Visual Impact vs. Perfection

I read and interesting article this morning over at Chase Jarvis' Blog, focusing on Stock Photography. It got me thinking about pictures, in general.

What do you like about a picture? Is it the content, composition, shadows, highlights, emotion, perfection, noise (or lack of), the "effect", etc... ??

Think about it.

For me, sometimes it is the Imperfections that make it more pleasing and create a better visual impact.

Here is an example of one of my favorite photographs, I have made. I have a 20x30 canvas in my studio of this photograph. There are imperfections about this image (ie, the baby's head is cut off, LOL!), but I wouldn't change it for the world.

(Image captured in black and white, contrast and noise added in Post Production)

A few new books for Inspiration

I love photography books! Recently I added a few to my collection, for inspiration. 2 are filled with images and one is more of an explanation of the process by shoot.

1. Annie Leibovitz at Work

Annie is a living legend, :-) She is one of my all time favorite photographers. Both her portrait setups and photojournalism are fantastic. This book explains how she thinks when shooting and takes you through the process of creating the image. So far, I love it.

2. Mario Testino: Let Me In!

Another highly sought after photographer is Mario Testino. Mario has such a raw style of shooting that I can't help but be drawn to it. His imagery is powerful, simple, fun. I think a lot of the impact (even with Leibovitz) has to do with who is in the photograph. (I would love to hear comments about this.) I sometimes think that if I were to take shots like this of the average Joe, they would not be as powerful, simple and fun. At any rate, I still love the images in this book.

3. Vanity Fair: The Portraits

I have always been drawn to the imagery in Vanity Fair. I guess it is no suprise since Leibovitz and Testino both have had many images throughout the magazine. Actually Annie has a long term contract with Vanity Fair, so her imagery is always in there. This book has portraits from the past 100 years. The book is huge and heavy. This equals Huge, Beautiful Portraits to view. I love this as well.

Please leave some comments to what Photography books inspire you. I like to get 1 or 2 every few months. I have also started cutting images from my favorite magazines and putting them on my office wall, so that I can always see them and be inspired before I go out and shoot. It is a great way to keep pushing your abilities.

Have a great weekend!

One Image

Every once in a while I make an image and just love it. This is one of those images.I won't ramble on here with words, I hope you like it too!

Catching up...

...is hard to do!

The past few months have been a whirlwind due to travel, weddings, shoots, business planning and lots of family stuff!. All of the excitement has taken a toll on my blogging abilities. I am so far behind blogging the many wonderful shoots I have had over the past few months. I am taking some heat from some folks, because they have not appeared on the blog yet (I will not name you... you know who you are! LOL!!!) Stay tuned, as I promise to get you all on here!

In all seriousness this year has been unbelievable for us. We have met so many wonderful people and have made so many friends. The work continues to come and we feel nothing short of blessed and honored to be a part in all of your lives. Thank you all! We have been smiling and groaning as we feel growing pains throughout our systems. We are working "on" these systems as much as we are "in" them, so going into next year we will continue to polish and improve. Thank you for being patient with us as we continue to work and improve everyday.

In the meantime look at this lovely image. I want to feel like this every day, don't you???

Bryleigh - 1 Year

Well Bryleigh will officially be one year old on November 21, 2008, so I am a bit premature with this post... Since I will be out of town for her actual birthday I wanted to post now.

To say it was a great year would be an understatement. We have been blessed with the sweetest little girl. She is so calm and happy. There may have been 1 or 2 days throughout the whole year where she wasn't her typical smiling self. Even when she had a 105 degree fever (due to a UTI), she was smiling. We all love her sooooo much :-)!

Having a daughter has definitely changed me, for the better of course... Having boys has been a wonderful experience, but having a daughter has been extra special. Firstly, we found the name Brylee, but decided to change 'lee' to 'leigh' to honor the memory of my first daughter, Jourdan Leigh. Secondly, having a daughter has made me want to be a better man. It want to be an example of the man I would like her to be with someday. It is so easy to sit back and be worried/concerned for her future, but I am choosing to be a better example instead. Easier said than done somedays!! I know I am not perfect and have my shortcomings but I sure am making the best of it.

