As you may know my wife is an exceptional photographer and she's been mentoring me for as long as we've been together. Although I'm more comfortable shooting landscapes and other non-breathing objects I do like to dabble in the artsy side of portrait photography. Unfortunately we don't always get that chance when doing your typical family portraits. Not many families, and especially little kids, would want to sit and pose through several hours of a photo shoot. Usually it's your professional models who'll allow themselves to be run through the ringer in order to get "just one more shot". When someone's paying you to take their picture, you need to be quick, efficient and more than anything else, you need to make the experience fun and engaging. You start going beyond an hour in those family photo sessions and those smiles will turn to grimaces. 
I've always wanted an opportunity to create portraits based on what I want, not necessary that of the client. Guess it's the difference between being a photographer and an artist. Sorry, that sounds pretentious even as I type it. For me my creative juices will dry up when I feel I'm forced into a type of shot rather than evolving towards one. Well I finally got my chance to do my own thing. A friend of Julie's has been wanting photographs taken of her tattoos and we were looking for an opportunity to focus on creating rather than producing. Jenia is an amazing young woman and was quite the trooper as we worked through a nearly four hour session. I still have a long ways to go when it comes to creating knock your socks off photos but today was a great learning opportunity for me. Every time I work with my wife on these shoots I always learn something new. It's really a wonderful experience when you can work together in an artistic collaboration to create something special. These photos I've posted aren't the results of one person but rather three individuals bringing their creative talents together.
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