Stoli’s January Debut, Part II

Every Thursday this semester is a free day for me. It’s the one day a week where I don’t have any classes, and so far, I have made it one of the most productive days of the week. Today I decided to have Stoli in the studio again. I am trying to beef up my portfolio and make more potential winning Hallmark card images.
Last week during his shoot, I discovered Stoli will not move if there’s something secured to his head. I used this newly found wisdom to my advantage.

I came away with a LOT of cute and funny images, but I am only going to post a few here. In order to see them all (which I highly recommend,) you’ll have to visit my flickr page HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Images © Holly Hildreth 2012 | hhildrethphoto.wordpress.com

Stoli January Debut

The semester started back up on 1/9/12, and as a result, the photo lab and studios finally opened up this week. Since it’s only the 2nd week of classes, not many people are signed up to use the studios. I don’t have any classes on Thursdays, so I took advantage of the situation and decided to go into the studio for a fun shoot with Stoli. I didn’t have anything particular in mind when I went in. Mostly, I just wanted to get back into the swing of things and get myself used to shooting in the studio again.
During the shoot, I felt like nothing was going right. I tried a new lighting setup and used higher powered strobes, and Stoli was not having it. I’m not sure if he was scared of the new lights or if they were too bright for him, but he would not cooperate. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when I came home and started reviewing images to find that there were a lot of ones that turned out rather well. I have around 50 good proofs of him from this shoot, and it’s incredibly hard for me to narrow it down to just a few to post to my blog, so if you get a chance, visit the whole set on my flickr page  HERE.

 

 

 

 

 

He does NOT look happy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Stoli is the World's most interesting corgi

 

 

All Images are © Holly Hildreth 2012 | hhildrethphoto.wordpress.com

January at the Zoo

The last day before Christmas break ended, I went to the zoo with Daniel and Derek, (my boyfriend’s roommates). We had been having unseasonably nice weather for January, so it was a good weekend to go. It was still only about 45-50 degrees outside, but I have been to the zoo in much colder weather. It was nice to get back to shooting “wild” animals, as it had been some time since I last visited. I didn’t get anything too great, as when I am with people, I usually don’t take forever shooting like I would if I was alone.

Nikita, the polar bear, shakes off some water

 

Bleating bongo deer

 

 

Prozac Lion

 

hyper-charismatic, slobbery hippo

 

 

 

 

Daniel and Derek petting the sheep

 

Daniel showing the sheep videos on his phone?

 

 

 

All Images are © Holly Hildreth 2012 | hhildrethphoto@gmail.com

The End of Break

First off, I would like to start by saying this is my official 100th post! This blog started out as a required project for a class and has morphed into my way of sharing my day-to-day shoots with people outside of Facebook.

Anyway, I spent two weeks of my Christmas break at my family’s house in Iowa. Initially it was a shock to the system, as I went from 50 degree weather in MO to highs in the teens in Iowa. I’m not a fan of winter weather to start with, so that was not a fun surprise to come home to. I got to Waverly just in time for Christmas. My sister, Kristin, had made some Christmas treats, and I decided to try my hand at photographing them. I have never really shot food before, and I don’t think it will ever be a huge part of my portfolio. I just used a lamp to light the scene and then had some tinfoil propped up to bounce light back into the scene. The cookies she made are two Ritz crackers with peanut butter in the middle, all dipped in chocolate. Needless to say they were delicious.

 

 

 

My attempt at photographing hot chocolate wasn't so successful...

 

My other sister, Jen, has a Willow Tree nativity set. She has been collecting all the pieces over the years, and I thought I’d try shooting that as well. I used window light and then more tinfoil as a reflector to bounce extra light into the scene.

 

 

 

My sister and brother-in-law left our hour Christmas Day, and my other sister, Jen, had to do the news all week, so life got boring around the house. I soon was setting off around Waverly, trying to find things to photograph. I found a flock of geese on an open patch of water on the Cedar River and decided they would be my next photographic victims.

 

 

 

 

School starts back up and Monday, and I expect to be very busy as I am taking a huge credit load. Don’t worry though, I’ll have plenty of new material to update and will hopefully be posting more regularly.

 

Jill, Cory, and Peanut

During Thanksgiving break, a couple contacted me about getting family pictures taken. They had found me through a Google search and liked the work I did with dogs. They had a chihuahua, named Peanut, that they wanted to include in their family photos and thought they’d give me a try. It had been a while since I had done formal portraits outside of my part-time job, so I was excited to try some new things out. Jill, Cory, and Peanut were great to work with, so the session went fairly smoothly. It was nice to have creative freedom again. At work you have to follow a rigid set of rules and you don’t get much room to be creative or have fun with a shoot. So, this was a nice change of pace. Here are a few photos from the shoot. (To see all the proofs, visit my Flickr)

All Images are © Holly Hildreth 2011 | hhildrethphoto.wordpress.com

It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Today in advanced studio, we were to shoot either food, beverage, or tobacco. I honestly had no idea what to photograph for this assignment, as my cooking skills are on par with most college kids and are basically limited to pre-packaged foods only. So, to get some inspiration for the project, I wandered around Walmart for about an hour last night waiting for a flash of genius to hit me. I wound up in the Christmas aisle, where I finally decided I would try to expand my set-building skills by making a Christmas scene while photographing food….and what (conveniently pre-packaged,) food says Christmas like candy canes?
Originally my idea was to have a Christmas tree branch with a stocking stuffed with candy canes. Well, when setting the scene up, I failed to take into account that the high quality 97 cent stocking I bought was not well-built and did not support anything heavier than its own weight. I attempted a few stocking shots, but wasn’t very successful.

