Photo Stories (Blog)
Every photo session has a story. Here we tell the stories about our sessions with clients in the studio or on location.
Click a photo or title to read the full post.
Ricky and his parents live in a lovely area of Mequon, WI with beautiful natural scenery surrounding their home. Leading into the senior portrait session, we decided that we’d make use of their property as well as setting up the portable studio in their home to do some more formal portraits as well. The weather disagreed with our plan and while we were able make a few lovely portraits of Ricky outside, the cold was joined by rain to chase us back indoors.
Equally at home in the studio as we are on location, we were able to quickly make the portraits that we had planned, ensuring that met his school’s yearbook photo requirements. But, when the client has booked a full session experience, and you have such an incredible face like Ricky’s in front of the camera, you don’t let the time or the opportunity go to waste. We filled the rest of the session with working through different poses and expressions with Ricky and were able to stretch our and his creative wings.
Fall colors mean fall family portraits!
One of the blessings of living and working in Wisconsin is that there is no shortage of natural beauty to leverage as a backdrop for family photo sessions. Even in the urban environment of Milwaukee's metro area, there are pockets of preserved nature to take advantage of.
When Pam reached out to us for fall portraits of her and her two children, the problem was narrowing down the possibilities! We eventually settled on Seven Bridges Trail in Grant Park, one of the most truly beautiful locations in the area.
Beautiful people in beautiful locations makes for beautiful portraits.
As headshots are often our introduction to new people and/or organizations, having them convey the core impression that’s most important to the client is key. In Alan’s case, the words he used to describe what he wanted to convey were: trustworthy and competent. For him, as an expert witness, those two words absolutely encapsulate what he needs his headshot to say.
Holding those two words in mind, we worked through a few lighting setups, camera angles, poses, and minor wardrobe changes (can this man rock a bow tie and hat or WHAT?). Our preferred solid black background serves to truly force all of the viewer’s attention to Alan’s face, which is where his natural charisma takes over.
Because our studio gear is fully portable on purpose, we are able to travel to and setup wherever the client is most comfortable, leveraging familiar surroundings to help alleviate the nerves that often come with sitting in front of a camera. For this session, we traveled to Alan’s home and setup the studio in his living room.
How do you make a senior portrait session twice as fun? Photograph it with TWINS of course!
It helps when both twins are absolutely gorgeous and could easily be models with their looks and how comfortable and natural they were with posting. Francis is a theatre star and Laetitia is a braniac academic star. Clearly both have great futures in front of them!
Part of our process is to create a Pinterest board so that the client(s) can share inspiration photos so that we can see what look and feel they would like in their portraits. We love collaborating with clients just as much as when clients tell us they want us to be creative and run free. Both approaches speak to our artistic creativity.
So much of what we love about senior portrait sessions is helping the young people express their vision and sense of self! Maddie came to us with a very clear sense of what she wanted: something with style and artistic flair with an urban bent; she also wanted some portraits with a softer more natural feel.
Black Cat Alley in Milwaukee was an obvious choice for the artsy-urban look and the ravine and waterfall at Lake Park was nearby for the more natural environment. For both locations we brought along lighting equipment, but only ended up using it in the park. The alley, closed in on the sides, gave us a lovely soft light filtering in from above that beautifully showed off Maddie’s face, features, and perfectly done makeup. Although we have makeup artists that we can partner with for portrait sessions, Maddie chose to do her own and did a stellar job! Down in the ravine at Lake Park, however, we did make use of lighting gear to balance out the ambient light.
Working with Aruna was simply a joy! From the Pre-Session Consultation through the end of the Headshot Session, it was more like working with a collaborator than a client. And that is the ideal scenario for any portrait session. The idea of a “photographer” and a “subject” when it comes to portraiture has never sat right with me and I strive to eliminate that idea from our work with clients. Our clients are not mere subjects that we plop in front of the camera, they are unique individuals that we are blessed to interact with and collaborate with.
Aruna truly meets the definition of a unique, and impressive indvidual! She is the author of two self-help books, “STOP, WAIT, GO: Rules for a Busy Mind” and “UNPUZZLED: Problem Solving for a Busy Mind”. She is also a Business Strategy Consultant and a Podcast Host. Oh, and she’s a wife and mother as well! Did I mention triathlete? Yeah, she trains for and competes in triathlons in her spare time.
It was an honor to help Aruna create new headshots for her various enterprises!
