Moore Than A Golf – PVW on stands NOW!

A little over a year ago, we got together with Scott Moore for an incredible afternoon photoshoot at Mt. St. Helens. After spending hours driving around the incredible site from the 1980 volcanic eruption that practically destoryed the entire area, we finally settled into a parking lot right below the mountain. Right into the afternoon we were able to track the sunlight and as the car was backlit by the sun, we actually used 5 Canon speedlights to light the car as evenly as possible accross multiple angles. Scott has now been featured with this photoshoot in Peformance VW Magazine in the February 2012 issue. Definitely check out the mag and as a gift you can download the wallpaper poster photograph here:

I hope that you like the feature – this issue is chock full of great cars. Thanks again to Scott and PVW.

Kelsey and max wedding

Kelsey is the sister of Anders who is a very good friend of mine who I have known since high school. When we heard from Kelsey that she was engaged to Max and that they wanted Sarah and I to photograph their wedding, it was our honor to be part of the wedding day – absolutely.  Kelsey and Max planned to have a traditional catholic wedding at a very new church in downtown Seattle (literally right next to pike place) called Christ Our Hope Church. After the wedding, they planned on having their reception a few blocks away at Women’s University Club in Seattle. Both of these locations could not speak more to Kelsey and Max’s style – very classy and comfortable locations. Fortunately we planned a 8 hour day so we could meet Kelsey nice and early when she was getting ready – This was really fun, they did their own makeup and it went by really quickly.

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This is a photo of the ball room at the Women’s University Club while they were setting up. It’s a really big and pretty space that overlooks 6th avenue in downtown Seattle. The club is private, so you don’t have to worry about people crashing your party, and its all very nicely decorated.

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I absolutely love this photo with Kelsey and Mom (Becky) – you can just tell how happy she is.

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Kelsey and Max decided on a traditional ceremony and not to see each other until the wedding ceremony. You can see Kelsey above and Max below, the bridesmaids and groomsmen doing a good job keeping them from seeing each other.

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The Christ Our Hope church is really beautiful – I mean look at it. Huge beautiful ceilings, stain windows and enough seating for hundreds of people. As you walk through the main doors in to the church, your immediately welcomed by a serene baptism pool near the entrance in the center of the church. It made for really pretty reflections and photos during the wedding as you can see below.

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After the wedding was over, we did all of the family photos and a few portraits with the wedding party inside the church. The weather was not cooperating very much, so Kelsey and Max decided to keep all the photos indoors.  These photos were great because we could use natural light from the huge windows on the west side of the church.  By far my favorite photos from the wedding were photographed back at the Women’s University Club (WUC). The club has 2 huge rooms off of the main ball room, a sitting room and a library. Sarah and I setup a few flashes on remote to light the rooms (there was no ceiling light) – the rooms were very dark apart from a few desk lamps. We spent about 20 minutes with Kelsey and Max just trying a few different photos and I really loved this set.

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After getting used to the lighting, we got these shots which were some of my favorite from the year.

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Kelsey and Max are so awesome and chill, they had a hamburger bar, taco bar and sushi for a do-it-yourself kind of buffet. Their reception was handled very well by the WUC. Everything was picture perfect and Sarah and I could not have been more happy to be part of their special day. Congrats to Kelsey and Max!

Bao family

A few months ago we got a e-mail from Kimberly Bao who found us on Best of King 5 here http://best.king5.com/mkippen-photography/biz/496384 – Kimberly wanted to get some photos of her little baby boy Luke. The weather was turning bad, and it was getting cold outside, so this was the perfect opportunity to use our studio for the very first baby photo session. Happily Kim obliged to the studio for photos and we were very excited to say the least.

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What can I say about Luke other than he is absolutely adorable and so photogenic. Luke was very fun to photograph as long as he has something to play with and if you could keep his attention. At one point we even took Bella (our pug) to see him and he was so surprised by her. It was very fun to try out some new things for the first time. For some photos we tried a method of painting the background with Gels – unfortunately I did not have enough gels to get a deep blue, but the baby blue color actually worked pretty cool.

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We really had a lot of fun with this first studio session. Sarah and I are on a mission to start collecting cool carpets, blankets and props to use for newborn shoots that will break up the white backdrop. We are excited to do more pictures with Luke soon. Kimberly called us over the Christmas break to do a in-home session where we could get some more natural photos. what a awesome family.

