Photos, things I love, life through the eyes of Elise

adieu for now

2011-03-30T11:03:00.001-06:00

i will be unavailable for any photography sessions until fall of 2012. i am leaving on an lds mission this week and will be gone until then. these are some collages of favorite photos from the past year. blame my spacey brain for the blank spot on this first one...

alvarado family

2011-03-03T13:12:00.001-07:00

he is pretty cute for a terrible two year old

more for lisa

2011-02-26T11:47:00.005-07:00

here are more...

my first bridal session

2011-02-25T11:07:00.000-07:00

this session was a nice mix of what i wanted to accomplish and what this lovely lady wanted. her finger waves looked classy, she is just gorgeous, and her smile perfect. not too shabby for experimenting in this world of bridals, if i do say so myself.

Kerissa is one awesome helper

a new roommate = new pictures

2011-01-11T18:36:00.001-07:00

an image heavy post, but we had lots of fun in the snow. that is, until our fingers fell off.

another blog

2010-12-20T19:06:00.002-07:00

I made a new blog. I'll still keep this one to use for sneak peaks for people I take photos of. This new blog is only for pictures that are the direction I want to keep going in the learning process. That way I will have a reminder of what kind of pictures are really me taking them and what pictures I do as a favor. Not that I mind taking pictures as a favor, because its one of my favorite things to do. But on the fly like that I dont have time to take Elise pictures, and if I ever want to be an incredible photographer then I need to find a way of doing things the Elise way, which is the point of the new blog.

http://eliseeileenphotography.blogspot.com/

a bit of nostalgia

2010-11-24T16:24:00.003-07:00

I found these photos today and they made me miss how unexpected life was in the Philippines. It was simple, and difficult, and happy, like here at home. Just different.

jenn's family

2010-11-18T08:40:00.005-07:00

isn't this the most wonderfully obscure location? i've fallen in love with the strange blue hoses, cement walkways, and fake roof. hearing the words "we dont want traditional pictures" from this sweet family was just what i needed to hear. these photos are what i have been feeling lately, a lot of blur, a lot of white tones, not so structuredness. i cant get enough of the one where this little guy is sharing his sucker with mom.
something about web posting alters the coloring of these photos, but i promise in real life the colors are better, a tad brighter, more real.

more familee

2010-11-09T22:01:00.003-07:00

These first two pictures were for me, because I love blurry and I love light.

Now moving on, these are for Alyson...

Libby and Jackson win my favorite faces in this next one

familee, well one of them

2010-10-30T11:28:00.008-06:00

oh how i love the lee's. abe, amberly, katelyn, and baby are just four of this grand family. my second favorite thing to photograph is people as they are. and this is them, just being them.

making magic is my favorite thing to do as a photographer. light equals magic, and i love light. the biggest compliment anyone has given me was that the light in my photo looked like a fairytale. life truly is a fairytale through my eyes. you may blame that on reading too many books, watching lord of the rings so many times, or daydreaming. regardless life is magic through my eyes and i like to capture that.

i let abe give the lensbaby a try, and though all of the photos above were edited by me abe took one of them. can you guess which it is...? his photo turned out to be one of my favorites from the evening, which doesn't surprise me because all of the lee children have talent coming out their ears. plus a few have already proved their skill with a camera.

devan

2010-10-24T17:17:00.004-06:00

Devan loves dance parties, as you see in a few of the photos above. She also has a contagious laughter and one of the most beautiful purple flower prints that could be put on a dress. I couldn't help but smirk when she exclaimed during our photo shoot "I just love muscles!" You see, she's planning on going into rehabilitation physical therapy.

lovely lake tahoe

2010-10-17T20:33:00.008-06:00

I have found heaven on earth and it is called Lake Tahoe. It is quite easily the most beautiful place I have ever visited. Most of last week was spent in California on a much enjoyed vacation. Here you see my travel buddies and thus by default models.

