52 WoA: Week 1 - Introduce Yourself

As a photographer, sometime you need to work on things outside of your normal purview and this project is going to help us (and you) challenge, grow and creatively develop your photography as a whole. Weekly for the next year, we will be sharing our images with you here!

For those of you interested in participating, PLEASE join us! The more the merrier! You definitely do not need to be a professional photographer, this is something you can easily do with your point and shoot, cell phone, ipad, etc. You can comment with a link to your image here on our blog or on our La Brisa fan page or you can tag La Brisa Photography in your image on your own FB page or use the hashtag #52WoA on twitter that way we can share your efforts with everyone else! If you are interested in joining our La Brisa Aspiring Photographer Workshop group on FB, please request to join as we will also be sharing our images there too.

Next Wednesday, August 15th, Week 2: “Asymmetrical” will be due. The image must be created between today and August 15th. Good luck!

Here are our Week 1 – “Introduce Yourself” images!

I am a ninja of the night. I am a daredevil. I walk through ultra-dry, spiky dead grass in my bare feet. I do it with coffee in-hand. I let my dog out with no collar on because I want her to feel the wind in her hair. I stare down the sun as it comes over the trees. I am number four. I am ready for you, Tuesday.

My life (as of right now) is a series of airport sports bars, quality beer, unhealthy food, constantly editing images, living out of my suitcase and running La Brisa entirely with what you see in front of you. This is where you can find me on most days if you need me.

Here is the full list of 52 Weeks of Awesomeness!
1    Introduce Yourself
2    Asymmetrical
3    Fragile
4    Junk
5    Labor
6    Freedom
7    Pet Peeves
8    Fall
9    Joy
10    Travel
11    Architecture
12    Silhouette
13    trick or treat
14    Presidential
15    Honor
16    Style
17    Family
18    Motion
19    Inspired by a movie
20    Red
21    Gifts
22    Resolution
23    Winter
24    Numbers
25    Dreams
26    Claustrophobic
27    Gametime
28    Uncomfortable
29    Love
30    Overcome your fear
31    Minimalism
32    Music
33    Green
34    Spring
35    Foolish
36    Off Camera Light
37    Hero
38    Pets
39    Stars
40    Faith
41    Mom
42    Making Food into Art
43    Loss
44    Flora
45    Stranger
46    Dad
47    Summer
48    In the streets
49    Patriotism
50    What do you do for fun?
51    Travel
52    Self Portrait

Annelise & Ryan | Attraction Session | Kansas | Chris

Happy Wedding Day to Annelise & Ryan! I just wanted to share their amazing Attraction Session with all of you today as they celebrate their vows and their commitment to each other! We had an awesome time at Kansas State University and then at Top of the World Park for their session. They are so incredibly cute and fun together and were so easy to photograph! And besides, Annelise is absolutely gorgeous!

Thank you again for selecting La Brisa to photograph your Attraction Session. I hope that you LOVE your images and I cannot wait to photograph your wedding today! You can view more images from their session on the La Brisa Facebook page by clicking HERE.

To all of you aspiring photographers, we are partnering with our awesome friends at Anecdotally Yours (www.anecdotallyyours.com) to offer an Introduction to Portrait Photography class! 100% of profits will be donated to worthy causes! For more information, click on this link - http://labrisaphoto.blogspot.com/2012/04/introduction-to-portrait-photography.html

52 Weeks of Awesomeness RELOADED!

After finishing the original 52WoA, we have decided to create an entirely new list of weekly challenges, called 52 Weeks of Awesomeness RELOADED and we would LOVE for you to join us! Images will be due each Wednesday and we hope that you share your images with us! Below are some details of 52 Weeks of Awesomeness RELOADED!

Your first photo, "Introduce Yourself", is due Wednesday, August 8th!

As a photographer, sometime you need to work on things outside of your normal purview and this project is going to help us (and you) challenge, grow and creatively develop your photography as a whole. Weekly for the next year, we will be sharing our images with you here!

For those of you interested in participating, PLEASE join us! The more the merrier! You definitely do not need to be a professional photographer, this is something you can easily do with your point and shoot, cell phone, ipad, etc. You can comment with a link to your image here on our blog or on our La Brisa fan page or you can tag La Brisa Photography in your image on your own FB page or use the hashtag #52WoA on twitter that way we can share your efforts with everyone else! If you are interested in joining our La Brisa Aspiring Photographer Workshop group on FB, please request to join as we will also be sharing our images there too.

To all of you aspiring photographers, we are partnering with our awesome friends at Anecdotally Yours (www.anecdotallyyours.com) to offer an Introduction to Portrait Photography class! 100% of profits will be donated to worthy causes! For more information, click on this link - http://labrisaphoto.blogspot.com/2012/04/introduction-to-portrait-photography.html

Here is the full list of 52 Weeks of Awesomeness!

