Barber Photography

Jessie & Scott: Engagement Skyscraper

Posted by posted by Kevin Barber Friday, February 06, 2009 at

When we originally started offering "Skyscraper" portraits, we specifically had seniors in mind. Jessie and Scott liked the idea of a skycraper for some photos from their "Story of Our Love" engagement portraits so that they could have some photos of their dogs - Tuck in particular, since he's a growing and quickly-changing puppy.

Through a twist of computer issues and less than wonderful planning in Photoshop, I ended up creating a new Skyscraper background design. You really have to see this up close to see the results, but I am loving how it came out. (Even though I know exactly how it will look while editing on the computer, It is always amazing to see the results when we get the photos back from our lab.)

As it turns out, the colors we selected for Jessie and Scott ended up perfectly matching our curtains - where we have our sample skyscraper portrait normally hung. So... we may end up having to order a second of this wall portrait!

Labels: Engagement, products, Wedding

Scott and Jessie's Story of our Love Post 3

Posted by posted by Kindra Wednesday, January 28, 2009 at

We found this cool alley in Valley Junction with a lot of good photo opportunities. Since it was November, they had lined the trees, with Christmas lights so it set a very romantic mood.

The Christmas lights and fire escape were great backgrounds. We probably could've spent half their session in this alley easily.

A moonlit walk down the alley. Thanks Jessie and Scott being so flexible with the bad weather and never complaining how cold it was. Hopefully it'll be much nicer weather for your Spring session. We're really looking forward to your next session. I think you've come up with a lot of great locations.

Labels: Couples, Engagement, night time portraits, on-location, portrait, Valley Junction, Wedding

Scott and Jessie's Story Of Our Love Post 2

Posted by posted by Kindra at

Another cute family photo from the dog park. We can't wait to see how much little Tuck has grown when we photograph him again in the Spring for their Iowa City part of their session.

I love Jessie's expression in this. You can tell how much she loves Scott in this one.

This one was taken in Valley Junction at a nice shop. Another cute, snuggly one of them. I love how relaxed Scott and Jessie are with each other.

Check back soon for some more portraits on Jessie and Scott!

Labels: Couples, Engagement, on-location, Portraits, Raccoon River Park, Story of our Love, Valley Junction

Jessie and Scott's Story of our Love Session Post 1

Posted by posted by Kindra at

You'll probably remember a couple of months ago that we posted a sneak preview from Jessie and Scott's Fall Story of our Love session. With all the busyness with the holidays, we didn't get a chance to meet with them until last weekend so here are some of the best from their session. Scott and Jessie love drinking coffee together so this was taken in a coffee shop. I love the expressions of them gazing at each other.

Here's a photo of Jessie with Tuck and Callie while Scott went to fetch another collar for Callie. It was snowing while we were at the dog park but you'd never know it was that cold by the expression on Jessie's face.

I love this one.

Here is Scott and Jessie's favorite photo of the day because it shows their family. They decided when they announce their engagements in the papers that they're going to use this one. We have a dog named Buddy so we love sharing cute pet stories with them.

We will be posting more portraits from their session within the next week so keep checking back!

Labels: Couples, Engagement, Portraits, Story of our Love, Wedding

Album Epoca Bridal Album

Posted by posted by Kindra Tuesday, December 30, 2008 at

We just received the album from Doug and Molly's wedding in Ames, Iowa.

Doug and Molly's wedding was very special to us because of the memories involved with it. They had attended ISU together and we created some amazing portraits of them around campus. Our favorite from their wedding day was in front of the campanile. Also they were getting married at the church that they had attended while in college. Molly's sister had also gotten married in this church and we took some portraits of her by this stained glass window that her sister also had gotten portraits taken in front of. We love to photograph these special moments in a couple's life and this is a lot of the fun of photographing weddings.

As you can see, the pages lay flat and allows us to create one continuous page spread with no interruption of the images.

Here are the pages in the album.

Labels: album, bridal, Engagement, photography, Wedding

Story of Our Love: Scott and Jessie

Posted by posted by Kevin Barber Tuesday, December 02, 2008 at

It seems to be a trend with us that the weather doesn't cooperate with us for Story of Our Love engagement sessions (to the point of nearly calling it off). However, it also follows that the couples we work with have been very open-minded and we end up capturing some really amazing photographs for them.

Well, we didn't break our streak with Scott and Jessie! As we drove to our first location, Raccoon River Park in West Des Moines (for the dog park), the first snowfall of the year was raging! But between Jessica, Scott and us, we were determined to capture some fun, intimate portraits.

