Open Sky Studios » Open Sky

Flexible isn’t the word for this

charlie — Sun, 19 Jun 2011 02:19:18 +0000

There’s a saying I have been hearing lately, “Luck is when preparation meets opportunity”. If you let it that statement will get stuck in your head. But when opportunity knocks it’s good to realize you are prepared and you are the lucky one who gets to take some pictures you otherwise may never have. This is how we wound up being introduced to Pushpak. My good friend Lee has been picking my brain lately about people photography. Lee has an interest in stretching his photography skills and venturing to taking more intentional people pictures. So when he told me he had an interest in taking pictures of his Yoga instructor my interest sparked as well. I told Lee that if he and Pushpak were interested I would volunteer myself and our studio lights to walk through a photoshoot. Lee would learn and shoot with equipment he otherwise doesn’t have and Pushpak would get all kinds of pictures for his studio. Lee and Pushpak were interested and viola as luck would have it we had a photoshoot.

Jacinda and I were very excited about what interesting poses we would get to take pictures of and how we would light them. Lee and I had spent a fair amount of time talking about some hard edge lighting that would focus on some of the rigidness of Yoga. Some of the positions that Pushpak would get into for these shots took minutes to get into. It seemed very fluid for Pushpak to move and contort his body, and once in the position it’s easy to miss the stress on the muscles, which is what Lee and I were hoping to light and capture.

We all are very pleased with the results from the entire shoot, but these are by far my favorites. Thanks Lee for the opportunity and thanks Pushpak for being so hospitable and flexible.

Nehemiah 6 months – My Baby Steps

charlie — Wed, 11 May 2011 02:51:08 +0000

Hanging out with Nehemiah is always fun, and on top of that is he comes with his awesome mom and sister. Sometimes we get lucky and dad comes too. Probably our favorite thing about the My Baby Steps package is getting to see a boy like Nehemiah grow in his first year. We get to see his personality start coming through, as you can tell in some of the following images. We’re excited about what he’s going to bring next time. Here’s another inside story that’s pretty cool, at least in our opinion. The second shot of Nehemiah with his head up over the pillow is a similar shot we did with his sister Trinity when she was 6 months. You can see that shot as the leading shot in our intro slideshow on the home page. The final image is one of Nehemiah’s cool sister whose now coming up on three years old.

St Baldrick’s 2011

charlie — Sat, 19 Mar 2011 21:07:00 +0000

Well we walked in the St. Louis St. Patrick’s Day Parade again with our friends at the St. Baldrick’s Foundation, and as usual had a blast. This year however the weather was much more pleasant and brought out a lot more help to man the balloon and hand out beads and fliers. Seeing so many bald heads is a great testament to the growing success of the St Baldrick’s Foundation. The St. Louis group from Helen Fitzgerald’s has been shaving for 8 years now and has raised over 1.5 Million dollars to date.

We really had a great time and want to send out a BIG thank you to all of you that came out to show support for the St. Baldrick’s Foundation. We hope to see all of you again next year. Also another big thanks to all the folks at Helen Fitzgerald’s, we wouldn’t have an event or a parade if it weren’t for you.

Here are a few of our favorites from the day along with a link to the full gallery for everything we shot at the parade. Also Open Sky Studios is discounting our print products by 40% and will be donating all profit from the photos purchased from the St Baldrick’s Gallery. Here is the link to the full gallery

Also if you want to read my post about my son’s participation in St. Baldrick’s you can find it on my personal blog at Alt Road

A Bittersweet Moment

charlie — Fri, 01 Oct 2010 15:30:10 +0000

As a photographer it is always a great compliment when a publication asks to use your photos in a story. Sometimes however those photos have a somber tone to them. Many of you have seen the photographs I had the honor of taking at SFC William Brian Woods memorial service last year. Many of you have read what I have written about those moments on my personal blog and facebook account. Nothing I have written or expressed however comes close to the story of Brian’s widow Elizabeth, who has been so kind to share her story with the Charlotte Observer in North Carolina.

Elizabeth Woods gave the Observer the gallery URL for the pictures I took for Brian’s memorial in Cedar Hill MO. I was contacted by the Observer about using several of the photos in a story they were going to run on Elizabeth. The folks over at the Charlotte Observer are great people and I had high hopes that the story they were going to run would be great.

Elizabeth Leeland, a journalist for the Charlotte Observer, is writing the story they have titled The War Widow. It is a seven part series capturing the story of Elizabeth and Brian Woods. The story is amazing, Leeland is a great journalist who writes with great passion for this story. As you read you will be drawn into the life of Elizabeth and Brian and feel the pain that Elizabeth went through when her life changed forever. I highly suggest the story to anyone who hasn’t read it The War Widow. Also, Elizabeth Leeland has been writing blog posts that feature more of the story that didn’t make the paper on her blog

Our photos were used for part 5 of the story, when Brian comes to his final resting place in St Louis MO. You can find them in the gallery here on the Observer’s website. Our shot Honor the Fallen, which features SGT Kaeding onlooking Brian’s hearse was used in their print version of the story.

