Three Generations

Kim's mother was in town and wanted shots of all three generations, including Kim's daughter Lucy.

We went to a small lake in our housing area and the first thing that happens is that I realize that my favorite lens, my 70-200mm lens that produces some sweet bokeh, is kaput.  I manage to hide my disappointment pretty well, and besides, I've got a very sweet 24-70 lens that is masterful at shooting groups of people, and can still produce some pretty nice bokeh when needed.

For me, that's the mark of a professional.  Things can go wrong, and the client never even knows.  Of course, you've still gotta deliver the goods!

We found a pretty cool waterfall that served as a backdrop for several of our shots.  Otherwise, we just walked around and found neat little areas to do our shots.  We even shared a bridge with some high school girls who were shooting a short video for a class.

We pulled out some great shots on this day.  Here are some samples:

Eric & Shannon Engagement

Eric and Shannon are getting married in August this year in Chicago.  We managed to get an engagement shoot of them in while visiting in Houston in March.

They obviously like to have a lot of fun, so we incorporated that into the shoot.  But there's also a romantic side to both of them, and one of their favorite shots from this series is the one where they're walking into the sunset.

Here are eight samples of their shoot:

Odyssey Dance Competition

I was the offered the opportunity to shoot my very first dance competition with the Odyssey Dance Competition here at the University of Houston.  Wow!  These dancers had some moves!  There were some girls as young as 6 years old up on the stage just shaking it and moving and grooving in ways I just couldn't imagine they could do at such a young age!

This was my first opportunity to check out the Hintze Dance Company, and boy, did they bring it!

They had some great individual dance performances as well as small groups, but what was absolutely amazing was their large group ensemble dancing.  They had probably 25-30 dancers on the stage at a time, with dancers constantly going on and off.  Their costumes were fabulous, as their best number was a riff off of Alice in Wonderland.  Sweet!  It's pretty clear Ginny Hintze is getting these dancers ready for a potential professional career in dancing.

Here are some shots from the compeitition, but not all are Hintze dancers:

How often do you find three dancers who can kick like this?  Okay, now let's do it in unison:

If you ever need a dancer to underline the name of the competition, look no further:

Alexis, here below, won my BEST OF SHOW competition -- my best dance competition photo as judged by my visitors -- with this excellent shot of her with hair flying on a spin move and a big smile out to the judges and audience.  

 Take a look at this next series of three shots.  This was all the same dancer in an individual performance during the morning.  Three great shots, one right after another!

 

 

Pricing & Packages

I don't think it takes long when you look at my website galleries to determine that I'm an artist first, with a creative edge, and I blend that with my photojournalistic style. 

Please contact me for details.  When we meet, we'll get to know each other, and I can put together a package in line with what you would like.  I can show you my album samples and discuss options with that as well.

The Essentials Package ($1995) includes:

• 8 hours of coverage by Ron McKinney.
• Digital Darkroom Editing.  Your images will be optimized for exposure, color correction, cropping, sharpening, and overall enhancements.
• Thank You cards will be provided to your reception guests that features your engagement shoot with me.  It will provide the website address where all your wedding pictures will be displayed.
• The online gallery of all your unedited wedding pictures will be uploaded within days of your wedding.  Your friends and family can view for free, and order prints online from this gallery if they'd like.
• Full high-resolution, edited JPGs provided on a custom data DVD about 12 weeks from your wedding, and a Personal Use License.
• Approximately 15-25 fully edited images from your wedding posted to my Facebook page within 7 days of your wedding.
• Travel time within the Chicagoland area is included.  Locations that require more than 2 hours one way will be charged an additional $50 an hour.

Album packages start at $2795.  We offer albums for couples working on a tight budget, as well as luxury albums.  When we meet, we can give you more details on our albums.  The wedding video package starts at $1695, again only available to couples who book me as their wedding photographer.

More information on Ron McKinney Photography, including additional hours of coverage, pricing on a second photographer, wedding videos, photo booths, Save the Date cards, Brag Books, Thank You cards, Bridal Books and Wedding Albums, and inclusion of an Engagement Session, can be discussed when we meet.  Please fill out the form on the Contact section, and I'll be on the phone with you within 24 hours.

All rates exclude Illinois sales tax, which is applicable only to prints and albums.

Engagement sessions start at $400, includes $100 in print credits.  It is included in all wedding packages that I offer at no additional cost.

Senior Portraits and Family Portrait packages start at $400 with $100 of print credit.

Dancers can contact me for rates regarding Headshots and Dance Position photos.  An Urban Portrait Series shoot package starts at $400, and can be part of a Senior Portrait package at the same price.

Dance companies can contact me to shoot their performance dress rehearsals.

If you have any questions about pricing or packages, please contact me by email at ron@ronmckinneyphotography.com, or call me at 312-613-0674 or Beth at 847-989-2782.

Fairfield Dancers at Swenke

It's always a lot of fun when Elle gets to perform in front of an audience, and the Fairfield Dance Company's Performance Group gives her that opportunity every month or two, leading up to the Spring Recital. And naturally, that means I get to get some shots of her performance group, as well as the Fairfield Dance Company.

At the Swenke Elementary School Cafeteria, it was a pretty tight fit with a lot of fans crowding in the front -- so I went from trying to get full-body shots as I normally do with dance photography to switching to some tighter shots. That led to my favorite shot here:



Here's a few more of the Dance Company, which the team did a fabulous considering the audio issues.  You can check out all the pics at my Galleries site.

The Alligator Shot!

Since I published the shot of Beth stepping on alligator at Brazos Bend State Park, a lot of people have asked me exactly how that worked out: Was it a real alligator?  Did she really stand on it?  Here, you get to see for yourself exactly how I created this composite image.  Here's the final image:

If you look at this image, it looks as real as can be, that my brave newly Texan wife is strutting her stuff on an adult American Alligator.  She shows no fear here, and for good reason.

She's not actually standing on an alligator.  She's standing on a log.

Check below for the two images, side by side that I used in this composite:

If you notice, the alligator is a horizontal shot, and the shot of Beth is vertical.  This was intentional.  Now go back to the composite, and you notice that the alligator's tail stretches off the shot to the left, and his mouth cuts off the shot to the right, not so much as to be distracting.

By having the alligator stretch across the picture like that, it gives me a natural place to make a cut from one image to the other.  I cut exactly along the top of the alligator with the alligator layer on top of Beth's layer.  With a border like that, there's no need to mesh two different environments, and the shift from the environment below the alligator, with the water, seems very natural with the environment above the alligator, which comes from Beth's picture.  In fact, the log she is standing on helps, as it looks like it could be part of the lake.

Now if I had just cut the edge of the alligator and placed Beth's foot on him, it would not have looked natural at all.  So to give it more reality, I cut into the alligator's back so Beth's foot would appear to be more on top of the middle of the back.  The next thing that I did was take the area of the alligator's back directly beneath her shoe, and applied a subtle shadow to it.

Put it all together and you've got yourself a mad Texas woman stepping on a real live adult American Alligator.  Feel free to email me at ron@ronmckinneyphotography.com if you would like to try a composite like this.  Of course, you'll need a program like Photoshop that allows you to edit in layers.

Spring Performances

Dance companies typically have a Spring recital, and some have a performance on top of recital as well.  These are usually held to showcase the dancers' talents, in effect to show how they've improved over the past year.

That means these performances are pretty challenging and exciting.  It's always a fun time to photograph Spring performances.

I have a lot of pics to show, so here we go: