful daughter in such a gorgeous dress… playing the prop-guitar.  But we take it, and they love it.

Even when the boys come in, looking like little mayors… it’s almost like their afraid to move in the suit.  Until they get into the studio, and stop worrying that mom is watching them (waiting for them to get dirty).

The truth is, we love having them here… the more the merrier.
They brighten our day, and hopefully we brighten theirs.

I was going to tell you about an absolutely wonderful experience that I had making a portrait for Linda Walsh.  But, compared to her words, I figured that my words would only mess it up.  So, in the words of the mother of these four lovely children and their dogs, here’s today’s blog.

“I came to Jim and expressed how I wanted something “fun” for my portrait of my children.  I told him how I have had numerous professional portraits taken of my children and never had something that was “different”.  I always had pretty photos of my children with “OK” backgrounds and wanted something unique and different.  Jim took the time and sat down with me to discuss different options.  He suggested coming to my house and looking at the scenery I had surrounding my house.  Jim took the extra time to make a trip t my home and suggested an outdoor portrait in my yard.  We scheduled a date, and he was there and ready to go when we arrived.
Jim’s interaction with my children and pooches was priceless!
Jim raked the leaves with my children, he joked and played with them, and ultimately made the whole experience fun for the kids, and actually one to remember.  The kids actually hated it when Jim had to leave.
Never did I ever expect what would actually come from that visit.  When I went to see Jim to preview the proofs- let’s just say “tears were in my eyes” at what that man had given me.  I am extremely grateful for Jim- he gave me above and beyond what I ever expected.
I absolutely love this portrait.
Anyone that comes into my home goes on about how wonderful this portrait truly is!  When I look at this portrait I see such happy memories of my children and pooches.  I was shocked to discover that this “unique” background I was looking for was in my own backyard all along.
Thank you, Jim.  You went above and beyond all of my expectations.  Please know that any and all future portraits will only be taken by you!

Sincerely, Linda Walsh
Madison Township

Well, in this case, it’s “A Christmas Mary Kay Lenahan” and this is the portrait that was taken for her 2010 Christmas card.  The portrait looks simple enough, just take three kids, have them stand on the front porch and take their photo.

Right.

Obviously wrong.  It’s not simple at all, if it were simple, I wouldn’t have been standing outside for over an hour on a cold November day waiting for the light… which had to be absolutely perfect.  If it were any brighter out, we wouldn’t see the lights on the wreath or trees on the sides, or the lights inside the house either.  If it were any darker, the shadows thrown from my lighting unit would be very dark.  If you’ve read my blogs in the past, you’re aware of the fact that I’m always talking about balancing all the lights to achieve the photograph that I have in my head.

Today’s amateur cameras set on program will give you a well exposed photo, but if you want to create a desired look, then you have to know what you’re doing.  Most amateurs (most of the time) don’t have to know any of the technical knowledge that I’ve just explained.  For the most part, point and shoot photography is all you need for your everyday snapshots, but leave the important photography to the professionals, preferably me.

Now that ll that technical stuff is out of the way, lets talk about what made this portrait such a success.  Three little angels singing to their hearts content.  The clothing that mom selected couldn’t’ be any better.  The setting, obviously, their front porch.  The expressions on their faces, wow.  There’s not much more you can say about this portrait, so I’ll just say…

Thanks for listening.

-Jim

This portrait of Alexandra was take for a very significant event in a child’s life.  Obviously, her First Holy Communion portrait, and a perfect opportunity to make a statement about this time in a young girl’s life.  It is also a precursor of things to come.  I tease many of the communion girls about looking like a bride.  While they don’t carry a bridal bouquet of flowers, they almost always have rosaries or prayer books to hold as a part of the ceremonial garb for the event.  Very often, these items have personal relevance.  In this case, the rosary is her Grandmothers, and now a gift to Alexandra.