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We really adore this family, and we hope that we can bring more photos of them as they grow up together. Its really been a wonderful privilege for Sarah and I to be part of the Bao family memories and we are very excited to see them again soon. We are working hard on our studio photo-shoots and getting better every session.

Randy and Beth

Randy and Beth Williams live just outside of Portland Maine, and were married a few months ago on September 4th. Randy and Beth are the kind of friends you rarely see, but whenever you get together, its like you live right next door. When Sarah and I got engaged, I respectfully asked Randy if he would be willing to photograph my own wedding in May despite the fact that Randy had never professionally shot a wedding before, he accepted – Shortly after this Randy and Beth got engaged and I immediately offered to pay back the favor to photograph their wedding. A perfect situation arose, two friends could be part of a most special day by being each other’s photographers. 

It goes without saying that I seriously love Randy and Beth, they are the nicest most down to earth people that I know and to be able to fly out to Portland Maine to photograph their wedding was an absolute honor. Beth is so beautiful and she has a unique style that is really fun to photograph and Randy has a strong and exciting personality that bonds so well with Beth.

As with many of our destination weddings, we had the opportunity to spend several days with Rand and Beth before the wedding – we were able to capture the entire weekend as it setup and left.

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Its really special to us to be able to meet the family and friend before the wedding day. Randy and Beth’s family were so welcoming and friendly, it felt like we had lived in Maine all our life. We were able to be part of the rehearsal and all the events leading up to the special day.  Sunday September 4th came around quickly and it was a beautiful, hot, Maine day.  Have you ever seen such a relaxed bride?

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As I know Randy through Volkswagens, it was fun to set up some shots with his famous Volkswagen mk2 GTI which he drove to the wedding. Randy has owned this car for a long time and it is well known to reflect his spitzer personality.

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The wedding was held at the Broadturn farm http://broadturnfarm.com/ A wonderful property which is mostly a dedicated farmland for growing local veggies, but also has a wonderful, classic barn and a big open area which is perfect for a reception. Randy and Beth were able to procure a huge tent for their reception and used the barn for the ceremony. Despite the crazy humidity and what felt like insane heat to a seattle-ite – it was all coming together perfect. The family style seating with two huge tables about 60 feet long was unique and wonderful. Beth’s grandma sewed each placement individually which was free for each guest to take home.

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Its wedding time! This was one of the few weddings in the past year where I took a real chance on my video skills. I decided ahead of time that I would shoot the wedding 1/2 video and 1/2 photography, allowing Sarah to get all the key moments, it freed me up to get some special times on video rather than just photos the whole time. As I hope you watched the video from the top of the blog, it definitely payed off.

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Randy and Beth decided to see each other for the first time at the ceremony and the portraits were a direct reflection of their fun bubbly personalities. we had a lot of fun going through the farm finding different places to photograph from the Barn to a Tractor.

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Probably my favorite photos of the portraits were against a barn which was just so simple, yet so different from the types of photos we have photographed over the years. I just absolutely love this set

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Sarah and I cannot wait to go back to Maine again soon – it’s a dream land as far as we are concerned and it was a dream day – such a wonderful time from end to end. We hope that you loved this wedding as much as we did.  ~ Mike & Sarah

We are alive

Yes, its been a few months since we have posted anything, but if that’s proof of nothing, its that we have been super busy. Between our 2011 wedding season coming to a close a few weeks ago and many portraits and video shoots in between, we have been out there shooting so much new content we have not had the time to focus on updates. Neglecting be done, we are going to do our best to keep new content flowing from our latest sessions in the new few weeks.

Here is a small recap of what we have been up to the last few months.  We will do full posts on these sessions soon.

 

Randy and Beth wedding

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Bryce and Jen Engagement

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Kelsey and Max Wedding

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Luke Bao (Studio)

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Penny and Mark Wedding

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Bao Family

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Katrina Kippen Maternity (Studio)

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Choc–O–Broc (STUDIO)

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Pumpkin Patch 2011

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Grahame Kippen was Born

My brother Tony and his wife Katrina gave birth to Grahame Kippen – plenty more photos to come soon. We are hoping to have KK and Grahame in the studio later this week for some newborn photos.

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Stacy and Mykel (Studio)

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Much more coming soon. This is just a peek into what we have been up to.
Thank you for all the support and  keeping us busy!