As you can see I've been exploring the realm of not so focussedness and clearly cannot take credit for these last two, seeing as that is me in them. It was fun, in a strange way, to hand the camera over to someone else for a moment and get a few pictures of my own self. Kerissa, the dark haired cutie above, took these. I think they turned out quite nice considering she had no idea what she was doing.

sara

2010-10-09T09:37:00.002-06:00

So glad I stepped out of my comfort zone on these. Exploring my boundaries is wonderful fun.

This is Sara, a beautiful friend I grew up dancing with. I remember the first class we had together, she was the girl I thought was too talented to be friends with me. Clearly I was wrong, and miss our days on stage together. You can still see her preform with BYU's Contemporary Dance Theater (previously Dancer's Company).

just what the doctor ordered

2010-09-28T07:56:00.003-06:00

After a really, really, long week this is just what my heart needed... a chance to say something its own way. This learning and growing experience with photography is unique for me in the sense that I have no mentor or teacher telling me what to do. A number of incredibly talented women have indirectly affected my learning with their work though, and one thing I hear from them is to shoot with your heart. I am still, and will most likely continue forever, trying to figure out what that is.

So this week I grabbed a beautiful, just returned from round two of living in Europe, friend and let me heart do the talking. These are what it said. It helped that I was in the mountains. There's something about those mountains, I can see everything clearly when I'm breathing the air that is wild.*

*bonus points if you know that song :)

more of dear Denna

2010-09-16T22:09:00.002-06:00

Not every person can pull off a serious face (me being one of them) but Denna's serious face loves the camera. She even had variations... the kiera knightly as seen below, the pout, the serious-ish pout-ish ish look, the model expression, and more. Luckily my fetish with laughing people pictures balanced the scales.

Let it also be said that I love living so near the mountains. I'm less than ten minutes away from some of the most beautiful canyons in the rockies and I love them so very dearly.

Denna... part one

2010-09-15T08:31:00.002-06:00

practicing those sun skills...

this is what happens when you practice your 'kiera knightly face'

Denna is another lovely lady of Provo. These are just of couple from our fun afternoon out, more to come soon. Yeah for beautiful friends to practice on!

lovely ladies... my new project

2010-09-06T18:24:00.003-06:00

Lately I have been thinking of ways to keep me practicing my photographing skills during the busy school year. Sometimes, okay lots of times, I get caught up in studies and forget to take a break and do something I love. And then, it hit me... an idea for a project...

I live about two blocks away from BYU campus, and living in such a college town means there are lots of students. Go figure, right? Anyways, I re-realized this week that there are an inordinate amount of really pretty college going women right where I am and close to one hundred of those girls go to church with me every week. The epiphany continued, and I have decided to take pictures of all the lovely ladies of my BYU ward. They all live right next to me, which means I don't have to drive anywhere to meet them and take pictures, so we can do it any time we have free time. It convenient and perfect! Plus, what college girl doesn't want some pretty pictures of herself and her best friends?

Tori and Stephanie are the beginning of this project. They are hilarious, and lovely, and grew up together in Texas.

a one year anniversary

2010-08-27T19:41:00.004-06:00

I generally steer clear of saying yes to couples photos because I lack and dare say have absolutely no skill at posing people in "cute" ways. Just letting people be them and me snapping aways is more my style, which is why I love taking children's photos so much. But when a friend asks, and prefers non-traditional cute couple poses anyway, I say yes. And this is what happens.

sisters

2010-08-04T22:07:00.002-06:00

This is my cute roommate and her little sister. I have been experimenting with color tones and seem to have fallen in love with gold.

katie

2010-07-29T10:30:00.003-06:00

Round two of my dancer photo shoots, and practicing my magical light capturing skills, turned out to be so fun. I am in love with the golden light at this time of day in our little valley. Because Katie didn't need a set of posed shots for a portfolio I got a change to really focus on capturing movement and not positions. Oh that was so much fun for me to explore. Yes this is the modern dancer in me coming out... but movements, actually moving, speak so much more to me than a jump or a leap could ever dream of.