With that being said, I just want to wish Bryleigh Teresa Burke a Happy 1st Birthday!! Thank you for bringing so much joy to our lives. Thank you to Bridget (Mommy) and her 3 big brothers, Damon, Christian and Brayden. We all love you so much! Just think, next year at this time YOU will be a big sister too!! We love you baby girl!!!

Bryleigh at birth...


Bryleigh at 1 year....


**About the 1 year picture - I made this portrait yesterday 11/16/08 and decided to mess with Photoshop a bit. This image is way out of my comfort zone, but I am liking it. It is very rare that I extensively edit an image, but I think it is important to try new things and grow. Not sure if I will do any more like this soon, but it sure was fun! Hope you like it!**

Shoot N Learn - December & Miscellaneous

Hey all! So we are mid November and I realize that I am not going to be able to have a SNL this month :( The good news is that we have been extremely busy/productive here and things are going great. I have also scheduled the next Shoot N Learn for Tuesday December 9, 2008, 6PM @ my studio. We will be SHOOTING this time! We will work in the studio, shoot, learn & have fun. Sound good? I hope to see you all there!!

In other news we have been shooting like crazy, editing, doing albums etc... Please bear with us if you are on our list.. We are getting to you soon ;-) We have experienced some growth lately and have been granted some incredible opportunities. Life is Good! I am headed to Cabo next week to shoot a wedding and am bringing along my good friend/photographer, Kenny Kim. Good Times for sure!

Home has been fun! Bryleigh will be 1 next week! I cannot believe it. She is so stinking cute! She smiles, 24/7. She is so smart and tries so hard to have a conversation. She will sit with me and just hang out for hours. She really loves her 3 older brothers too (and of course Mommy!). Each time one of us walk in a room, she lights up like a Christmas tree with Joy. She reminds me of how WE need to be. Much like the behavior of a dog that is unconditionally happy to see his owner, always! Please keep Bridget in your thoughts and prayers as she has not been feeling very well this first trimester. Hopefully she will be out of the sick days soon and be her happy self again. We love her no matter what! She is my hero for being able to maintain a household, keep the kids in line, keep ME in line all the while being sick constantly. I am the luckiest man around!

The more I think about having 5 children, the more excited I get. Each day I learn what is "Really" important and things that "Really aren't" important. Lots of fun.

OK, sorry for the tangent there. I need to blog more. I need about 24 extra hours a day. Thanks for letting me chat for a minute!

Can't post without a picture. Here is one from a recent family session.

LaMarr Woodley #56 Pittsburgh Steelers

I recently had the distinct pleasure to work with LaMarr Woodley of the Pittsburgh Steelers and his publicist Carmella Rackham of 5000 public relations in New York City.

When LaMarr walked in, he said, "What's up David?" I said, "Hi LaMarr. I figured we would be about the same size..." Insert Laughs here! He smiled and said, "Same size, huh?".. It was a good ice breaker. LaMarr is every bit of 6'2" and 265 lbs. Pounds of Muscle that is. Giant.

LaMarr Woodley is one of the hottest Linebackers in the NFL and was named NFL Defensive Player of the week for Week 7 this year. He also had an incredible college career with The University of Michigan. He is such a personable man and photographs extremely well. Working with LaMarr and Carmella was a joy and I look forward to working with them again in the future.

Here is one of my favorite images we created. This image is used with LaMarr's permission.




Keep your eyes out for LaMarr, he is doing great things!

David Burke Photographer Pittsburgh Steelers LaMarr Woodley

Shooting Lots

I have been shooting a lot lately and enjoying it tremendously. I have been working with such wonderful people. I am sooo far behind on blogging these shoots, but I wanted to drop a few recent images (that are a little different than what I normally shoot) and say Hello... So... 'Hello World!' Please tell me what you think!

Pics:

The White Sessions

I love the clean simple portraits and I love Black and White. I have decided to do a few signature sessions for a limited time in the studio. The first of these sessions is The White Session. We are doing the White Sessions November 13-15 here in our studio. We have set times right now, but may expand the timeframes if needed.

The goal is to create clean, simple portraits of individuals, couples & families (1-4 max) while wearing white. We are working in 20 minute mini sessions on a grey or white background. Bring along your personality :-) Happy, Mad, Sad, Goofy. The choice is yours. We will have fun!

These portraits make great gifts for those that love you!