1              Introduce Yourself

2              Asymmetrical

3              Fragile

4              Junk

5              Labor

6              Freedom

7              Pet Peeves

8              Fall

9              Joy

10            Travel

11            Architecture

12            Silhouette

13            Trick or Treat

14            Presidential

15            Honor

16            Style

17            Family

18            Motion

19            Inspired by a movie

20            Red

21            Gifts

22            Resolution

23            Winter

24            Numbers

25            Dreams

26            Claustrophobic

27            Gametime

28            Uncomfortable

29            Love

30            Overcome your fear

31            Minimalism

32            Music

33            Green

34            Spring

35            Foolish

36            Off Camera Light

37            Hero

38            Pets

39            Stars

40            Faith

41            Mom

42            Making Food into Art

43            Loss

44            Flora

45            Stranger

46            Dad

47            Summer

48            In the streets

49            Patriotism

50            What do you do for fun?

51            Travel

52            Self Portrait

And here are a couple of images that Autumn and I created this past weekend...

Image by Chris

Image by Autumn

52WoA: Week 52 - Self Portrait

Can you believe it? b and I MADE it! All 52 weeks! Holy moly! Next week, we will be showing a summary of all of our images and we will also be announcing our next 52 Weeks of Awesomeness challenge that will start on August 1st! More details to come!

As a photographer, sometime you need to work on things outside of your normal purview and this project is going to help us (and you) challenge, grow and creatively develop your photography as a whole. Weekly for the next year, we will be sharing our images with you here!

For those of you interested in participating, PLEASE join us! The more the merrier! You definitely do not need to be a professional photographer, this is something you can easily do with your point and shoot, cell phone, ipad, etc. You can comment with a link to your image here on our blog or on our La Brisa fan page or you can tag La Brisa Photography in your image on your own FB page or use the hashtag #52WoA on twitter that way we can share your efforts with everyone else! If you are interested in joining our La Brisa Aspiring Photographer Workshop group on FB, please request to join as we will also be sharing our images there too.

Here are our Week 52 – “Self Portrait” images!

THIS IS IT! The very LAST ONE!! I can't thank you all enough for following us through 52 Weeks of Awesomeness. I actually can't believe we finished it. I'd like to personally thank Mr. Mussack for putting up with all of my crazy ideas and late Wednesday nights to get it just right and all of my friends and family for participating throughout the year.

For this week's 52WoA, I really wanted to work on manually setting the zoom on my off camera flash work to see I could better incorporate that technique into my photography. Plus, I wanted to show off the awesome tie that Brisa gave me for our 5 year anniversary!

To all of you aspiring photographers, we are partnering with our awesome friends at Anecdotally Yours (www.anecdotallyyours.com) to offer an Introduction to Portrait Photography class! 100% of profits will be donated to worthy causes! For more information, click on this link - http://labrisaphoto.blogspot.com/2012/04/introduction-to-portrait-photography.html

Here is the full list of 52 Weeks of Awesomeness!

Week 1               Free for All

Week 2               Introduce yourself

Week 3               Show us your home

Week 4               Your Name

Week 5               Sports (anything related, teams, players, equipment, etc,)

Week 6               Guilty Pleasures

Week 7               ONE object shot at 5 different angels/distances

Week 8               One for the road (signs, streets, traffic, etc.)

Week 9               Objects that tell something about you

Week 10             Things that make your life easier

Week 11             Your favorite color

Week 12             Household item

Week 13             Foods

Week 14             Flashed (an image created using artificial light)

Week 15             Sun (sunlight, sunset, sunrise, etc)

Week 16             Emotion

Week 17             Lines

Week 18             What you do outside the world of photography

Week 19             Weather

Week 20             Emotional attachment (heirloom/special gift, etc.)

Week 21             Pets

Week 22             Things you couldn't live without

Week 23             Habits

Week 24             Fire (candle, fireplace, etc.)

Week 25             Hats

Week 26             Textures

Week 27             Hands

Week 28             Shoes

Week 29             Jewelry

Week 30             OOF (Out of Focus)…purposely OOF

Week 31             What I consider dessert

Week 32             Fill the Frame (close ups)

Week 33             A week in our lives

Week 34             Faith (what you believe)

Week 35             Dance (body in motion)