The snowfall subsided after we arrived at Valley Junction. We found some great locations and backgrounds at Valley Junction - had it been warmer (and had more daylight), we could have spent hours photographing there!

As you can see, we still had some light snow on the ground at the dog park. We had a lot of fun with their dogs, Tucker (the Chocolate Lab puppy) and Callie (the Yellow Lab).

Scott and Jessie were high school sweethearts from Valley High School and now live in Iowa City, so we captured part of their session here in Des Moines and the other part will be in Iowa City in the Spring. We can't wait to photograph them at their favorite hot spots around Iowa City.

Labels: Engagement, on-location, portrait, Raccoon River Park, Story of our Love, Valley Junction, West Des Moines

Happy 1 Year Anniversary, Matt and Stephanie!

Posted by posted by Kindra Tuesday, November 25, 2008 at

Can you believe it's already been a year? Thank you so much for choosing us to be your wedding photographers. Thanks for sharing those special places that you enjoyed growing up, Stephanie, so we could capture them on your wedding day. We hope you have a wonderful time celebrating your anniversary.

Labels: Engagement, on-location, Portraits, Wedding

Our New Facebook Page

Posted by posted by Kindra Friday, April 25, 2008 at

We wanted to let all of you know that we have a new Facebook page for Barber Photography. Come check us out and become a fan of the page. Here are a few samples of what we have up on the site. Here's the link to the page: facebook.com/pages/barber-photography

Labels: Engagement, Facebook, people, Portraits, Seniors

Best of 2007

Posted by posted by Kindra Thursday, March 06, 2008 at

I know this is long overdue but here it is, our favorites of 2007. It was difficult to narrow down to just a handful, but we managed.

2007 was a great year for us and our wonderful, fun and creative clients made it enjoyable. We love it when our clients' ideas combine with our ideas and together we are able to create artistic portraits that truly reflect their personalities.

We'd like to thank all of our clients for being so incredible and we appreciate all of you so much. Kevin and I are also looking forward to the future clients we'll have this year and how we'll be able to create custom art for their homes.

We are also very excited about 2008 - we will be introducing several new products that we think our clients will enjoy (more on that to come).

We would love to hear from all of you; which of these portraits are your favorites? Please leave us a comment - we love your feedback!

Labels: Des Moines, Engagement, families, Portraits, Seniors, weddings

Doug and Molly

Posted by posted by Kindra Thursday, November 08, 2007 at

We captured Doug and Molly's engagement session at 2 locations, The Rose Garden in Des Moines and Iowa State University. They ended up receiving a nice mix of summer and fall portraits. Doug and Molly had met while in college at ISU so we were glad to go to a location that is important to them. We even went to the location on campus that Doug had proposed to Molly. Molly and Doug are a really fun couple and have been such a joy to work with. They are very tender with each other but also very playful. What we love about these portraits is you can tell how deeply they love and appreciate each other. Some of our favorites at ISU were taken near sunset showing all the beautiful fall colors and the sun reflecting off the water. We are really looking forward to your wedding, Doug and Molly!

Labels: Couples, Engagement, Iowa State University, Outdoor, Portraits

Doug & Molly Teaser

Posted by posted by Kevin Barber Wednesday, October 17, 2007 at

As we have been getting ready for Doug and Molly's second part of their engagement session (we did a short outdoor session earlier in September), we realized we had not posted a teaser. With so many good portraits to choose from, it was a difficult decision. So, short of blindly throwing darts at the screen (suction cup darts, of course), we decided on this portrait.

In this brief moment, just after we started this session, you can see how affectionate and fun this couple is. We look forward to showing you the rest of the images we captured that day and from their upcoming session at the ISU campus.

Labels: Engagement, Wedding

Carla and Jess Engagement Session

Posted by posted by Kevin Barber Monday, June 04, 2007 at

We had a great time taking Carla and Jess' engagement pictures. They were excellent models and we look forward to photographing their wedding this September in Des Moines.

Kindra had a great idea for sunset pictures and we decided to return to Big Creek State Park in Polk City. It had been rainy all day and so we were considering doing just studio pictures, but luckily the weather had cleared up just before our session, so we kept with the original plan.

As you may be able to tell, the beach was a bit soggy and it made getting onto the boat docks a little interesting. Its good that Carla and Jess were easy-going and flexible; they had no problem wading through a little water here or there.

Here is a slide show of some of our favorite images from the session. (be sure to click 'play' to see it in motion)

Technical Details:
For the silhouette photos, we metered off the sky and then composed the shot.
For the portraits with the sunset/sky background we used the Canon 580EX, metering with the flash to the couple.

Labels: Couples, Engagement, Sunset, Wedding