Barber Photography

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

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

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

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

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

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

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

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

I love this one of Sarah and Charlotte. It just shows the love they have for each other.




Charlotte is making everyone laugh again. Such a cutie!

Labels: baby, children, Family, Grins and Giggles Club, on-location

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

We met Andy and Sarah earlier this year through photographing baby dedications at our church. We instantly fell in love with their daughter, Charlotte. She's a very sweet, easy going baby.


Charotte joined our baby club, the Grins and Giggles Club. This allows her to come in for 6 sessions in the next 2 years and have a beautiful album in the end showing how she's grown during that time and all her cute expressions. This portrait is one of Kevin and mine's favorite from the day and it was one of the first ones we took. Her blue eyes are so adorable! I think she may end up being a supermodel someday because this was literally our first or second portrait of the day and Charlotte was charming us. She's a natural in front of the camera.


Here is another one of our favorites. Charlotte almost looks like a little doll here. So cute! We will be posting more portraits of Charlotte, Sarah and Andy within the next week so keep checking back!

Labels: baby, Family, Grins and Giggles Club, on-location, portrait, Valley Church

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

We photographed Ashlyn's Senior portraits a couple of months ago. We had posted a slideshow of some of our favorites but wanted to share some more.



This portrait shows some of things Ashlyn loves best. She likes collecting Converse shoes and enjoys making word collages in her free time. Her word collage was so cool to look at and it is just such a fun way that she expresses herself.


I had had this idea for Ashlyn's session for her to wear a really elegant dress against an urban, edgy background. Two things you don't expect to see together. Ashlyn loved the idea and we had fun with it. I like how her dress and the door complement each other with their colors. I think she looks like a model in this portrait.



I like how she looks like such a powerful woman in this portrait. Kevin did a wonderful job with the lighting on this one.



This is a new product we just started offering this year for Seniors. Seniors can get wallets with their autograph on them to pass out to their friends.



Ashlyn had chosen our top Senior session, the Luxe Life, which includes several different settings for the on-location part of her session. I think this alley turned out to be Ashlyn, Kevin and mine's favorite location of all. The moody alley suites our photography style well. For part of the session, I took Ashlyn up on this fire escape which was great. After we walked off of it, I felt bad because she had been wearing heels, but Ashlyn is such a good sport and was up for doing anything in the name of good photos!



Here is a collage we made up from some of her portraits.

Thank you Ashlyn, Anne and Danny for being so incredible to work with. You have been such a blessing to us. Have a great Senior year, Ashlyn!

Labels: Ashlyn, Class of 2009, on-location, Portraits, Seniors

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

We took this family session around dusk. The combination of the hue of the sky, the silhouettes of the family, and the lens flare are wonderful and part of the reason why this is Kevin and mine's favorite time of day to photograph.


So cute! This beach was so rocky so I like how this shows how Drew had to depend on his parents for his steps.

Labels: Camano Island, children, families, on-location, portrait

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

I love this one of Christy and Drew. Drew is only 2 years old but his expression is priceless. It's like he's saying "But Mom, someone might see!".



Then he gives into mom's kisses. So cute!


I love this one of Chris and Drew. Drew is so active and fun loving so being on Dad's shoulders didn't scare him a bit. This portrait shows something about Drew's character. He is always laughing and talking and having fun; it is impossible not to laugh just being around him. His fun loving attitude is contagious.

Labels: Camano Island, children, families, on-location, portrait

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

In July, Kevin and I went to the state of Washington to visit some of his family. While we were there, we were able to take Chris, Christy and Drew's family portraits. We photographed them at a beautiful beach in Camano Island. It's always nice when we can relax and have fun on vacation and also take some nice portraits.


Here is Chris and Drew throwing rocks into the ocean. I love the one on the right where the rock is frozen in the air. Drew probably could've done this for hours. Maybe he's training to be a future quarterback someday!

We will be posting one or two portraits each day from this family's session for the next couple days. Hope you enjoy!

Labels: Camano Island, children, Family, on-location, Portraits, Washington

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

A couple of months ago, we went to the Omaha zoo with this family to photograph their family session. We had so much with them! We loved how it felt like they were spending the day as a family and we were just there to follow along. It was fun to see all the different sides of the kids' personalities. Josie, who's 2, is adorable and I'm sure will be breaking a lot of hearts someday. Luke and Leighton kept us laughing. And the oldest, Brooklyn, is such a great big sister. Kevin and I were worn out by the end of the session (as you can imagine, when you're trying to photograph 4 children) but we were happy with how we were able to capture this family.
This is one of my favorites of the day. I love how it shows the precious love of a mother and daughter.




This one of Josie is so adorable!


Leighton's child-like amazement of the carousel is so sweet.


We entered this one of Josie in a photography contest a couple of months ago. We called it "It's for you!"

