Clayton Portraits Blog

Fun Times

dclaywi — Fri, 06 Aug 2010 16:19:02 +0000

Yesterday I traveled to Beloit to work with two of my photographer friends, Jim and Paul. We meet at Paul’s studio where he had one of his seniors model for us. We took a lot of images all working on something different. They worked on available light for lens flare and I worked with two speedlights. Here is my favorite from the poses I took.

Passion Fit Life

dclaywi — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 17:06:16 +0000

Yesterday I was delighted to photograph Katy, a fitness consultant, to create images for her new business venture, Passion Fit Life. We had a wonderful time setting up and doing poses that represent what her business will be about. These images will be used in print advertising and her website. We will post a link to her website when it is finished.

Miss Wisconsin 2010 – Kimberly Sawyer

dclaywi — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 18:53:10 +0000

I had the recently had the pleasure of photographing Miss Wisconsin, Kimberly Sawyer. We had a great session and created lots of stunning poses for her. She will use the images for promoting Miss Wisconsin and for the official portrait for the Miss America Pageant.

Fitchburg Barn – HDR

dclaywi — Wed, 18 Nov 2009 21:32:28 +0000

Here is another image created with HDR photography techniques. When you look at this image you can see detail in the open door as well as the bright stonework. With traditional photography it is often difficult to create a photograph with this much tonal range. A texture screen was added to enhance the feeling of vintage imagery.

HDR (High Dynamic Range)

dclaywi — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 17:03:49 +0000

I have been studying HDR photography for a while now and here are a couple of images using HDR techniques. For both photographs I took a series of three bracketed exposures and combined them in Photomatix Pro to make the HDR file. Further work was done in Photoshop to finish the look I wanted. With HDR photography I will be able to create a different look to some of my fine art photography work.

Swiss Barn

dclaywi — Sat, 25 Jul 2009 23:08:37 +0000

Like most professional photographers, one of my hobbies is photography. Today I took a drive looking for stuff to photograph and ended up in New Glarus Wisconsin. After finding a few things to do in town, I remembered a friend showed me this 1800′s Swiss Barn a few years ago. So with camera in hand (Ok- on a tripod) I set up to do a broad rang exposure experiment. I made several bracketed exposures and them combined them in Photoshop to come up with this photo.

Clayton Portraits the Official Photographer for Miss Wisconsin

dclaywi — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 13:40:19 +0000

We were selected again this year to create the official portrait for Miss Wisconsin that will be used for the Miss America pageant. Kristina Smaby who was crowned Miss Madison Capital Area earlier this year won the Miss Wisconsin crown in June. Like here first session, her Miss Wisconsin session was a lot of fun.

Miss Wisconsin 2009

Fun on the Farm

dclaywi — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:20:55 +0000

Today was a fun day helping a photographer friend Paul. We went to his brothers farm to take portraits of several family members showing what they do. Here are a few images we created today.

Location Session

dclaywi — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 14:17:50 +0000

This location portrait of my niece Keri was taken in Waterloo Wisconsin. This would be an example of a special destination session that we can do for any of our clients. The price does vary depending on milage and time but opens the door for a lot of variety. For Keri’s session we went to two locations, the local park and downtown. You too can have a location session at your favorite spot. Location sessions are best in areas where there is shade and sometimes, later in the day, open sunlight.

Self Assignment

dclaywi — Mon, 15 Jun 2009 14:09:21 +0000

As with many full time professional photographers I am always working on the next new thing to expand our style. Last week I purchased new technology to improve the quality of our outdoor portraits. Since I have a great group of friends in the field, I am able talk with them about equipment to purchase. Last week my friend Paul and I got together to experiment with the equipment we both had purchased and found both brands to work wonderfully. The nice thing about spending hours testing is it is not done on a clients job, they get the advantage of our work. Here is one of Paul with his Harly from our test.