Happy New Year

Ive really enjoyed the last week off from work and have been in the studio again. I took this shot last night. Glasses, water, or light seem to be my new passtime. Its been a great year for photography. I wanna personally thank all of you who have used me to photograph your important moments. Thanks and GOD bless you!

Just a reminder to anyone reading this that I am still giving away free one hour portrait sessions(with free 8 x10 and CD of all images) until the end of January to boost my portrait portfolio. No strings attached. Call 910-293-3428 or email me at kirkpullenphotography@embarqmail.com to set up an appointment time. Thanks, Kirk

The Happiest Place on Earth...

The happiest place on earth is your home! We had a great time in Orlando Florida this week visiting a couple Disney parks and staying at a great resort. For parents of children under five, I have a bit of parenting advice. Stay away from Disney until your kids get older. Think about this...What kid likes to stand in lines for 20+ minutes(even with a fast pass) to go on a ride. My kids hated it and there were just too many people there to enjoy the parks. The kids had a blast playing at the resort we were at because it had a water park. In Disney's defense, they did have a great time at a place called Disney Quest. It's a 5 story building in Downtown Disney. It has video games and old school entertainment games such as skee ball. It took us 12 hours to drive to Orlando, with all the necessary bathroom and eating breaks. Im thinking a plane sounds pretty good next time around. I hope the rest of 2008 treats you well and that God would bless you all in the new year.

Merry Christmas

I did these two shots last night. I must say that I think I enjoy working with water a little too much. Ill be going to Disneyworld for Christmas starting on the 19-26th. I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas!

Orange you glad...

Getting creative with fruit was helping me pass some time on Thursday night. This is my take on a strobist favorite. I used a snooted sb800 under a glass desk with orange gels 1/64 power to light the orange and then a double blue gelled from an an sb600 from the top 1/16 power 1 sec exposure at f 11 Iso 200. I think that this type of photography is challenging and fun, because its really up to you what the end result will be. I may do more shots like this in the coming week. I hope everyone has a joyous Christmas! I have alot of things to be thankful for! Thank you God for blessing me and my family!

Splash

Some red dye in water sure made for a big mess, but the results were really cool. I used a 3 x 2 foot of glass and black sheet of paper underneath to capture this shot. I used an old shower curtain to catch the water as it left the glass. It was nice having my new lens 24-70mm f2.8 to use on this shoot. It is super sharp!
Be sure to take advantage of the FREE photoshoots offered from DEC 1-Jan 31. See my previous post or website for details. Kirk

DECEMBER/JANUARY GIVEAWAY

*DECEMBER/JANUARY GIVEAWAY* In order to boost my picture portfolio I am giving away a FREE PHOTOSESSION to the first 10 people who contact me. FREE 8 X 10 and FREE CD to all edited images. NO STRINGS ATTACHED. NO COST TO YOU. DECEMBER 1-Jan 31 The pictures will be taken in my studio(weekends work best.) I only ask that you let me use your images on my website and say a good word about me to your friends. (allow 2-3 weeks for prints and CD's)

Contact Kirk or Crystal at 910-293-3428 or kirkpullenphotography@embarqmail.com

Nature's Colors Photo Contest Finalist

I was notified yesterday that I am a finalist in the Outdoor Photographer Magazine for the Nature's Colors Photo's Contest. This shot of Dingman's Falls in the Poconos is in the top 120 out of 8600 photos that were submitted. Its a voting process, so if you feel like throwing your support my way, it would be much appreciated. Here is the link outdoorphotographer.com

Focal Press Award

Hi Kirk,

I am the Marketing Manager for the Focal Photography list and the administrator of the photography contest. I wanted to let you know that author Corey Hilz has chosen your photo “Opera Singer” to be one of our third place winners for October – congratulations! Corey chose your photo from nearly 200 entries.

Third place winners receive a Focal photography book of their choice. Corey is the author of the Focal Digital Camera Guide that covers the Nikon D60 and the upcoming Nikon D90 – but I realize the book would only be of help to you if you have one of the cameras!