From a technical point of view, this portrait is pretty straight forward.  Main light, fill light, hair light, all in perfect balance.  The word perfect, however, is interpretive because the shadows are slightly darker than classical portraiture suggests.  I wanted the shadows to be darker to add to the strength of the character of Alexandra.  Ali is “personality plus”.  A dynamic young girl who should have no problem making her way through life.  You can see in her eyes and her smile that she is a very confident young girl who will melt your heart with a flash of those baby blues.

Now, let’s talk about composition.  Her head is in the top center “third” of the portrait.  The entire scene is white, however, you’d never know that.  With the light strongest on her face the white drapes become more grey than white.  They also act as a great framing element for her face.  As I said, the entire setting is white.  Less light hits the background than her face making it go darker.  Some of the photos were lit with white light, directly from a strobe aimed at it from camera right.  Others, including this one, were lit with that same light, but now, with an attached blue gel, creating that “Blessed Mother Blue”.

The blue also becomes the secondary impact because of the way it hits the folds in the drapery.  The primary impact is obviously those captivating eyes with the hands folded by that face of an angel.  That I’m sure she is… most of the time!

-Jim

This portrait is part of Ellen’s Senior Session.  As you are probably aware by now, i encourage all the seniors to bring something with them that has “personal significance.”  For all of the NPHS students, you know how important golf is to Ellen.  Ellen graduated from high school in 2010, and in August she was off to State College.  She is now a member of the Penn State Golf Team.

When I photograph anyone involved in a particular endeavor (in this case, the golf swing), I’m always concerned that the pose is correct for that particular endeavor.  The pose must be honest, not just pretty!

Ellen’s brother, a golf coach, was here for the session and he made sure that Ellen’s pose was honest and true to the sport and true to her.  I used the dark background to bring out the motion of her body as she finishes her golf swing with full follow through.  It always amazes me how these teenage golfers can rotate their bodies like rubber bands when I’m photographing them.  I played gold for the first time at 55 and have been hooked ever since.  I’ve been playing now for 9 years and just in case there’s anyone reading this blog who is 55 years old, let me give you some advice…

DO NOT START PLAYING THIS GAME!

That’s enough about my so-called golf game.  In traditional formal portraiture, I like to use a background that is similar in color to what the people in the portrait are wearing.  Darker backgrounds for darker clothing & lighter backgrounds for light clothing.  This keeps more of the attention on the faces and less on the bodies,  This also tends to be more flattering… especially dark on dark.

Now, photography is obviously an art form and in art, every rule has exceptions.  Take for example, someone who has just lost weight, started going to the gym, goes to the booth and really wants to show off this new found body.  Now it’s time to contrast the clothing to the background and let this new bod share some of the limelight with the face.

Can you imagine a groom having an opinion about wedding photography?

A couple of times a year, it actually happens and this is one of those times.  When talking to Linelle and Chris about locations for their wedding day portraits, Chris said that he loves the old locomotives at the Train Museum at Steamtown National Park.  Now, if that’s not impressive enough, Linelle, his bride, actually honored his request and agreed to have their portrait made there!  It must be true love.

So, after the ceremony in church, we were off to the museum.  We found one of his favorite trains.  These black beauties are really impressive up close and personal.  We only made a few photographs at this location.  The entire bridal party was first, then the photo of the bride and groom (shown here), and then the bride alone and groom alone.

I especially liked this photo because of the size.  The power of these ancient warriors of transportation becomes even more apparent in relation to the size of human beings.

I always like to incorporate some personal elements into my photographs.  While this is one of my largest of personal elements I’ve had to include over the years, it still makes a statement and satisfies that unique factor which makes the photograph a success.

-Jim

Being that it’s Monday, and we made Jim work on Saturday, we decided to give him the day off today.  Because of that, I’m hijacking his blog. (Muhaha)

The picture that I chose as one of my favorites, was taken by Jim a couple of years ago.  It’s of my niece.  Bask in her cuteness, go ahead… I’ll wait to continue.