Philippines Video

2010-06-14T21:52:00.003-06:00

World Endeavors sent me on my excursion with this video camera. I've been having problems getting it to work but managed to record their introduction piece while on a layover in Japan. Hopefully the camera will work again so I can film more stuff actually in the Philippines.

embrace imperfection

2010-06-09T10:59:00.002-06:00

titled eat rock... yummy rock...

I've decided to create a portfolio dedicated solely to those pictures that happen mid your quest to capture a smiling still child. Those blurry, oddly cropped, hazy images that make you giggle because they represent what real life with kids is like. They may not be photos high class folks would place above the fire place, but for folks like me who just love kids as they are and find joy in imperfection... I think they're great!

ava

2010-06-06T21:01:00.010-06:00

Miss Ava is a sweet little girl mature beyond her years, who will forever be engrained in my memory as a three year old in her favorite much oversized dress up 90s geometric patterned swim suit stating, "this is way cute mom, huh.' Its been fun to watch her grow over the past few years since I met her family. The whole lot of them are just as beautiful and wonderful as she and are so very dear to me.

for i dearly love to laugh

2010-06-04T13:09:00.005-06:00

I do love laughing people in pictures. I am also learning that I love love love capturing the sun and oddly enough the texture of cement.

seneca

2010-05-27T09:33:00.003-06:00

Though I practically grew up on stage and in leotards, I have very few pictures of me dancing. Its sad to think that I dont have many photos to show my children since that was such an integral part of my experience growing up. That being said, in addition to someday being a super talented portrait photographer I also want to, shall we say, specialize in taking photos of dancers. There honestly are not many utah photographers who take any dancer photos aside from team shots, which lets face it show none of the girls talents however difficult standing smiling may be. Plus it would be way fun.

This lovely girl is putting together a portfolio for auditions, so we had fun taking some action shots to put in said portfolio. She was kind enough to let me practice on her, which I will need lots more of in order to figure out the types of angles that make really cool dancer shots.

wedding weekend

2010-05-22T16:29:00.008-06:00

14... The number of hours I spent at wedding functions these past two days. And what do you think I did in free time? Pictures of course. Miss Clare was kind enough to let me snap some shots of her outside the Logan temple. She is incredibly sweet and beautiful, just like the rest of her family, and we both love bells of ireland. Man, if I had a smile like hers I'd spend more time in front of the camera. :)

spring

2010-05-14T13:18:00.004-06:00

Honestly, this post was just a test to figure out adding bigger photos. It worked, horay! Now I cant wait to take more pictures, good thing I have a shoot planned soon. More to come next week...

aryiah

2010-05-10T12:49:00.003-06:00

These are titled "I gonna get you Elise!"

Once again my favorite pictures are the laughing ones. I also love having mom's in the photos. Seeing them interact is such a sweet thing to watch and capture.

aryiah

2010-05-06T10:50:00.004-06:00

My stuffy nose is clouding up my brain and keeping me from editing, so I shall blog instead... Isn't this little girl too beautiful for words! These are a few of the nice photos. I like to fix the "nice" photos first so I can really spend time on more artsy ones. At this point in my quest for elise's own photography style, artsy means lots of sun light. That combined with kids who dont stand as still as emily did means there is often too much light for a good portrait, but just enough light to make me fall in love with the blurry haze. More of those photos to come...

emily

2010-05-01T16:43:00.014-06:00

Looking back, my years in high school held many silly adventures and many silly friends. I walked away from those years with a handful of lifetime friends. The kind you can go months without seeing, yet laugh and talk for hours. The kind you never have to explain yourself to. This is one of them, miss Emily.

brooke revisited

2010-04-16T17:58:00.002-06:00

Because I am a student and will be in the library studiously studying for most of next two weeks of finals, the blog will be seriously neglected. Until then, here are two more of dear Brooke. The second one is more contrasty than I normally like, but it works for her.

brooke

2010-04-07T08:20:00.004-06:00

Goal number one for this summer is master the art of back lighting and capturing sun flares. This is attempt number one.

a spontaneous session

2010-04-01T20:01:00.000-06:00

So spontaneous in fact that 1. I didn't know she was an actual bride until I got there 2. we had 15 min to shoot these 3. we used the alley behind her apartment 4. her hair was left over from the day before.