Also, your photo will be featured as a winner for October -- as it states in the "terms and conditions", whenever your photo is used for marketing purposes for the contest, we also list your location (city/state only) as well as your full name. I'll assume the city/state listed in your mailing address is the location you'd like me to use, but please let me know if this is not the case.

Thank you again for entering!

Best Wishes,


Kate

Kiddie Portraitz

Whats more fun as kid than playing dress up? Some friends of ours were visiting with us and I got them to dress up and make their way into the studio for a couple of minutes. Its hard to get children to smile in a natural looking way and its just better to let them be themselves. I feel like its better to just capture the moment. Ive got to thank Snow White and Cinderella for their patience!

Waterfalls

Ive had some time to edit pictures over this long weekend, so I thought Id share some more pictures of my trip to Maggie Valley, NC. If anyone is interested in prints of any of these shots let me know. I ll sell them for 15$ for an 8 x 10. Kirk

Featured Photo

I submit photos to several contest sites such as Betterphoto.com, soaphoto.com and xtremecamera.com. I was thrilled to see that xtremecamera.com chose the photo- "THE GENTLE FLOW" to be a featured photo on their site. Here is the critique from Professional Photographer J. Manzione.
"To me, it doesn’t get any better than this. A perfect 5 stars. Living in New Hampshire I see hundreds, if not thousands of fall foliage type photographs every year. I love them, don’t get me wrong, but I am always looking for someone that can give me a fresh perspective with it. A new way to see Fall, something unique. Man, this has to be the best fall shot I’ve seen in the last couple of years.

The flow of the water is amazing, such softness, and the curves are great. Using f22 assures that everything in the scene is going to be sharp, and it certainly did so here. The 16mm wide angle, focusing on the rock/leaves lower, slightly off-center, giving the scene a grandness despite its close-up elements is just spectacular. No over exposure, nothing under exposed, just a perfect storm of everything hitting exactly right.

Seeing the effects of October in New England in this manner is inspiring. Just when you think this season has been photographed in every imaginable way someone comes along and offers up something unique, and executed extremely well.
Bravo!"
In the next couple of weeks, we will see how well the shot does on the other contest sites. I hope this post doesnt come across as arrogant. I was really excited to have praise from other professional photographers. Kirk
Update-The Gentle Flow also got a Weekly Hot Pick on soaphoto.com for the week of oct 19-25

Mountain Man

...I was quite the mountain man this weekend. Roughing it in a 39 dollar a night motel from the 1970's. It was a perfect location but the amenities were lacking, especially the second night we were there. I think a breaker was tripped and the heat and water no longer worked. The motel room was close to 40 degrees. Lets just say I woke up with a cold nose. I had a fantastic time meeting up with other photographers from the website soaphoto.com There were six of us who spent several hours photographing a waterfall on the outskirts of Maggie Valley, NC. The second day we went to Cataloochee State Park just outside the Cherokee Indian Reservation. It was so amazing because the wild elk run free out there. I have to thank GOD (and my wife Crystal-watching the kids) for such an amazing weekend. Kirk

Head for the mountains

Im really excited this weekend to be going to Maggie Valley, NC. Im going to the mountains with a friend to meet with a bunch of other photographers. We are all participants in the Samsung of America photo website. (soaphoto.com) It should be a ton of fun taking pictures with people ive never met in person before. The last time I went to the mountains it was in Gatlinburg, TN. I havent been in the mountains during peak fall season in many years, so Im really looking forward to it. When I get back Ill post a bunch of pics for all to see. Kirk

Team Tennis

To go along with my last post- I just finished the team photo last night and wanted to present the girls with 4 color variations on it. I am making a DVD with all the images for the girls on the tennis team.

