Houston Ballet

One of the nice things about working in photography is that you can sometimes develop relationships with organizations that you really want to be a part of.  I did exactly that with the Houston Ballet and now often get to shoot their dress rehearsals, and I've had the wonderful experience of assisting their official photographer, Amitava Sarkar, during their annual brochure shoot in the fall of 2010.

Here are some pictures I've taken of the Houston Ballet performers:

About Me

About me: I'm a full-time photographer, live in Belchertown, MA.  I grew up in California, I think I call New Mexico home, spent six years in Germany, and my wife and I still own a home in the NW suburbs of Chicago -- which she calls home.  I have a bachelor's degree in psychology and a master's in organizational management.  Beth and I have three children: Elle, 9; Mia, 7; and Casey, 4.

I've been shooting photography since the 1980s when my very first credit card purchase was for a Pentax 35mm camera.  These days, I shoot with Nikon and process all my images on a Mac computer with most of the work using Photoshop. 

In the early 2000s, Beth and  I owned Camelback Video Productions, which specialized in shooting wedding videos in the Phoenix area.  We also made a few short films, I was a First Assistant Director on a low-budget feature film, and Beth and I were on the executive committee of the Phoenix Film Festival.

More recently, I enjoyed some rave reviews of my gallery show on the Urban Portrait Series, which was displayed at Open Square in Holyoke, MA.  I was also pretty happy with my picture of the Houston Ballet's Samantha Lynch being published in Dance Magazine in April 2011.

When it comes to shooting portraits, I try to find a creative way to capture your physical presence and to bring your personality into whatever location we're shooting.

You can reach me at ron@ronmckinneyphotography.com or call me at 312-613-0674.

Here are some pictures of me in action shooting the Urban Portrait Series:

Shooting the baseball concept for the Urban Portrait Series

I get right into the thick of things with some shots!

Talking to the Houston Ballet's Melody Herrera about our shot.

My goal is always to have a collaborative approach to the shot.  Here I'm showing Peter and Melody how it's looking.

A wide shot of me shooting Peter Franc for the Urban Portrait Series.

This is Zuzi Leckova's shot of me getting a shot of Heidi "sliding" into second base for the baseball shoot.

Another wide shot of me shooting Melody and Peter.

Dance Houston Portraits

We set up this big shoot where we had Dance Houston dancers coming in to the studio as a steady stream throughout the day.  Tim Burggraf and I took turns on the shooting, and here are some of my favorite images from that day:

Fun with Water

I admit it, my favorite shots involve water.

The best water shots in the world, in my opinion, is right here in Houston at Discovery Park.  Those fountains are perfect for shooting creative shots with spraying water!

There's also the Water Wall in the Galleria area.

And I'm even including a shot of my girl, Elle, in our swimming pool.

I'm going to offer group shoots at Discovery Park this summer.   Please let me know if you're interested in participating by contacting me at ron@ronmckinneyphotography.com.

Here are some samples:

Maria & Ryan Engagement

I've known Maria's family for a few years, so I was very happy when they asked me to shoot Maria and Ryan's engagement shots.

The day we did the shoot, the weather in the NW suburbs of Chicago was immaculate -- but wow, mosquitoes were out in full force.  Maria and Ryan were real troopers and we came out of the shoot with some real keepers.

Here are five samples:

Boy Rides Dinosaur!

A woman asked me to do some portraits of her in her home, and after we wrapped up the shoot, she threw a little challenge at me.  She wondered if it was possible to do a composite shot of her son as if he were riding his toy dinosaur.  The finished composite shot is at the end of this blog.

Not one to back down from a creative challenge, I quickly put together the shoot with just a few components. First I had to shoot the dinosaur.  I lit it up with my studio lights as if it were daytime, then I had to shoot the dinosaur to give it the perspective of being large.  Here's the dinosaur:

I had the dinosaur slightly turned so I could really get the boy in the shot.  We grabbed an Indiana Jones fedora as a prop and then had him holding onto it as if it were ready to fly off in an action shot:

The kid did a pretty good job imagining that he was on a dinosaur.  I then had to find a proper setting for the dinosaur, and so found this cool Jurassic Park shot with the sign in it.  I thought that was pretty good, then found a picture of another dinosaur that I thought would look good if I added it to the shot.

Now you can't just throw all these elements in and expect it to look realistic.  I had to cut around the boy to make it appear he truly was on that dinosaur.  And then work on the lighting so all the images would match, and then throw in shadows on the background.  The first shot below is the final composite, and then after that is a cropped shot that focuses on the boy.

The Snowman Cartoon!

I had some free time during the Christmas Break and decided to play around with the idea of having these snowmen (and women) who had like cartoonish faces.  Then there was two girls (Elle and Mia) out there with them.  Of course, I also had to include Santa Claus looking out through a bedroom window!