One of the pleasures of being a portrait photographer is working with incredible people. Rosy Petri, is one of those people. In addition to being an amazing artist, she lends that artistic talent to the cause of social justice. Rosy uses her art to elevate and amplify the voices of the under-represented. Among other media, Rosy creates absolutely stunning textile portraits that express soul and emotion vividly. Please, pause here and pop over to Paradise Home: The Art and Craft of Rosy Petri to view her work.
In addition to being a client, Rosy is a friend and artistic collaborator. We are currently collaborating on a project to document the stories of women leaders in our Black community. So, when she asked for a headshot session, I was deeply honored and more than happy to help!
Especially for Senior Portraits, incorporating themes and items that are important to the client is critical in capturing who they are at this pivotal point in their lives. Senior year and graduation are a period of transition. Marking and preserving the slice of life that they are transitioning from is such an honor for us.
When, during the Pre-Session Consultation, Eli mentioned wanting to incorporate baseball, we knew that these portraits were going to be winners! Eli’s mother, an incredible photographer herself, also brought ideas to the table that we were able to incorporate into the session. Of particular note was her father’s jacket, which Eli wore so well… The vintage vibe he was able to pull off was perfect!
For the session itself, we battled the mosquitoes of Seven Bridges Trail in Grant Park, and then moved on to Kaszube’s Park by the Port of Milwaukee for an urban/industrial feel.
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Some people bring natural charisma and personality to a portrait session. From the first click of the shutter, Vaughn was killing it and projecting that personality straight through the lens into the camera!
During the Pre-Session Consultation, we established that Vaughn was looking for an “urban” look and feel. So, we settled on the Milwaukee skyline as seen from the lakefront near Discovery World, the Harbor House, and Milwaukee Art Museum as the first location. We also discussed his interests and hobbies and decided that we needed to incorporate music as a theme. Guitars are wonderfully portable and make great props, but I’d seen a miniature piano in one of Vaughn’s TikTok videos and asked that they bring that as well.
While we love our clients, the truth is that we have families, too. So, when Sadie needed family portraits, who else would she hire but herself…er…um…her business partner, Pugs!
It started out a bit tongue in cheek, but treating Sadie as a client and taking her though the whole process of sending her the info packet, sitting down for a pre-session consultation, booking the session… all the way through the session itself and proofing the photos, was actually as fun and easy as it is with any “real” client.
When Allyson Bubb contacted us about refreshing her headshot, we were delighted to be able to help her! Allyson is the founder of Work Authentically, a company that provides professional career coaching. With over twenty years of experience as a manager, coach, and mentor, Ally helps people understand who they are as professionals, what type of role suits their authentic self, and assists them through building an actionable plan to land that dream role.
Part of Ally’s goal in refreshing her headshot was to have various images that reflected the authentic parts of herself from the confident and approachable to competent yet casual. In all of the looks we put together, her personality shines through.
Taking the stress out of a photo shoot is a large part of helping our clients to infuse their personality into their portraits and headshots. One of the ways that we achieve this is by bringing the photo studio to them. With fully portable studio gear, we go to the client and set up in their home, office, or wherever they are most comfortable. They get the benefit of a full studio and the comfort of being in their familiar surroundings!
Shemagne O’Keefe-Mullins is a passionate community leader who has worked in fund-raising, strategic development, and event planning for a variety of major non-profit organizations in the Milwaukee, WI area. Her focus in that work is bringing a personalized approach that she developed for relationship cultivation and community engagement. She is also an incredible person, spouse, and friend. So, when she needed to re-fresh her headshot, we were ecstatic that she reached out to us!
For Shemagne’s session, we partnered again with Dana McIntosh of DMC Makeup Artistry at Urbaine Oasis Spa for makeup and styling. Having another great creative to partner with, helps to not only enhance the end product image, but also to make the experience that much more delightful for the client. Her work is amazing and she has a wonderfully calming presence that helps set the client at ease.
Shemagne had three looks that she wanted to capture. One was a representation of her Irish heritage and Irish-American culture. The next was polished professional. The third was approachable confidence. She pulled off all three looks perfectly!
This past weekend, we had a headshot session with Patricia Cabral-Mercado, an IT Manager, entrepreneur, and mom. As you can imagine, her life is a busy one, balancing work and family. Even with the support and co-parenting of a wonderful husband, making time for another appointment in her schedule is not easily done.