I agreed to do this session because I thought it would be me and Emily in a dress she borrowed from work, not an actual bride. Good thing she is taking her actual bridals in Colorado the week of her wedding. These were more to remember her apartment building by.

I decided today that my goal this summer is to work on my artistic eye. I'll fill you in on what that means once I figure it out myself...

red leotards

2010-03-26T22:23:00.007-06:00

These are really old, from the very first photo shoot I ever did. They aren't the best, but honestly I just adore the light bouncing off the stage floor. That's probably because I grew up on stages like this one. Oh the wonderful memories...

The theme of this week's Beyond-Snapshots contest is red. I didn't have time to shoot something new so I pulled up my only red photos. The winner gets an epiphane camera bag! Go to beyond-snapshots.com/blog and check it out. These photographers rock!

vanessa

2010-03-17T21:11:00.007-06:00

My favorite part of these... the little bits of mom that find their way into the frame. Like her lips in that middle photo and her toes in the last one.

How do you save a seriously overexposed mess up? Turn it to black and white, make it grainy, contrasty, and someone is bound to call it art.

In the end I dont mind that she only smiled twice because sucking on your hand sure is an adorable baby past time.

These next few are my favorite...

For those of you who just thought, 'my that looks like a cardigan baby Elise would wear,' you're right. That did indeed belong to me as a babe, and since I have no precious babies of my own to dress in this sweater I adore, I put it on her.

At the end of the day I need more practice. For each photo above there were ten others I messed up on. I dont mind though, practicing is fun.

a quick collage

2010-03-08T20:29:00.005-07:00

I wont have time to finish these or post more till blessed spring break arrives. Until then here are three that I like.

Eden

2010-02-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

This was literally the one second she held still while rolling around with her brother. I think its a pretty nice moment.

Austin is so darn cute.

Roommate Photos

2010-02-07T10:22:00.000-07:00

This is Drew and one of her two signature facial expressions.

Cherie mocking Drew's signature face one and Brooke mocking signature face two.

I couldn't tell you why, but I think this one is my most favorite from the shoot.

I had to somehow pay homage to girls crazy enough to wear heels like this in snowy January.

Here are some more from our roommate photoshoot. Forgive me for posting a billion photos, but since this is the only place anyone sees any of my pictures I feel justified in showing you lots. Plus, I dont have another practice session planned till the end of February so this might be all you can look at for the rest of the month.

a sneak peek at apartment 105

2010-01-31T21:36:00.000-07:00

I absolutely adore the little ray of light that snuck into the top of this photo.

These are some of my roommates. Here are just a few for now.

p.s. These photos are all personality. My goal was for any viewer to know a little about these girls after looking at their photos. I also tried to give the pictures a cool, modern kind of feel. Hopefully it worked. More personality (pictures of these lively girls) is soon to come...

The many faces of Mary

2010-01-25T20:43:00.000-07:00

Oh how I love light on little faces. This one was so beautiful to me I couldn't bare to edit it.

The photo above and below are Mary responding to some perplexing question. Some of my very favorite kid expressions come when they are really thinking about something. I think its adorable.

What do you get when you wake an almost three year old from her nap to take some pictures? ... a whole lot of amusing facial expressions. Mary is such a darling girl. Her personality is this wonderful mix of reserved, smart, concerned, expressive, happy, and everything else needed to keep up with her older brother.

Today I was looking at some photographs a friend took and marveling at how artistic and beautiful they were. I thought, gosh I wish I could take pictures like that. For of few minutes my confidence dwindled and then I realized something. I dont see the world through dramatic artistic eyes. If that's not what I see why would I ever be good at capturing that? Those who know me will agree that dramatic is one of the last words anyone would associate to Elise. I like bright things, natural and happy faces, and when people laugh. I think that shows in my pictures as well.