My bro and his wife (Sean & Heidi) love wine.  They love to drink it, try new kinds, and especially… make it.  This is something that defines them, and if you know them, you’ve most likely had one of their yummy wines.  So, when it was time to take pics of Giada, I suggested including it.  Heidi brought a case of various wines, and I brought $52 worth of grapes.  We set it all up, and tried to get Giada to stomp grapes in a bucket.  Cute idea, right?

Giada didn’t think so.  She was not having “squish” happen anywhere near her toes.  We nixed the bucket, sat her on the floor and got out Mr. Tickle.  Mr. Tickle, (a distressed peacock feather) did the trick.  It got her to smile and giggle.  The only problem was that she grabbed it in this shot.  We loved her face in it so much that we didn’t want to have to not use it because of Mr. Tickle.  So… what was I to do?  Pfft, that’s simple.

I opened the file in Photoshop, then opened another shot of her in the same lighting.  I stole a bottle from the other shot, and put it in where Mr. Tickle was. She had grabbed it, and putting the bottle under her hand worked perfectly.  I cloned out the feather, placed the bottle carefully under her hand, and then erased the bottle on the bottom.  Why?  To show the grapes that were on the floor.  By doing that, it gives the illusion that there are grapes in front of the new bottle.

The hard stuff was over, now for the little detail-y easy stuff.  I added a little vignette to the edges of the image.  By making it darker, it causes Giada to “pop” a little more.  Then, I added a filter  called High Pass.  Usually I don’t add it on children, mainly because it adds a softness, and I don’t normally think that kids need any softness.  Softness is (in my opinion) reserved for older people.  Have you ever seen Martha Stewart perfectly sharp?  No, that softness smoothes fine lines. Maybe I did it out of habit here, but as soon as I added it, I loved it.  It gave the portrait a little more warmth.

If, by some chance, you’re interested in knowing the magic of High Pass, let me know… my mom taught me how to share.

Thanks for sticking this one out with me…

-Cara

This portrait of Kody was taken as part of his senior session.  Kody graduated from Abington Heights in 2010, and like most of the students that we photograph here, he came to the studio in the summer of 2009.

I photographed him in formal clothing indoors as well as casual clothes indoors, and finally outdoors.

Outdoor photography at our studio consists of

• Rocks, trees, grass
• A bridge
• Swing for the girls
• The cement wall (featured in this photo) and finally
• Our full fledged Outer Banks style beach

Our beach features a hurricane fence, sea grass, rock jetty, wood pylons and yes, 80-tons of sand.  It’s a very realistic beach.  Sorry, I couldn’t get an ocean on Main Street in Dickson City.

Kody has a very natural smile and we have many photos of him, looking at the camera and smiling.  This is the one that says “Kody” to hi mom and dad.  That’s and important aspect of photography – of young adults and of course, children.  It’s that intangible quality that a professional can’t really tell for sure.  You see, what a parent sees in their child is of a very personal nature… and not professional.  From a professional point of view, I like this portrait very much, because the viewer is drawn into the eyes of the subject.  One photographer, years ago told me…

“The eyes are the window to the soul”.

He was definitely correct.  In a smiling portrait, you tend to look at the mouth.  In a serious portrait, you look into the eyes.  If the eyes are expressive, you end up with a stunning portrait that offers insight into the character of the subject.

Kody is an athlete.  He played football since he was old enough to play in the Pop Warner football league, as a Jr. Comet in Clarks Summit.  For as tough and physical that you have to be for football, this portrait shows a kinder, gentler nature, and a cool presence of self.  Sigmund Freud, eat your heart out!

Now, from a technical point of view.  The portrait takes on some challenges, that were difficult to do in the world of film.  In the old days… 6 years ago… The photo would have been printed in B&W, then hand colored with blue dyes.  In this digital world, the electronic file was separated into to layers.  One layer being the color image,  and the other layer being the B&W image.  With very careful maneuvering of the mouse, Cara (our photoshop guru) is able to erase the grey tones of the shirt, and is able to expose the blue color of the shirt which is laying on the color layer that is under the black and white layer.

