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Portrait Session at Sandyrock Acres

One of the things I love about my work as an artist is that sometimes I get the pleasure of meeting some really cool people. Rick and Christina are some of those really cool people. I met them over three years through my affiliation with the Athens Birth Circle when they contacted me about maternity portraits. They live outside of Lancaster and when they booked me had mistakenly thought I worked out of Athens…they decided to make the drive to Belpre anyway and a friendship was forged.  

I photographed their daughter Raven Emmaline over the first year of her life and really got to know all three of them as a family. My favorite sessions that year were always at their farm. I often come home with a dozen of fresh eggs and a smile! I missed my appointment with them last year because I was attending and photographing the delivery of my cousins daughter, Lydia.

I got them on the calendar this year in a prime fall foliage spot as their farm Sandy Rock Acres is amazing and bursting with beauty that time of year and I did not want another year to go by without seeing Miss Raven! She is a very serious little girl sometimes and I love photographing her – her eyes are amazing and she always gives me a good stare down!

Many of you may already know that I love a good barter, it makes me downright giddy, especially if it’s something I am really excited about - like getting the house painted or humanely raised meat. Rick, Christina and Raven own Sandy Rock Acres , a 50 acre farm based on the philosophy meat should be raised in the most humane way possible. They are not in a hurry and they don’t believe that bigger is always better. They believe, like I do, that happy animals make better tasting meat.  

This has to be one of my all time favorite barters because not only was it a great deal for both of us but  I love telling people that my sittings are $125.00 or 12 free range chickens….yep they paid in chickens. I bragged about it for days, begging everyone that came in the house to look in my freezer.  We have had the most amazing meals from these chickens and they are indeed tasty…mmmm tarragon lemon roasted chicken….mmmm.

Our session came at the end of an amazing week for me. I had spent some time in the Columbus area being gentle with myself and forging some new friendships. I hung out at my Grammas and did a bunch of nothing and then I got to finish the week by photographing on the farm. Here is a peek at our afternoon - I cannot remember a more gorgeous fall shooting day.

 

Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween from Roberts Family Photography!

I just wanted to share with you the background of the image we created for Halloween this year.

I have always loved this image:

I do not know who took it, or what the real story behind it is....I have one in my head I like to tell myself, "Once upon a time there  was a group of amazing women in crazy hats sitting around drinking liquor out of tea cups and giggling like crazy...." stop by and see me if you want the rest of that story!

I made some phone calls and got everyone on board for the shot. Included in the shot were my faithful assistant, Nurse Ashlie, Katey proud parent of everyone's favorite girl - Pig Pen and local artist Jenny Christopher. With our coven assembled we got up early one morning and headed over to Jeremy Bungards house in the historic district of Parkersburg. We set up the shot in his neighbors yard (Thanks Bob & Bea) based on the position of the sun and wanting a garden like background.

Jeremy was the art director for this shot and actually pulled the trigger for us. He was in charge of table linens, props, postion of the camera and every other little detail that made this shot amazing. This shot was done with Nikon D300 with a 17-55mm 2.8 lens. On camera flash with a light modifer balanced out with ambient light.

The entire shot took an hour from set up to tear down. We took about 70 images to get it right. I had decided before hand to add the hats after the fact so the shot was done bare headed. I copied the hats from the original shot and photoshopped them on.

I would like to dedicate this shot to my tribe of fabulous women....you know who you are. I love each and everyone of you and could not imagine my universe without your love and support.

Blessings,

Andi

 

You Are Invited!

Miss Sarah

Today I had the pleasure of meeting and photographing Sarah. Sarah is a senior at Federal Hocking High School and brought her mom and Aunt with her. We all had a great time! Sarah introduced me to her idol Richie McDonald via the internet  - so we cranked up the tunes and started the portrait session!

Sarah was a gorgeous model and so easy to work with, I thought I would share some images from her session.

  

Holiday Portrait Sessions are getting scarce!