Week 36             Family & Friends

Week 37             SOOC (straight out of the camera)…before & after

Week 38             Patriotic

Week 39             Object: straight up shots and then straight down shots

Week 40             Something at night

Week 41             Something that gives you the feeling of warmth

Week 42             Smell

Week 43             Water

Week 44             Animals

Week 45             Music

Week 46             Reflections/Shadows

Week 47             Flowers

Week 48             Sleep

Week 49             Action Shots

Week 50             Circles

Week 51             Your car

Week 52             Self portrait

Elisa & Grant | Attraction Session | Kansas | Chris & Autumn

I first met Elisa at Adrian and Christian’s incredible wedding in Hawaii and we have been friends ever since! When she was planning her own wedding, she asked which dates I had available so that she could work everything around having me photograph her big day. As a photographer and really as a human being, that is the ultimate compliment! Well, this weekend, Elisa and Grant will celebrate their love and lifetime commitment in Manhattan, KS and I am so excited to play a role in it! For their Attraction Session, Autumn joined me and we started the shoot at the location where Grant proposed to Elisa. Then we headed to the beautiful campus at Kansas State University and finished up in 50+ mph winds overlooking the Kansas hills. Elisa and Grant are so incredibly adorable together. Autumn and I kept commenting throughout their session about how cute they are and how they just seemed to “get” each other. They were ridiculously easy to photograph and I cannot wait to see them again this weekend!

Thank you again for selecting La Brisa to photograph your Attraction Session!

You can view more images from their session on the La Brisa Facebook page by clicking HERE.

To all of you aspiring photographers, we are partnering with our awesome friends at Anecdotally Yours (www.anecdotallyyours.com) to offer an Introduction to Portrait Photography class! 100% of profits will be donated to HOPEforalison.org! For more information, click on this link - http://labrisaphoto.blogspot.com/2012/07/introduction-to-portrait-photography.html

Introduction to Portrait Photography Class

We have several seats left for our Introduction to Portrait Photography class that we are co-hosting with Anecdotally Yours in Kansas City, MO on August 13th! 100% of profits will be donated to HOPEforAlison.org! Help us, help support Alison by learning how to create better portraits! If you want to learn how to use your camera to photograph your family and friends, this is the class for you!

Here is what last year's attendees said about the class...
"Everything was presented with such ease. The intimidation was completely taken away. This completely opens the door to everything out there. I would recommend it to anyone that needs to learn more about their camera or needs confidence in their shooting."

"I was thinking you could go city to city and just do these all over. It was amazing. I have been to many workshops at camera stores, workshops with university athletic photographers, and many shoot-arounds but none of them broke the basics down like this workshop. I have already told so many people about it."

"I would love to enroll again and learn more...I left wanting to spend more time getting to know even more details! The flow of the course as great, discussion and practice were the most meaningful for me personally."

"I gained valuable information from the workshop and I feel that others in the class did too. If a friend is wanting to know more about how to take better pictures, etc., I would definitely recommend this class." 

Details for the class are below! Hope to see you there!

What is it?
Introduction to Portrait Photography by anecdotallyyours.com and labrisaphotography.com

Who is it for?
New and aspiring photographers who want to take better portraits of their loved ones. Or simply, anyone who has a DSLR camera and has no idea what all the little buttons do! =)

Where will it be held?
Anecdotally Yours studio - 7019 Oak Street, Kansas City, MO 64113

When will it be? 

Monday, August 13th, 2012, from 9am-5pm (lunch included).


How much is registration?

$199.00

Registration is limited to only 20 students and must be paid in full at signup. First come, first serve.

What topics will be covered?

• Beginner mistakes
• Learning your camera
• Understanding exposure and composition
• Posing 
• Interacting with your subjects

How do I register?

For registration please fill out this Introduction to Portrait Photography Questionnaire - HERE and then an invoice will be emailed to you to pay for your registration fee. Your seat will not be reserved until full payment has been received. First come, first serve. Thank you!

Questions?
Send an email to chris@labrisaphotography.com

Autumn, b and I will all be there to help teach the basics of portrait photography! 
Here is a recent portrait from Autumn...

 

And here is a recent portrait from Chris...

 
And here is a recent portrait from b...

50 States by 2015 Update!

In November of 2010, I created a personal goal to photograph a wedding in every state by 2015. Well, I am about a third of the way towards my deadline and I wanted to give you an update on my progress!

Alabama
Alaska

Arizona 
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas

Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming

17 states down, 33 more to go! If you can help me book a wedding in a state where I have NOT photographed a wedding, I am offering a complimentary portrait session (Attraction, Joy or Style) during my visit for the wedding or the option of one of my fine art photographs with a 24"x36" canvas wrap or framed finish! Thanks so much!

As a photographer, I think it is incredibly important to create goals or objectives for yourself to help you improve in photography and grow as a person. What are your goals?

