WOW! Shoot with Beckstead in Milwaukee!

I had the pleasure of hosting David Beckstead's Shoot with Beckstead when he came to Milwaukee, September 20 to 22, 2009. The workshop is a three-day event, with one day devoted to learning composition and technique, one full day of shooting, and a day reviewing and critiquing images taken by the group. Our shooting day started with the beautiful Milwaukee Art Museum, designed by Santiago Calatrava. After taking David's workshop in Chicago last year, I knew he would love this place and I think our images demonstrate just that. We spent the rest of the day in the Third Ward, an area just south of downtown, near the Milwaukee River. We also had a bonus shoot at the end of the workshop downtown at the Marcus Center for the Performing Arts. I cannot recommend this workshop more highly. If you have the opportunity to attend a Shoot with Beckstead workshop, grab it!

Many people contributed hours to putting this workshop together and deserve recognition. My thanks to David and Kassandra Beckstead for embracing the idea to come to Milwaukee, Wisconsin and making this all a reality. My thanks to Elizabeth Egan and Anne Radtke at the Milwaukee Art Museum for coordinating our shooting day at this amazing place. My thanks to Kelly Strong of Zita in Whitefish Bay for all her hard work in procuring and providing the stunning gowns fit perfectly to our models. My thanks to Cathy and Scott Erickson for their work in arranging for the models, Rachel Jacques, Elena Altoro and Angela Altoro, who worked so hard on a very long shooting day, and Elena who came back for more on our bonus shoot. My thanks to the wonderful people at Carenza Color Cutting Experience in Brookfield, Becky Sikorski, Mandi Stout, and Sarah Markunas, for a fantastic job on hair and makeup for the shoot. Many thanks to Mark Bertieri and David Bernacchi for hosting a break at their gallery, Light Ideas Gallery in the Third Ward in Milwaukee. Thank you to Dennis Felber for arranging for the Marcus Center shoot. And finally, my thanks to my husband for hosting and picking up all the duties at home so that this workshop could happen.

Enjoy the images!

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Tanya and Mike

Recently, I had the pleasure of photographing the wedding of friend and photographer, Mike, and his bride Tanya. When a photographer gets married, you can expect every angle was covered and between the four of us on the job, I cannot imagine a moment that was not captured. Here are a few of my shots from the day.

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Oh Baby!

This week, I had the opportunity to do a photo shoot with this handsome little boy. Beckett is the 3-month-old son of a dear friend, Lisa, who has has worked so hard with our son, Michael, with his special needs. Beckett was very patient with us both as we worked on his portrait, and his sister, Luci, helped out between clothing changes and to make my favorite shot below. Thanks Lisa, Luci, and Beckett for a great shoot!

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A Few More from the Buissink Workshop

Here are a few more from Thursday's workshop. What a great time!

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Joe Buissink Workshop in Chicago

Thursday, I was able to attend Joe Buissink's one-day workshop in Chicago. If you are not familiar with Joe, click on the link to his website in the margin of this blog, and take a look at his work. He is best known as a celebrity wedding photographer based in Beverly Hills, shooting weddings for JLo, Jessica Simpson, Christina Applegate, etc. His work for a book of parents of and children with autism brought me to tears. Joe makes you realize that amazing talent and great people do meet. He obviously puts his heart into his work, likely why he is so successful.

Please check out Joe's book, "Autism Heroes" for The Help Group:

www.thehelpgroup.org/

We only had a short amount of time to shoot given that our poor model, Anna, had to endure 40 degree temperatures, but it was a wonderful workshop.

W

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Shoot with Beckstead Chicago

Last June, I attended a two-day seminar by David Beckstead. If you're not familiar with David, he was named one of the top ten wedding photographers in the world in 2007 by American Photo, and has received many honors for his work too numerous to mention. David puts on a variety of workshops including his own "Shoot with Beckstead." This workshop, hosted in Chicago by Tricia Whitmer, was a two-day event, one day of shooting and one day of critique. Below are a few shots from the workshop. For more information on David's workshops, go to:

www.shootwithbeckstead.com/

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Time to start a blog

I have followed blogs of my favorite photographers for years and decided it's time to start a blog of my own. Let's start with a project I just completed on area Irish pubs. The gallery is featured on mkeimages.com. These are a few of my favorite images from that project.

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