Latest Portraits

Since I've been busy working on my web presence and my branding, I haven't had many shoots recently. However, last weekend I had the privilege to photograph two fun young women, and they turned out great! 

The first shoot was with Lauren Passauer, a CCAD alumni. We just shot around in the Crane Center, mostly because I was wearing a knee brace and getting around to various locations was not exactly an option. But I was pleased with the results and it was super fun working with her!

My second shoot was with my close friend Megan Bush (also a portrait photographer), and my wonderful fiance was my assistant (as usual). We shot around in my neighborhood in Canton, despite the mounds of dirty snow and of course, the knee brace. But we had fun as always and she looked adorable:

I've been struggling for a while now to shoot horizontally, because my ENTIRE portfolio is vertical. I challenge myself now to complete at least one decent horizontal image per shoot, but still, the vertical format always wins (especially combined with the Lens Baby-somehow I just can't get away from that lens!)

My favorite assistant: 

A portrait of Matthew & I taken by Megan:

www.mjp-photo.com

Website/Business Cards/Branding!

I've been busy the last few weeks with my branding; getting my logo set, figuring out how to make a professional-looking business card that is also eye-catching, and FINALLY finishing up and posting my website.

It's taken me months, and an unbelievable amount of stress, but my website, www.mjp-photo.com, is finally up! Its professional, has beautiful slideshows for viewing my work, and is worth the 400/year I will be paying for it. I created it through Site Welder , so for any of you photographers that want to relieve yourself of the stress of making a website and happen to have some extra money, I highly recommend it. Its all customizable and they have a pretty good selection of templates. 

Although it was technically an assignment for my photo portfolio class, I have also finished my business logo:

Its simple, fresh, and modern, which is exactly how I want to represent myself. I didn't want a super graphic logo, because I wanted it to represent my name clearly, as I will most likely never become a household name. I need people to remember my name, not an abbreviation/symbol in which it may get lost in. 

As for my business cards, I've also been struggling for quite some time to get them right. After some inspirational searches on google, I finally found a design that reflects my branding, but is also simple:

Comments and suggestions are always welcome! 

Why I'm a Portrait Photographer

       Jordan Pearson

© Meghann Justine Photography

I feel as though I've been struggling to defend myself with my chosen field of photography to my very commercial-driven peers. There are several reasons for my choice to become a traditional portrait photographer over a commercial or advertising photographer.

1) The most important part of life, in my opinion, are the people in which you spend it with. At the end of the day I truly do not care what I make, just as long as I can pay my bills and be able to spend the most time as possible being surrounded by interesting and loving people. In several years I plan on starting a family with my fiance, and I want to ensure that I can build my business around my future children. I don't want the kind of photographic career that involves either living in a large city or traveling on a consistent basis. I want to be actively involved with raising my children, and believe that someday that will be my number one priority.

2) Photographing people has always been my passion. Only until last year did I even attempt to photograph a model, and truthfully, it was not an overwhelmingly pleasant experience. The studio environment combined with the thin, overly made up models left me feeling as though the image I was photographing had been done a million times before (which it had been). I prefer real, human beings with real facial expressions and real bodies. There is beauty in everyone, and I believe it is a disservice for photographers to only shoot one type of people-there are billions of others out there! Diversity is a beautiful thing and I fully embrace it.

If you would have asked me last year if I would ever consider being a portrait photographer, I probably would have laughed in your face. There's something about art school that trains students to think that some careers are simply beneath them. However, I believe that you should do what makes you genuinely happy, which is why I went to art school to begin with. If that means that I become a portrait photographer, who cares? I have learned more than I ever thought I could about the language and the art of photography, and I want to share my skills to bring out the best in people and create images that make them feel good about themselves.

St. Maarten

    St. Maarten

          ©Meghann Justine Photography 

I spent christmas with my family in St. Maarten, which was a pretty odd experience considering I'm used to freezing temperatures and sporadic snow fall during the holiday. But the water was beautiful, the air was perfectly warm, and the landscapes were stunning, which is why I took several panoramic photographs of the area. There was also plenty of wildlife, like the adorable hermit crab in the picture above. 

First Senior Portrait Session

Jacquelyn Canonico

©Meghann Justine Photography

I shot my first senior portraits on Saturday of  my cousin Jacquelyn. I was a little bit nervous about the shoot considering I had never done such a thing before, but it turned out to be really fun. My other cousins were a HUGE help and were amazing in helping me manage the sun and made the shoot go much smoother than it would have otherwise. It was a fabulous learning experience, but it is clear that I still have a long way to go in order to finesse my craft as far as traditional portraiture goes, but it was a good first step in the process.