The kids found this old train car to play in. The rust made for a great background.



We had to get a nice one of Lynn and Janelle too. The Henry Dooley Zoo has a couple of waterfalls so we had some nice backgrounds that looked very un-Midwestern for our portraits.

Thanks Lynn and Janelle for being so great to work with. We're looking forward to you seeing your wall portrait and album within the next couple of weeks!

Labels: children, families, Henry Doorly Zoo, on-location, Portraits

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

We had tons of fun working with Ashlyn and her family while creating some amazing portraits for them. Ashlyn was up for all our crazy ideas and she had some great ideas to work with as well. Of course, there was the Tactical Unit session - you MUST see how well the prints turned out from that session - they are on metallic paper and just pop right off the page! We also created some great great portraits like the sunset with her truck, the urban portraits created in Des Moines' East Village, and some really fun images created our studio.

We will continue to post some high resolution images of Ashlyn, but for now, here is a video that we put together of our favorite images from Ashlyn's sessions:



Seniors - if you haven't had senior portraits created for you yet, don't hesitate! You must call us immediately in order to be able to make many of the schools' deadlines for yearbooks.

Music by Fundamental Elements - Check out their website, they are well worth a listen (or two). Their latest album, The Cycle We're Living In is at the top of my "most played" list. And they're even available on iTunes for your convenience!



That Girl is available for FREE on the Fundamental Elements MySpace Page!

Labels: Class of 2009, on-location, photography, Seniors, Urban, Valley High School, video

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

Kindra and I just finished up one of the funnest sessions. We got access to the local SWAT team Tactical Unit truck for a special Senior session with Ashlyn. This worked out great because we've noticed through Ashyln's other sessions she has a very powerful, in-charge look about her when she is serious - it fit perfectly with this idea.

I created this particular image with one Canon 580EX strobe just off camera-right and balanced the exposure with the remaining daylight. A few touchups in Photoshop for added affect, and vuala!

Regarding the broken rule... well, we have a rule against posting to our blog before the client's viewing session. However, poor Ashlyn is going to have some very difficult decisions when she orders her portraits, we thought it would be OK.

Kevin

Labels: on-location, Seniors

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

These portraits show some of the fun the wedding party had before the ceremony. Molly had four bridesmaids who knew each other very well because three of them are her sisters and one is her niece. I've never seen five girls in a wedding party have so much fun before a wedding! This portrait was taken after a funny moment. I had taken some portraits of the girls without their bouquets and while Molly's dad had started heading to the door, all the girls gave them their bouquets for him to take back to the dressing room so we could take some informal, fun portraits of the girls without their flowers.

Dad was a little embarrassed and the girls thought it was funny to see Dad with all their flowers. One of the things I'll remember about Molly and her bridesmaids is they laughed so hard and had so much fun together. I think they did a great job at keeping Molly laughing and relaxed before the ceremony.

This is a portrait of the guys that Kevin took before the ceremony. Since Ames is a college town, whenever we took the wedding party outside for portraits, there was a stream of cars driving down the street, honking at them and cheering. So this is a funny moment when all the guys waved and cheered back to a car. These two portraits show how lighthearted this wedding party was.

Labels: Ames, night time portraits, on-location, United Methodist Church, Wedding, wedding party

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)

On Saturday night, I photographed KZZQ's Girls' Night Out event. I had so much fun getting to know lots of new people. KZZQ is a radio station that is largely run due to listeners' donations and this event was able to raise over $6,000 for the station! In addition, Barber Photography (aka... me) is donating 10% of sales for anyone who mentions Girls' Night Out when booking their session by March 1st and 10% of orders of pictures from the event!

The reason for this event is so women get to spend time some girl time with their friends since the men in their lives get to have the Superbowl with their friends the next day. There were 30 vendors involved in the event and offered all the things women love such as jewelry and handbags, cakes, massages, Discovery toys for their children and so much more. One of the crowd favorites for the night was Tomboy Tools,a company that welcomes women to have tool parties in their homes with their friends and buy fun products such as pink hammers and tool bags. Another booth allowed women express their creative side and had stations set up so they could make their own handstamped cards.

There was also a fun fashion show with clothes from Dress Barn. It was encouraging and empowering that they included models of all sizes and ages. They had some nice professional suits in addition to some fun and trendy clothes.

This is just a sampling of the portraits I took from the event. If you'd like to see all of them, please visit This Link. And don't forget if you're one of the first 12 women to call us and book a session before March 1st and mention Girls' Night Out, you'll receive our popular accordian album that fits perfectly in your purse! I had so much fun at the event and Michelle and everyone at KZZQ have been so great to work with!

Labels: event, Girls' Night Out, KZZQ, on-location, women

• Printer Friendly
• Comments (0 Comments)