Please follow this link to the PDF and contact us if you would like to set up a session. I look forward to seeing you here at the studio!

A few newborns!

Babies abound! I have been shooting a lot of newborns lately and have enjoyed it tremendously. Two of note that I would like to share with you involve some new clients and some older clients.

First the new clients. Heather and Matt were referred to me through a previous client (Thank you Mary Ellen!), when they were looking for maternity images. I had the opportunity to meet them and shoot the maternity session, two weeks before baby A was born. Baby A is here now and he is beautiful!

Heather and Matt before Baby ;-)


Baby A


I love his little lips!


Secondly, My wedding clients, Karen and Ray, recently welcomed baby E into this world and could not be happier. It is such an honor to watch my clients and their families grow. As you can see Baby E is beautiful!

Baby E = Precious


The Family



I have said it before and I will say it again. Newborns are so much fun to photograph! I think there is something in the water lately.... I know a lot of pregnant women out there ;-) Please give us a call when you are ready for some pictures!

New Life...

Lots to catch up and post about, but could not resist posting this image showing interaction between a newborn baby girl and her mother, softly comforting her. I knew when I pressed the shutter that this image was going to speak volumes (at least to me).

Being the softy that I am, I cannot help but marvel at how perfect and precious a newborn is. When I look at newborns, I see nothing but Perfection. I am so fortunate that I have these opportunities to Document Life at its Best.

Here is baby A and mom. Don't ya just love her???


More posts to follow!

Look at Miss Avenue

I had the recent pleasure of shooting this lovely young lady (Miss Avenue ;-) ) in an effort to create some headshots and full body shots. We did both studio and location work. I am so happy with these images and thought you all would enjoy too.

Check her out!

Silhouette on White Seamless

I had an assignment to create a Silhouette at High Noon on a Sunny Day... I thought things through and decided to go for it in studio instead. We were Very Excited with the results! Here is the shot we chose. What do you think?



I used to think that I would not like Studio Photography. I feared being boxed in and forcing images into a cookie cutter shape. I am finding more and more, how wrong I was. I am loving the options I have. Actually shooting more studio images lately, has been a blessing for me. I am starting to see things entirely differently. This can only help my vision going forward, on all of my assignments. I am having too much fun!

Out of the Office :-)

Just a quick FYI. I will be out of the office until Monday August 25. I have very limited email and phone access as well. I will return calls/emails as soon as I can. Thank you!

David

Fun Times with Lil J

I have had the privilege of watching Lil J grow up for the past three years. It is always fun to be around him. We met last week and did a shoot for his 3rd year. He even brought his own camera to shoot me! God Love Him!!

Here he is with his big blue beautiful eyes!




Him shooting Me

Newborn Twins Shoot

Every time I have the opportunity to document a newborn, I am completely honored. New Life is so exciting and precious to me! This week I was blessed with capturing twin girls! My oh my are they adorable! Baby N and Baby A were absolute angels. We had a wonderful shoot and I cannot wait to share the images with Mom and Dad! Thank you for having me over and I look forward to seeing you soon! Here are a few for a sneak peek.

Happy 1st Birthday!

We had a lovely little lady (along with all of her brothers and sister) in the studio this morning for a very fun 1st birthday photoshoot! Mom brought a cake for "H" to make a mess with. Although she didn't tear it up as much as we would have liked, she still had a great time. We all did! What a great way for us to start the day. I can't wait to show the rest of the images to the family.

If you are interested in bringing in your 1st birthday girl or boy please give us a call :-)

Here is a sneak peek:

Family Session

Still playing Blog Catch up!

I shot a beautiful family a few weeks ago at a local park. 3 beautiful children along with a beautiful mom & dad! It was a HOT morning, but we had a great location and were having lots of fun! Sadly for us, this family is moving away :-( It is great news for them because they have a wonderful opportunity ahead of them. We will miss them!

Enjoy a few images from the shoot:

Bryleigh Sitting up.

Our lovely, happy, cuddly and chubby :-) little girl is finally sitting up! I took her up on the hill last night and grabbed a few pics.

Don't you just want to squeeze her up? I love her!


David Burke Pittsburgh Children's Photographer

Precious Newborn

I am really loving shooting all of these newborns!

Pittsburgh Newborn Photographer - Pittsburgh Children's Photographer