~ Chris

To all of you aspiring photographers, we are partnering with our awesome friends at Anecdotally Yours (www.anecdotallyyours.com) to offer an Introduction to Portrait Photography class! 100% of profits will be donated to worthy causes! For more information, click on this link - http://labrisaphoto.blogspot.com/2012/04/introduction-to-portrait-photography.html

Here are images from my last 4 weddings…

Courtney & Ari | Wedding | Lincoln, MA

Sarah & BJ | Wedding | Apple River, IL

Pam & Tom | Wedding | Manhattan, KS

Katie & Zac | Wedding | Warrensburg, MO

52WoA: Week 51 - Your Car

As a photographer, sometime you need to work on things outside of your normal purview and this project is going to help us (and you) challenge, grow and creatively develop your photography as a whole. Weekly for the next year, we will be sharing our images with you here!

For those of you interested in participating, PLEASE join us! The more the merrier! You definitely do not need to be a professional photographer, this is something you can easily do with your point and shoot, cell phone, ipad, etc. You can comment with a link to your image here on our blog or on our La Brisa fan page or you can tag La Brisa Photography in your image on your own FB page or use the hashtag #52WoA on twitter that way we can share your efforts with everyone else! If you are interested in joining our La Brisa Aspiring Photographer Workshop group on FB, please request to join as we will also be sharing our images there too.

Next Thursday, July 26th, Week 52: “Self Portrait” will be due. The image must be created between today and July 26th. Good luck!

Here are our Week 51 – “Your Car” images!

Hey, everyone, meet ALLEN! I look absolutely RIDICULOUS driving him...maybe that's why I like it. Can you imagine pulling up to a stoplight, looking to your right and seeing me sitting ten feet off the ground in Allen, car dancing and mouthing the words to We are Young by FUN.? Ya, that's my life.

This is Buzz. Yes, my car has a name. He has 198,454 easy miles on him. He is more affectionately referred to as the La Brisa airport shuttle because that is what his main job has been since moving to Houston. He may have some giant tears throughout his backseat due to the doggies, but he just keeps on trucking like a stud.

To all of you aspiring photographers, we are partnering with our awesome friends at Anecdotally Yours (www.anecdotallyyours.com) to offer an Introduction to Portrait Photography class! 100% of profits will be donated to worthy causes! For more information, click on this link - http://labrisaphoto.blogspot.com/2012/04/introduction-to-portrait-photography.html

Here is the full list of 52 Weeks of Awesomeness!

Week 1               Free for All

Week 2               Introduce yourself

Week 3               Show us your home

Week 4               Your Name

Week 5               Sports (anything related, teams, players, equipment, etc,)

Week 6               Guilty Pleasures

Week 7               ONE object shot at 5 different angels/distances

Week 8               One for the road (signs, streets, traffic, etc.)

Week 9               Objects that tell something about you

Week 10             Things that make your life easier

Week 11             Your favorite color

Week 12             Household item

Week 13             Foods

Week 14             Flashed (an image created using artificial light)

Week 15             Sun (sunlight, sunset, sunrise, etc)

Week 16             Emotion

Week 17             Lines

Week 18             What you do outside the world of photography

Week 19             Weather

Week 20             Emotional attachment (heirloom/special gift, etc.)

Week 21             Pets

Week 22             Things you couldn't live without

Week 23             Habits

Week 24             Fire (candle, fireplace, etc.)

Week 25             Hats

Week 26             Textures

Week 27             Hands

Week 28             Shoes

Week 29             Jewelry

Week 30             OOF (Out of Focus)…purposely OOF

Week 31             What I consider dessert

Week 32             Fill the Frame (close ups)

Week 33             A week in our lives

Week 34             Faith (what you believe)

Week 35             Dance (body in motion)

Week 36             Family & Friends

Week 37             SOOC (straight out of the camera)…before & after

Week 38             Patriotic

Week 39             Object: straight up shots and then straight down shots

Week 40             Something at night

Week 41             Something that gives you the feeling of warmth

Week 42             Smell

Week 43             Water

Week 44             Animals

Week 45             Music

Week 46             Reflections/Shadows

Week 47             Flowers

Week 48             Sleep

Week 49             Action Shots

Week 50             Circles

Week 51             Your car

Week 52             Self portrait

The G Family | Joy Session | Texas | Chris

I met Mandy in graduate school at Kansas State University. At the time, she was pregnant with her first child. Fast forward a few years, and it is amazing to see how much her family has grown since then! Recently, I had the opportunity to visit The G Family at their beautiful home and photograph their ridiculously fun family! We played, we laughed and we had an awesome time catching up and chatting about our grad school days. Thank you again so much for inviting me to photograph you amazing family!

You can view more images from their session on the La Brisa Facebook page by clicking HERE.

To all of you aspiring photographers, we are partnering with our awesome friends at Anecdotally Yours (www.anecdotallyyours.com) to offer an Introduction to Portrait Photography class! 100% of profits will be donated to worthy causes! For more information, click on this link - http://labrisaphoto.blogspot.com/2012/04/introduction-to-portrait-photography.html