One of the advantages of booking portraits or headshots with MBS Creativity is that we can bring the studio to you! So on Sunday morning, we packed up our gear and set up the backdrop and studio lights in her basement. While it does take thirty-ish minutes to set up and and another thirty or so to pack up afterwards, the convenience of being at home, able to make lunch for her two boys and take care of other things while we were setting up made committing the block of time for the headshot session a much easier and convenient appointment.
Like with every shoot, we had talked with Paty ahead of time to get a feel for what she wanted out of the shoot. We’d established that she wanted a grey background and to experiment with a few different looks. Since it was a headshot, she wore a modest close fitting dress that she could easily slip different jackets and blouses on top of, making the wardrobe changes fast and efficient. Normally, we say that Standard Headshot session is enough time for one or two wardrobe changes; for Paty’s session, we managed seven changes due to the efficiency of having a base layer that the other looks could be layered on top of.
Group headshot sessions bring their own set of challenges. There is the time constraint of spending only a few minutes with each subject as they rotate through; there’s the need to keep a consistent look and feel throughout all of the portraits; there’s the different skin-tones; there’s no time to get to know anything about each person. And with those challenges you still need to create quality portraits that the organization and the individuals will be happy with.
Alverno College’s Peer Leaders are incredible young women who serve as resources for new students. They help the new students feel welcomed on campus, give advice and insight on how to be a successful college student, and provide information about what resources or offices on campus can help them in various situations. When we were asked to create headshots for them, we eagerly accepted the opportunity!
Prior to the shoot, we had conversations with the staff members who oversee the Peer Leader program and settled on a general look for the shoot. Because all of the Peer Leaders (and the two staff supervisors) would be wearing their bright blue Peer Leader polo shirts, we decided on a black background so that the shirts would really stand out. With that decided, we then worked out a default lighting configuration.
Model portfolio portrait sessions are always a collaborative effort. There is the collaboration between model and photographer to develop a flow and rhythm for the session, and there is the collaboration between model, wardrobe, hair, and makeup as well. Sometimes collaborations are tricky as personalities and ideas may not fully mesh and need to be sorted out. Other times, the collaboration feels effortless.
Being in the studio with Crystal Muñoz and Dana McIntosh was a joy of effortless collaboration and the images produced reflect the success of that seamless meshing of ideas. The framing idea was to move through a variety of looks ranging from clean and simple to more colorfully creative. The intent was to produce images that would highlight Crystal’s look and work as a model and also showcase Dana’s skills as a makeup artist.
Starting with the a very clean, natural look, Dana gradually built up the makeup with each successive wardrobe change culminating in a Frida Kahlo inspired look.
Portraits to mark milestones are always special. The portraits are special memories for the person achieving the milestone, their friends, and their families.
Last week, we had the opportunity to spend part of our afternoon with Meghan Mayfield, just before her graduation ceremony, shooting portraits of her on the Capital Building grounds in her gown. After a gray, dreary few days, our backup plan was to take her portraits inside the Capital Building, but we were blessed with a beautiful day of blue skies and sun! It was a bit windy and gusty, but we decided that we’d use that in our favor and take what the day gave us to make dynamic images.
As is normal for a location shoot, I spent a few hours the day before wandering the grounds and getting a feel for what locations, poses, and backgrounds might work best. Rather than trying to develop a script of shots to crank out, I was more looking for a general framework for how the shoot could go. Starting where we’d agreed to meet, I then walked the grounds and started taking reference shots as I went to see how various locations actually looked in camera. For scouting trips like this, it’s a great idea whenever possible to go at the same time of day as the scheduled shoot.
Armed with a basic idea of the how the session would flow and a loose idea of the route through the grounds, my photo assistant and I were able to hold to the framework, but still be loose enough to let spontaneous creativity flow. Letting spontaneity into the shoot adds a playful energy to the images giving them more life and joy than they might otherwise have.
As a portrait photographer, empathy is one of the most important tools in our toolbox. In other blog posts I’ve talked about the importance of understanding the client - their vision for their portrait, their concerns, their views of themselves. This is not possible without empathy. And, while it is possible to empathize with someone even if you’ve never experienced what they have experienced and are experiencing, having walked in their shoes makes empathy easier.
For many people, sitting in front of a camera lens, giving a measure of control over how they will be portrayed to another person who is often a stranger, is a very intimidating and unnerving thing to do. And even if the portrait itself is a beautiful image, if the overall experience is uncomfortable, stressful, or anxiety-ridden, what are the chances that they will recommend your services to others or use your services ever again? Allaying that discomfort and making the entire experience a happy one is not just critical from a business sense, it’s also a very human thing to do for another person. It will also lead to a better image as well.