We are very thankful to the Charlotte Observer for their interest in our photos, and want to express a very special thank you to Elizabeth Woods for sharing her story with all of us.

The rest of our photos from Brian’s Memorial can be found here

Scott Kelby Worldwide Photowalk

charlie — Sat, 31 Jul 2010 21:55:34 +0000

June 24th 2010 was the Worldwide Photowalk created by Scott Kelby. Scott Kelby is the creator of the National Association of Photoshop Professionals and is a photographer on the East Coast. For the last three years he has challenged photographers around the world to all go out on one day and shoot something in their city, then share after it’s all done. Here’s the Flickr Group if you want to see more from around the world.

We headed to Tower Grove Park for a walk hosted by Edward Crim (one of my fav photographers in STL). We had a great time walking around with 17 other photographers and having just about everyone we walked past asking us “what are you doing?” Below are my favorites from the day.

My Baby Steps – Baby Portrait Product

charlie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:16:44 +0000

After spending a wonderful portrait session with baby James, we thought we would take a moment to introduce you to a product of ours called My Baby Steps.

Having three kids ourselves we understand how fast they grow up, especially the first year. So much changes in that very short amount of time. From looks to personality your child will grow so fast and there are so many moments that are worth remembering forever. We want to help you capture those moments.

With My Baby Steps you get 5 portrait sessions with your new baby: newborn, 3 months, 6 months, 9 months, and finally a 1 year birthday celebration session. Each session is planned with you to capture the unique personality of your fast growing baby. It will culminate with a 1 year celebration portrait shoot where we will have a custom 1 year birthday cake made by a boutique bakery waiting for your child to enjoy, while we capture the happiness.

Each session comes with a $50 print credit or a CD with five 8×10 images with a print release. When all your sessions are complete the package is finished off with a high quality custom designed 6×6 album including 30 selected images from all 5 of your sessions.

Our regular price for this package is $500 that is broken up into payments at each session, but we do offer a pay up front discount. If you decide to pay up front we reduce the price to $450 that’s 10% savings. Plus we include 10% off all canvas prints.

If you’re interested click over to our contact us page and let us know.

James – Baby

charlie — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:04:06 +0000

We had a great afternoon with baby James. We had the privilege of taking his mommy’s maternity pictures too. James and Alicia are great people and we had a blast hanging out with them and their new little baby James.

Vibrant Cardinals Family

charlie — Thu, 22 Jul 2010 01:48:32 +0000

We spent an afternoon taking family portraits with a very vibrant family, who are die hard St. Louis Cardinals fans. We had a great time in the park and got to explore a new location. Family Portraits are always fun for us. There can’t be a better way to spend an afternoon than spending a couple of hours in the park with loving people who have great spirit and decide to share it with us. Capturing their family has been a pleasure.

Introducing OSS myLife™

charlie — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 02:09:14 +0000

We understand that our customers have an active eLife and they share their precious moments with friends and family through places like Facebook and MySpace. We too have a large online presence and share our real lives with people in many different places scattered across the internet. We understand you want to be able to share your moments spent with us, and be able to show friends and family your images without having to pay money for online pictures.

So with that in mind we are introducing a new product this month. The OSS myLife™ is a FREE, yes that’s right FREE, product to any of our customers that purchase $100 or more products from their photoshoot. The OSS myLife™ is a collection of 10 non-intrusively watermarked images that you can use on any of your online profile pages. Be it Facebook, MySpace, Blogs… and so on. You will choose your OSS myLife™ images at your scheduled screening to choose your picks for products.

We hope that this product will add excitement to your experience with us and we look forward to continually offering you the products and service you deserve at a price you can afford.

Sam – Senior Portraits – May 2010

charlie — Sat, 12 Jun 2010 18:14:46 +0000

We spent an afternoon with Sam at St Louis’ City Garden and then traveled down to the Riverfront Trail. Sam is a very artistic and bright young lady. Both on the drama team and Deca team at her school. She is talented in many areas and added great charisma to our day. She is also a natural in front of a camera. We are very thankful for her willingness to go the extra mile to get the shot we all had in mind. Some of them requiring some climbing and hanging on to almost nothing. She was very determined to have unique pictures for her senior portraits and we were more than happy to be a part of the process.

The City Garden is a pretty cool place, it’s neat to see our city have a beautiful tribute to art right in the center. It is a very nice addition to the stretch going up Market Street. The Riverfront trail is unique as well. It is riddled with art created from bits and pieces of St Louis. All the way from old i-beams and rebar to creative concrete works. There is a lot of re-construction going on there as well so there are many different textures and backdrops to choose from.