Happy Fall everyone! Here we are at the last day of Summer! It's so hard to believe we are about to enter my favorite season - Fall! Being a scorpio I can't help but love my birth season! I actually had to break out a sweater today!

I am so looking forward to the crisp air, punkin patches and snuggly weather! I was at a music festival over the weekend and during one of the performances leaves just started to rain out of the sky...it was so beautiful mixed with the music!

Believe it or not  now is the time to book your sessions for the holidays. We seriously have just a few left  - here is the breakdown:

September 5 Sessions - call right away and we can still get you in this month

October 6 Sessions

Novemer 3 Sessions

These are the only sessions left that will allow you enough time to order for holiday delivery.

Here are the ordering deadlines:

Holiday print orders must be placed no later than November 15th

Christmas Card orders must be placed by November 10th

Purse and custom orders must be placed by November 1st

What would a post be without a portrait! I leave you with this portrait of Mr. Evan taken last fall at his gramma's house.....

Erik aka:the boy

If any of you follow my tweets, facebook posts or this blog you might know that Teresia and I usually refer to Erik as "the boy". It has been brought to my attention that I never blogged about his Senior portrait session. Hands down one of my favorite days ever!

Our house is a bit of a hub for Erik and his buds. I only recently found out that it's not because of me and my charming way of yelling at them to clean up or quit parking in front of my office - it's the internet connection we have as the result of running a portrait studio.....

When it came time to take Senior Portraits we decided to have his friends over and make a weekend of it. It was pure chaos getting 5 teenaged gentlemen ready and out the door for portraits. Like herding cats. Or nailing jello to the wall.

Yes, I did 5 sets of Senior Portraits all at once. I was exhausted when it was all said and done with! But we had so much fun! They were hilarious and handsome all at once. I will share images from each session but will start with "the boy". He started college at Shawnee State last week so the house is awfully empty without he and his friends. I miss him and spent the Monday after he left hanging out in and cleaning his room so I felt close to him.....I love you Erik! The house isn't the same without you!

 

 

 

 

Senior Session

So Ashlie says I need to blog more often! Hugs Ashlie! You do your best to keep me going in the right direction. Ashlie also pointed out that I don't have many Senior portraits on my site or blog. Again, Ashlie is correct.

My most recent Senior portrait session took place at my favorite urban/grungy/industrial spot, I love the light, the architechture and all the texture. It was a super fun session! We thought the weather was not going to cooperate but it cleared up just enough and gave us the perfect overcast lighting conditions.

 

 

 

 

Belpre Homecoming Portraits

We've had a great time photographing all the Belpre Homecoming contestants. Here is the link to see your portraits:

http://www.millersalbums.com/?event=62063Wbelpre09

We will be delivering your images to the Chamber on Thursday for distribution at a practice.

I will be out of the office for the next couple days working on my new catalog at the Snowshoe Resort with my manager Kim!

Here is the reigning Miss Belpre Tiffini VanDyke!

And say hello to Gabrielle Gramkow - the will be Roberts Family Photography's third year sponsoring Miss Gramkow! Good Luck!

New American Gothic

When I was young, maybe 9 or 10 my parents took me to see a Grant Wood exhibit in Minneapolis. Grant Wood is the artist that gave us American Gothic. I have always found it an interesting painting and enjoyed work that was inspired by this famous painting be it a spoof or one of my favorite murals in the Short North, Columbus. (photo taken by Billy Liar)

I had the chance to create my own American Gothic inspired image when one of my fave maternity customers and stopped in for her second set of maternity images.

I keep seeing this very large and on canvas, don't be surprised if you stop in the studio one day and you see a huge Grant Wood inspired image on the wall. Thanks so much Randi and Brian! I've included a couple other images too!

 

Angie and Ryan Crowe, Riviera Maya, Mexico

We travled with Angie, Ryan and their friends and family to Mexico a couple of weeks ago to photograph their wedding.

If you have not been to Riviera Maya I highly recommend it. The week was wonderful and we felt honored to be part of the Angie and Ryan's special day.

I wanted to share the slide show from the wedding! Just press the pink play button!