Though I’ve had a camera in my hands for over thirty years, I don’t spend a lot of time in front of the camera. And while I know intellectually that being in front of the lens can be stressful, that is not the same as living that experience. Over the years, almost all of my headshots and portraits that I’ve used on social media or other places have been self-portraits; I’ve set up a lighting configuration, put the camera on a tripod, and then used a remote trigger to fire the camera. I’ve retained all of the control, made all of the decisions, and have not had to deal with discomfort and stress of entrusting the image to another person.
Following the studio session with Sister MacCanon Brown, we had the opportunity to do a custom portrait session with Jerry Dutscheck. As always, the conversation with the client prior to the shoot was the most important aspect of making the image.
In the case of Jerry Dutscheck, not only is he the Director of Alverno College’s Media Hub, the casual conversation revealed that he is in the process of publishing a book about the home front military flags of World War I and World War II. The portrait that he wanted us to make is to serve as the author’s portrait on the dust jacket of the book.
Though he has a keen, yet subtle sense of humor and a quick laugh, Jerry is an earnest and serious individual with a deep interest in military history and the scholarship that accompanies that interest. For his portrait we experimented with various expressions that reflected these various aspects of who he is, and through the process of working with him, we landed on the image below as best representing the scholarly author who had researched, documented, and written a book about the military flags of the two World Wars.
Sister MacCanon Brown is one of the everyday heroes who’s work stands as a model of humanity and human strength for all of us. It is not in her nature to seek praises, she only seeks to live by her values and serve the under-served communities of Milwaukee. When her co-founders proposed to name the MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary after her to honor her decades of service to the homeless and poor of Milwaukee, she argued against the idea. Although the other co-founders eventually moved forward with naming the new sanctuary for Sister MacCanon Brown, her selflessness is not diminished in the least.
The MacCanon Brown Homeless Sanctuary provides services and resources as a daytime homeless sanctuary for adults. They focus on fulfilling their basic needs through food and nutrition, care for their bodies in the form of showers and clothing, and emotional/spiritual support through recovery programs, human dignity, and spirituality. This organization is a reflection of its namesake, empowering, humble, generous, and kind.
As part of the “Light The Hoan Bridge”project, Sister MacCanon Brown will be honored with a dedication that includes a photograph of her. The need for a portrait for this purpose led to her reaching out to Jill Newton Moore, a Professor at Alverno College who has taught Photography there for decades, who in turn reached out to MBS Creativity.
Shooting events is a combination of technical skill, planning, being able to anticipate where things/people are and are going to be, but most importantly, even the driest event requires heart. And they’re work. Hours on your feet, running back and forth, mentally calculating and creating images before you even lift the camera. Events can be mentally and physically taxing. It is hard work, but it’s work we love, and when we can delight our clients, every bit of the work is worth it!
Sometimes, though, we are afforded an opportunity to be part of something truly special that makes the work feel truly light and we can lose ourselves in being part of the moment. Being asked to photograph LiftUpMKE’s first ever Hack-A-Thon for female and non-binary people was one of those opportunities.
LiftUpMKE is an incredible organization founded by three female leaders in the technology industry. All three of them have built wonderfully successful tech careers for themselves and are devoted to helping others do the same, especially under-represented people within the STEM fields. Joined in this mission, they created Lift Up Careers, LLC, to develop a mentoring pipeline for people who are re-skilling to enter or re-enter the workforce in the technology field. This focus is on people who’ve taken time away from work to raise a child, people who’re are looking to move from a non-tech related field, young people looking for a foot in the technology field door, etc…
Recently, MBS Creativity had the opportunity to photo-document the Alverno College Gay Straight Alliance Annual Drag Show. Not only were we proud to support Alverno’s and Milwaukee’s LGBTQ+ community, the organizers, Kim and Desiree were absolute joys to work with. And, I’d be remiss if I failed to mention the incredible performances, at least one of which was given by a first time performer!
As a photographer, dynamic events like this, with harsh stage lights, and open performance spaces provide challenges, especially when the performers move into the audience to interact with the audience members. The light is hard and direct; performers move from well lit spaces to near darkness in only a few steps; the performance spaces are not well defined and predicting where a performer will be is nearly impossible.
But where there is a challenge, there is also an opportunity. The Alverno College GSA Drag show was full of opportunities to turn tricky shots into images that are artistic and still highlight the performers in the best possible way.