Photographing a Memoir – Brenda Warner
Posted on April 29, 2011
Well now I can add “book cover” to my list of publications. I recently had the pleasure of working with Brenda Warner on her memoir. She is married to Super Bowl champ and Dancing with the Stars contestant Kurt Warner (because me being a dancer, you know I am more impressed with that!!!), but that is not her life’s claim to fame. She is a mother of seven children with the youngest being twin girls. When I met her, I sensed strength and confidence. The kind that comes with really knowing who you are as a woman.
It is very important to her that her book represents her life’s journey. Sure she’s married to an athlete but after 19 years together, that just happens to be his job. When we were shooting and she was selecting images, it was important to her that the book (and cover) represented her life and not that she was Kurt’s Warner’s wife. She stood by her determination to have her “one and only life’s story” be exactly what she envisioned. She kept saying while we were shooting, “I am only going to write one life story, let’s do this right.” I was honored that she trusted such a precious thing with me and my team. If you would like to read a little more about Brenda, this is a great article from 2 years ago.
Her story talks about her struggles as a single mother before she met Kurt. She was raising a son with a disability as well as her daughter. They met and fell quickly in love. I remember some part of the story about how he first saw this sassy girl in these red boots and he was smitten. At our shoot Kurt talked about how she still has those boots and when she leaves the house in them, he wants to know where she’s going in her “boots.” I can only hope after 19 years of kids and marriage, my husband still looks at me like that.
Brenda also heads up a non-profit organization with her hubby called “First things first“. They use it as a vehicle to help those in need in the community. They feel they are so blessed in life and want to help make others lives just a little easier. I am really looking forward to reading her memoir and it was such a pleasure to get the opportunity to work with her.
Here is the final cover for “One Call Away.” it will be available on the stands in August. Thank you to Ruca Bowman of Haute Rouge for her hair styling and Linda Wagner for her makeup. Brenda looked so beautiful, good job girls!
Filed Under Personality/Celebrity, Published Work | 1 Comment
Shooting My Dad – Safford, Az
Posted on June 23, 2010
So my Dad needs a shot for his website. He’s a hair stylist in Safford, AZ. After 30 plus years in hair he took a break for sometime and is back. He needed a few shots and so tonight we stole 20 minutes to nab a few. He’s so cute. So here is a few shots of my Pops. If you are in the Safford area and need your hairs cut, he’s your man.
Filed Under Personal, Personality/Celebrity | 2 Comments
Beverly Kidd of News Channel 3
Posted on November 6, 2009
Here’s a great recent session with Beverly Kidd. She came down to the studio and we had a blast. She is so much fun to work with!
She had some concepts that she wanted to try. We went to a rooftop downtown in Phoenix to get the night shot. I used a constant light source to mimic the sunset affect because it was actually hidden by the garage we were in. What you can’t see is the Mercedes that I was manuevering around trying to get her shot because it was in the parking spot I needed to use. We laughed a lot while trying to get set up. She almost stood on my generator to get tall enough for the railing. I figured I better not have one of Phoenix’s big newscasters balancing on a gas generator for the sake of a shot. The funny part was it was her idea.
I shot this with my Canon 50 1.2 at about 2.8. My ISO was right about 600 even with the light source, I needed the back sky lit. I had to further enhance the skyline in photoshop and lightroom and run a little noiseware. I used a tripod to keep it as crisp as possible. So as you can imagine, tripod, gas generator, huge (very hot) 1100 watt light all with in inches of a very expensive car. But hey…we got it right?
Here’s the beautiful Beverly Kidd. You can follow her on Twitter @beverlykidd .
Filed Under Fashion, Personality/Celebrity | 2 Comments