*whew*  That last paragraph was for the photo techies out there that want to learn how to do some of the photoshop stuff.  For the rest of us, this portrait is successful because of the amount of emotional impact.  First, from the eyes (primary impact) and then from the fact that it is a B&W photo with a blue shirt (secondary impact).

Kody is a cousin of mine.  I’ve known and photographed him since birth.  I’m including his testimonial at the end.  When you read it, you’ll find out that, yes… I’m a 63 year old man that is still referred to as Jim-Jim by many members of my family.

-Jim

“I have been getting pictures taken, literally all of my life by Jim Nicolais.  From the Blizzard of ’93 (when I was a just few months old), pre-school, communion, numerous Mother’s Day’s and now my senior photos.  I would say that Jim-Jim is the best!  You’re very comfortable and Jim actually makes it fun. Jim Nicolais is definitely doing something right to keep my mom this happy for so many years.”  - Kody Pasqualichio

I can’t believe that I’m here talking about traditional, classical Black & White portraiture.

The B&W part is cool.

My photographic career started over 40 years ago doing B&W photojournalism on the streets of NYC.  In 1968, I was literally photographing dead fish laying on the streets at the Fulton Fish Market.  Now a beautifully restored area of NYC known as the South Street Seaport.  I was attending Parsons School of Design at the time and one of out design projects was the restoration of that area.  In any restoration project, you must work with the existing architecture and then identify it historically so that you can bring it back to its proper place in history.

So, I was there as a part of a team of six designers and one of my responsibilities was photographing the area.  Of course I went nuts and tried to capture not only the actual area, but the essence of the area.  Hence, dead fish laying in the streets.

This is certainly a long way from this beautiful traditional portrait of mom and daughter looking at the camera and smiling.  This sample hangs on our wall in the studio, and some people are surprised that I do this style of portraiture.  Well, I must admit that its not my favorite, but I am a professional and capable of making any style or portrait that my clients desire.  I don’t encourage it but at the same time, I don’t discourage it.  I do appreciate it’s simplicity and elegance.

This style portrait does not look good in color, only B&W.  The image seems to float on the paper.  There’s nothing to add or detract from the people in the portrait.

Consequently, in my opinion, the expressions have to be absolutely perfect.  This style has certainly passed the test of time.  It’s been popular in this area for over 100 years.  Through the years, many photographers attempt this style and unfortunately fail because they think it’s simple to do.  It is simple to do, but in its simplicity, is where it gets complicated.  Remember, there’s nothing to add or detract, so to be successful everything must be perfect.

You’ve heard me say in the past that I’m still trying to make the perfect portrait, and if I ever do, I’ll probably retire.  The expressions here are certainly perfect.  Mom is wearing the perfect clothing.  The white shirt matches the background.  It does nothing to take your eyes away from her face.  Her smile is captivating.

Now, what can you say about the baby?  Move over Gerber Baby, there’s a new kid in town.

-Jim

This is a very simple, elegant and touching portrait of mom and her baby boy.  I didn’t start this session with Maria looking at Willie.  No, I started the way I start most sessions – with mom and child looking at the camera smiling.  With a infant, the word “smiling” is used very loosely, but they were both looking at the camera nonetheless.  Throughout the beginning of the session, I used squeaky toys, musical hammers, and elephant & duck noises.  Even Mr. Tickle (that’s a peacock feather to anyone over 8 years old).

As you can tell from her expression, he was not exactly overwhelmed with my shenanigans.  But, I carried on, and finally the moment came when he looked up at me (probably psycho-analyzing me- why is  this grown man making elephant noises?) and Maria looked down at him.

The expression on Maria’s face speaks volumes of the love and the bond between mother and child.  When you add up all the parts of this portrait, the total is certainly greater than the sum of all the parts.  Look at the gentle touch of mom’s hand, that appreciative smile on her face, the twinkle in the baby’s eyes, and just the overall softness of the portrait.

Do you still think you have to look at the camera and smile to have a beautiful portrait for Mother’s Day?

-Jim