Some Serious Tennis

I thought Id put up a couple of the shots I took of the girls tennis team that I coach. The girls were so fun to work with. I actually had to stop taking pics for a couple minutes because they cracked me up! We wanted some tennis balls to be flying around in the background, so I had a girls stand behind the one we were shooting and had them throw tennis balls off of their racquet. The balls went up in the air and ended up landing on the girl's heads. You can click on the picture of the tennis players to see it FULL size.

The End of Summer

The end of summer means the end of alot of things, not just the hot weather. The tennis season is almost over for the high school girls team that I coach.  I wanted to give them some portraits that they wouldnt typically get from a school portrait, such as Lifetouch. Once I get permission from the parents, Ill post some on here for you to see. Its been alot of fun coaching the girls this year, they have worked really hard and we have upset some teams along the way. Most of the girls are freshman, so we should have alot to look forward to in years to come. 

One really cool thing that happened this week, is that I got my testimonial on PORTFOLIOSITEZ.COM website. Here is the link. http://portfoliositez.com/testimonials.php

At the time I published this blog, my website is third from the bottom.

 Ill leave you this week with a picture of summer. My daughter and her cousin, enjoying the shade on a swing. 

May the Force Miss You

Hurricane Hanna wasn't quite the force that we expected. I had about 20-30 leaves to rake up! lol It did give me time, (too much time) to play around the house. (I shot this last night) I used my son Max's Room Guard as a photo subject. I wanted the shot to look like Darth Vader walking through an Imperial Star Cruiser, so I used a wire bread rack to simulate the ceiling. Its great that my son loves the toys that I loved, (and still love....shhhhh dont tell anyone!), growing up as a kid. I used a shoot through umbrella from camera left and set of white cardboard squares about 8 inches in size. One square I used as a reflector for fill light on his face and one camera right, that reflected light to the right side of his face. I used a 4 foot JTL circular reflector to reflect light back onto Darth's head and block the reflection of the ceiling fan in our dining room( Yes I took the shot on my dining room table-used a black table cloth!) I love this type of photography because I can experiment alot. When photographing people, they sometimes arent as willing to be patient and experiment as I am. Thats it for this week. May the force Miss you! That goes double for you Hurricane Ike!

New Backdrops

I received two new backdrops in the mail this week, both 10 feet in width(One is solid black, the other snow white.) I will be using friends and family as guinea pigs for lighting tests, so look out. The backdrops should be alot of fun to work with since they are paper and wont have any wrinkles to iron out. Maybe next week, Ill post some of the test shots that I take. Well, sorry this week is so short on photo info. Isabelle's birthday party is tommorow and my parents are coming today, so Ive gotta keep the house clean. Speaking of guinea pigs, I took this shot two years ago, while trying to copy the nikon lighting manual example shots. The rimlight is ultra strong, but I loved the two catchlights on the glass. My son Max looks way too old in this shot. See ya next week, Kirk

Patience

I had a shoot this week with a couple who wanted a family portrait. Everything was ready to go and the couple sat down and tried to get the young toddler to sit on their laps. He would do anything but sit down. The couple was very patient and after about a half an hour he sat down for maybe a couple of seconds. I managed to get a couple decent shots. We had been shooting indoors and thought we might have better luck outside. A change of scenery was just what the doctor ordered. The boy was much more willing to work with us outside and we finished with plenty of good shots. It just reminded me that as a parent and a photographer I need to have patience in everything I do. Ill leave you this week with a shot(that took alot of patience to get) of my daughter Isabelle and her scrunchie face pose.

I want to thank GOD for the opportunity to be involved in photography. He has blessed me more than I ever could have imagined.

See you next week, Kirk

New Website Grand Opening!

I ve worked really hard to get the new Kirkpullenphotography.com up and running. Its not easy to work on the computer with Isabelle and Max hanging on me while I type. I try to take breaks and play with them as much as I can. Anyway, I hope you enjoy the new look and I will post weekly to this blog and let you know whats happening in my photography world. For now Ill leave you with a picture from a trip I took to the Poconos in PA just a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy! Kirk