Last weekend I had the pleasure of shooting a Mom & Daughter portrait session in Coronado. It was a really special portrait session because it was my Cousin Michelle’s 21st birthday. My aunt debbie & I surprised her by taking her to the beach and *SURPRISE* we’re doing a fun portrait session right now!! They loved it and I really enjoyed their love for laughter! Thanks for the fun time you two! Check out some of my favorite shots from our session.
Yesterday, a couple of San Diego Photographers and myself got together for a shoot. We met at an industrial park area for an hour of shooting followed by dinner at Soupplantation! I love the community we all have as photographers. So, during the shoot we had a 1 light setup with an Alienbee Ringflash and I was demonstrating to our group how you don’t only need a studio light for indoor studio shooting. Whenever you get the chance, bring a studio light to a shoot outdoors and make some awesome images come together!
One thing I learned from my good friend Zach Gray about outdoor shooting is that if you bring along 1 studio light to your outdoor shoot and expose correctly, you will have consistent lighting so when you enter your workflow, the editing will extremely quick and you could practically pull these images from camera directly and they would look great.
Here is the before (without the light). Natural light shot. See how it looks flat, only one source of light on the image.
1/320 f/3.5 ISO 100
Then I added a light to this same location. Now see the difference with what 1 single light will do to your location. It looks completely different and a WAY cooler shot!! NO photoshop was added to this image. I opened ACR and did a few tweaks to the image to give it the look it has but everything was done in camera with 1 ringflash. See how defined this looks?
Meet Keary & Justin. They are one amazing couple and also good friends of mine. I’ve known Keary for a little over a year through her own photography business, Keary Dee Photography. Earlier this year she married her best friend and amazing husband, Justin. I recently did a 7 hour day workshop with San Diego photographer, Dan Fields and at the end of the day he wanted to shoot a downtown bridal shoot so our good friends Keary & Justin modeled for us.
Keary & Justin are totally in love with each other but more in love with Jesus and the way they live their lives shows that. Our shoot started near one of my all-time favorite places, East Village near Petco Park. We walked the streets, shot inside of a fun hotel and even went inside Petco Park. The weather was so perfect and these two totally know how to rock the camera because they are SO good looking!
At the end of the session, we totally realized that Keary looks like Taylor Swift and Justin kind-of resembles American Idol winner Kris Allen? I don’t know… maybe thats just me. You can decide for yourself.
I first met Phil a couple of years ago right after I had first gotten saved. He was the lead singer in the worship band at church where my parents & sister were all married and its the same church where I have been serving as a youth leader for the past six years. He recently went to Nashville, TN to start the recording process for his new worship album that is is releasing sometime in the early fall. I got a call from him last month asking if I would shoot the cover. Okay, now I really wanted to respond with, “Yes, Yes, Yes!! That sounds like so much fun!” The only thing is that I have little experience in photographing musicians. I am a wedding & portrait photographer. (Side note:If you want to see an incredible music photographer, checkout my friend David Molnar) Phil believed in me and he knew that I would do a great job. I accepted the shoot and we planned some sweet concepts for his album. I knew that during this shoot, Christ would give me the power to do great and he really did come through.
We did the shoot last week in downtown San Diego. We partnered up with my good friends at Hotel Indigo to shoot on their rooftop and also walked around the area near Petco Park. Such beautiful light!!
Last weekend I had the pleasure of shooting Keary & Justins downtown Bridal shoot which was so much fun!! I’ll be posting the full shoot later this week sometime with images from hotels, textured walls, open streets and a baseball field!! Here is just a teaser from their session!!
A few months ago I got an email from a photographer based out of Missouri. She had started a business, booked a few weddings and is happy as a photographer but she felt stuck and she wanted to grow to the next level. The next level of how to give her clients an amazing experience, how to start using social media to book brides, creating a quick workflow to finish images in faster time so that she could give more time to her family. She revealed to me that she had been following my work, inspired by my story and wanted to learn from me. I thought about it and agreed.
Angie arrived in San Diego, we covered everything she expected to learn. The 7 hour day included a super rad engagement session in San Diego, lunch and a fun headshot session. Following the 7 hour day it just so happend that I had a wedding the following day so I was lucky enough to give Angie not one but two consecutive days of learning. Thank You, Angie!! I had an amazing time with you!
Here is a sweet video that Angie sent me following her experience! Isn’t she awesome!?
Here is a preview from the headshot session I did with Angie
If you are a photographer interested in a 7 hour day learning experience, please email me at info@stephenknuth.com and we can chat all about the details!
Update: Since our session together two weeks ago, Angie has put all these awesome tools that she learned to good use and booked a destination wedding!! AWESOME!
Here are a few images from the engagement session we had (with one of my clients & happily married couple, Courtney and Andy)
Kevin is a good friend of mine who I have known through the local San Diego PUG group since he is an awesome Wedding photographer in San Diego. The local PUG group meets each month and every time that I would see him I would ask how he is doing. He would laugh and reply with, “I’m happy, healthy, have an amazing wife and two great kids… life is sweet!”. SO, he kept telling me about his amazing wife and one night after PUG he & I had a long conversation about life, faith, photography and how amazing his wife/my fiance are in our lives. He told me he wanted me to meet his wife and the way I met Beth was through the portrait session I did with them last week.
Kevin & Beth are perfect together. They have had such an amazing marriage, they love the lord and they are great parents. At the start of our shoot, I asked Beth what would make Kevin laugh? Her response was,”lines from Arrested Development”. Okay, so I have never seen this show and they have seen every season multiple times and they share conversations with nothing but the lines from the show! At first I was confused because I have never seen the show but you know what? Kevin started to laugh, then Beth started to laugh and I started to laugh at these sentences that I have NEVER heard before. I guess I need to start watching Arrested Development?
Their portrait session was so much fun. We hung out at the Carlsbad Flower Fields for a while and we had a great time! “Life is Sweet!”
Kevin & Beth, you both are so awesome!! I can’t wait till we get to hangout again soon!!
The day after Jason & Carries engagement session in Coronado, I was honored to have photographed Carries sisters 1 year old daughter Lila for a little portrait session around Coronado beach. Lila is full of great energy & she is one of the best 1 year olds that I have ever met!! During our shoot, it was the first time that she had ever encountered sand!! It was hilarious, she was laughing and giggling as she put sand all over her face and rolled around the beach!
Andy & Courtney may look familiar to you because wo weeks ago, I had the honor and privilege to capture the first moment that Andy & Courtney had together in 8 months when Andy had come home from being deployed with the US Navy. Andys’ homecoming was such a moving experience that I’ll never forget!
A little over a year ago, Andy and Courtney were married in their home state of Michigan. They first met each other in 3rd grade, grew up in the same church and continued to be sweethearts throughout high school. Courtney went off to college while Andy joined the Navy. They continued to keep their love strong through their passion for Jesus Christ and when the time was right, Andy proposed to her. They are one of the sweetest couples that I have ever met.
Right after Andy got off his ship, we started talking about the photographs that they have of them together. They never had an official engagement session before they got married. I felt so moved by their love story that I offered them a portrait session in La Jolla. It was SO much fun working with them and their chemistry is remarkable.
Andy & Courtney, you both are really special and it was a pleasure to take these portraits of you both. You two are perfect, don’t ever change.