 

 

My next attempt was to hang the candy canes on the trees.  This too proved to be next to impossible to pull off. I got a few all right shots, but nothing too earth-shattering.

 

I was starting to get discouraged by this point, as it seemed that nothing was working for me. Finally, I made a “peppermint martini” from water and red food coloring. I started liking the results I was getting with the “martini”. Toward the end of the shoot, I had a classmate sprinkle the fake snow while I shot, making it look like it was actually snowing.

 

 

 

All Images and Content © Holly Hildreth 2011 | hhildrethphoto.wordpress.com

 

Advanced Studio: Storytelling/Lifestyle

For assignment #4 in Advanced Studio we were given a choice between shooting “health and beauty,” or “Storytelling/lifestyle”. Normally every couple weeks our professor explains what the upcoming assignment is, shows us examples, and then sets up a lighting demo as an example of what you could do for the project. However, we had to cancel the class period where he introduced and explained the project as well as the period where we are allowed to shoot our projects in class to get help from the professor. Normally I’d be pretty bummed about this, but the tradeoff was that we got to tour Hallmark’s photography studios in Kansas City instead. Although the tour was an awesome once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, it left me confused on the assignment as we never got any clarification in class.

Since the subject is really open-ended, I decided to go with “Storytelling/lifestyle”. I thought about the project for a while, and after an initial period of being completely stumped, I came up with a good subject.

My boyfriend, Andrew, loves all things that are nerdy. He plays tons of computer games and likes role-playing games like Dungeons and Dragons as well as Dark Heresy. He even has a collection of Magic cards. Yes, being a nerd is Andy’s forte. I wanted to capture this for my assignment. I used and editorial approach and tried to recreate his natural environment in the studio. We brought in a box of his stuff and strewed it about and then set up a monitor, keyboard, and mouse. The trickiest part of this assignment was trying to light the scene so it looked like the computer was actually on. I used a flash with a blue gel over it to make the monitor look like it was glowing, and I used a medium soft box to fill the rest of the scene. I also played around with a flash with a gridspot behind him to add a sort of “kicker light” in some of the shots.

Anyway, anyone who knows Andy will know that this is a pretty accurate portrayal of him.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

…And of course we took a quick photo together at the end of the shoot.

Images and content © Holly Hildreth 2011 | hhildrethphoto.wordpress.com

Quick November Update

It doesn’t seem possible, but there’s only a month left to this semester. As every college kid knows, the last week before Thanksgiving break is one of the most stressful. Every teacher has an extremely “important” group project, paper, or hefty assignment that they have due before you leave.

For my nature and scenic class, our professor is having us turn in a portfolio of mounted prints. He offered us 12 categories and we are to fulfill at least eight different ones. Since many students aren’t able to meet those requirements yet, today’s class involved us going to Knob Noster and hiking in the state park in attempts to beef up our portfolios. The biggest issue with this is that everything is dead and brown at the moment. I didn’t get anything too spectacular as a result.

After class, I was out and about with my camera and decided that it was about time for another Stoli mini-shoot. We played in the yard and he hammed it up for me.

Stoli decided to dig a hole

All Images © Holly Hildreth 2011

The Sun Actually Rises Before Noon!

This week for nature & scenic class, our assignment was to shoot sunrises/sunsets and the stars. Lucky for me, my parents were one vacation at the Lake of the Ozarks, so I had a great place to go shoot.

Every year my mom’s side of the family has their annual “McBain Family Vacation”. My parents plus my aunts and uncles on my mother’s side (plus my one uncle on my dad’s side,) get together for a week of what I can only assume is mayhem. They usually try to pick a different spot every year, but this is the third year they have vacationed in the Ozarks. The couple they rent their vacation property from are very nice and always excited to have them. Normally they have their vacation in September, but my cousin had a baby this year, so the vacation got pushed back a little bit.

I met up with my parents on Saturday, spent the night doing a little shooting and playing card games with them. Unfortuantely, it was cloudy, so I didn’t get any sunset pictures, and my night time images didn’t really have any stars. My mom got me up for the sunrise, which shockingly happens before noon—a fact that most college kids are unaware of. I got a few images on the lake that I am happy with.

I drove back to Warrensburg on Sunday and did a little night shooting with another photo friend that evening when the stars were actually out.

You can see all of my photo adventures from the weekend on my flickr page: Here.

The stars over a cow pasture in Warrensburg

All Content © Holly Hildreth 2011

Buddy and Maddie

Today, one of my photo friends,Anneka Clock, brought me her grandma’s Sheltie dogs to photograph. Buddy, the male, was very excited and happy to be in the studio. Maddie, the blue merle female, was a retired show-dog. She was very skittish and frightened of the studio. This made photographing a bit challenging, as most of the dogs that come in are bouncing off the walls and love to be fawned over and given treats. Luckily, another friend, Charlene Champion, joined us for the shoot and helped wrangle the dogs.

I was excited to photograph the Shelties. I had never shot a similar dog breed, and I figured it would bear some unique photos to beef up my portfolio.

(PS: If you are in the Kansas City area and have a dog or know someone who does, get in contact with me and we’ll try and set up a shoot. I am always looking for new models!)

Here are  few images from today’s session. You can check out all the proofs: HERE.

Buddy

 

 

Maddie

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

All Images are © Holly Hildreth 2011