I guess it comes down to the fact that I'm a bright faces kind of person and so I'm going to enjoy taking bright face pictures of people. I dont mind if my photos never make it into a gallery or calendar as long as they make people smile I am happy.

Timmy

2010-01-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

I really liked both the color and black and white of this one.

Here you can see three of the four shirts he is wearing.

I like shooting kids just as they are. They have so many wonderful facial expressions to capture, why make them smile for each picture.

I realized during this shoot that I have a long way to go. It's one thing to take good pictures of an adult or teenager who sits still and smiles when you ask. Children are a completely different story. Not only do they dont sit still for long, but they like to say cheese over and over again without really smiling when doing so. I think Timmy yelled cheese for a good 30 seconds multiple times, then once out of breath would whisper cheese again and again. They also dont think my jokes are funny, which doesnt help when trying to pull out a natural looking smile. Then again most people dont think my jokes are funny so I cant blame the kids. :)

A funny tidbit... Timmy was very particular about his wardrobe and insisted on wearing four shirts because thats how old he was. Not four shirts at different times but four shirts all at once. I love kids.

I know this entry is super long, but I cant sleep. I just noticed this post is listed as going up on Sunday even though it is very very early on Friday morning. Hmm, thats odd.

Behold the power of RAW

2010-01-17T22:47:00.000-07:00

So, I gave in and bought a program that would read RAW camera files. When you shoot in RAW it gives you an incredible amount of power to play with color, so that's what I've been doing. I'm still trying to find a balance between natural looking yet still high quality. Sorry if some look a bit too worked on, it's all an experiment.

Because of my workload at school and lots of church calling responsibilities I dont have much time to play with editing. The next few weeks will be slow as far as posting, but here are a couple of another cute cousin with ridiculously shiny blue eyes.

Until I have a little more time...

2010-01-16T23:03:00.000-07:00

A sneak peek until I have more time to sit down and edit. Is his face too bright? I cant decide...

If you find yourself in need of a portrait session...

2010-01-05T13:19:00.002-07:00

If you would like to schedule a children's, family, or senior portrait session please email me at eliseeileenphotography@gmail.com. I'm located in the Provo area and am willing to travel to locations throughout Utah County.

Gabriel

2009-12-27T22:27:00.000-07:00

If you know basic sign language, and his mother did, then this photo makes sense. One of my cuter ideas, if I do say so myself. Sorry I couldn't make it any bigger.

I took these about six months ago, and still cant quite decide whether the time has sped or inched by. This young man, and his wonderful smile, is now in Japan as a church missionary.

Its days like today when I lament and wish I had a better photo editing program. The life of a poor college student means I am still working with the only program my father has - photoshop elements 2.0. For those of you didnt just cringe let me explain. Adobe has since moved on through versions 2-8 of elements and then versions 1-4 of CS. Needless to say, I have a baby program. I make due for now, but every once in a while I am super frustrated with its limits.

The Ostermiller's

2009-12-17T19:42:00.001-07:00

Oh how I love these little girls! I will be the first to admit that compositionally speaking these aren't the greatest of photos. It honestly wasn't a planned photo shoot. These are my cousins who came over one day and wanted to learn how to use a camera. So I took these, and the other 200 photos on my memory card were taken by them. At least they gave me a good chance to practice my editing skills.

Allison

2009-12-16T20:44:00.001-07:00

Allie is my big sister. Though she is a good nine years older than I, nobody would guess she's a day over twenty-four. She wanted some headshots but didn't have money for a real photographer. Lucky for her, her sister had a camera and couldn't say no. These photos are what happened.

Lizzie

2009-12-11T18:15:00.000-07:00

This beautiful girl is one of my best friends. She is getting married next March, and I wish her best of luck! I will post more from this session later.