Missy Cochran Oregon Photographer

More of Mel’s sweet baby boy.  We did some pictures once she was home from the hospital.

Because of the swine flu, the hospitals are limiting the number of visitors to their maternity ward.  I got to be one of two people allowed to visit my sister when she had her baby because she wanted pictures.  Many of you know Melanie, she second shoots all my weddings with me and she got a chance to see what it feels like to be the subject of photography.  Here is her brand new baby, Michael, in the hospital and one of Kevin, her husband, who was the only other person allowed to visit.

I have so much to say about WPPI that I just don’t know where to begin.  Since this is the case, I will do what most people would do and that is to start at the beginning.  Mel and I had so much fun driving and being silly and reading to each other.  The drive took longer than we thought it would and it started getting pretty late.  We were driving from Reno to Vegas and there was a police officer in front of me.  He was fiddling with his spot lights and Mel (my sister) wondered what he was looking for.  Right as she thought that very thought, she looked to the side of the road and saw a car in the ditch.  She only saw a small portion of the car, though, because it was in a ditch.  She figured that was what the officer was looking for and insisted that I flash my lights to get his attention.  We flashed and flashed and flashed some more and finally the cop pulls over onto the side of the road and gets out to start walking toward us.  I leaned my head out the window and yelled, “Are you looking for a car in a ditch?”  And he says, “Yep, and it would be a lot easier to find it if you weren’t riding my tail and flashing your lights!!!”  I say, “well, we saw it about 50 yards back up the road.” and he said, “Well, what color was it?”  He said this very gruffly like he was very suspicious that we were up to no good.  I looked at Mel since she is the one who saw it and she said, “red” and he said, “Well, that is the color of the vehicle I am looking for.  You may pass me.”  That version is a little bit abridged for the sake of my fingers, but it was our first adventure.

Our second adventure was that we saw Jose Villa at the trade show!!!  Talk about fanfare!  It was all Mel and I could do not to run up to him screaming and pulling our hair out Beatles fan style.  Turns out that there are a bunch of photography celebrities at the convention, but not only is Jose Villa our favorite, but he also spoke to a small group at the Fuji booth for about half hour.  It was a total coincidence that we got to see him speak since there are about 10,000 photographers at the conference and the trade show is huge and we didn’t know he would even be there for that blip of time.  His words were so inspiring and I love that he follows his artistic sensibilities more than he follows a proper business sense.

We learned a ton researching the products shown there which was the whole point of going and we found out that we love White House Custom Colors lay flat books.  They were awesome and I will be ordering a sample soon!

In the evenings we hung out with Mel’s friends who live there and who we were staying with to save some moolah.  It was so fun to see the dancing water at the Bellagio.  The city was beautiful with the crisp cool air and blue sky.  The huge hotels on the strip laid the foreground of snow covered mountains in the distance.  Minus all the corruption of gambling and scantily clad posters everywhere downtown, it was an amazing place!

On the way home we had another crazy adventure.  It was the afternoon and we were going north on I-5 coming home when a man driving southbound fell asleep at the wheel and drove through the median and foggered (referencing the old atari game) through a bunch of northbound traffic (us) and over the highway through a fence and into the fruit tree of an apple orchard.  How do I know he fell asleep, you may wonder.  Well, when he hit the tree, we pulled over and Mel ran over to the car while I called 911.  He was dazed, but had no serious injuries and another woman who jumped out of her car to help turned out to be a trauma nurse.  It was so surreal to see this all happen right before my very eyes and also to know that the reality is that we could have been seriously injured if the man hadn’t been blessed enough to miss all the traffic.  It was a miracle!!

Here are some more pictures from my kids session last week.  I am playing with some new actions in photoshop.  They aren’t that different, but if you want to, let me know what you think.

I might be in a little over my head. This is how it all happened to become crazy. Since it is winter, the very slowest time of the year for my photography, I have been setting up a lot of practice sessions. That is where I call a friend or another photographer and ask if I can take some pictures of them. I get a lot of ideas rolling around in my brain and I like to try out new ideas without the pressure of having to please anyone else. Anyway, I have two such sessions today and very cleverly spaced them out so there would be plenty of time for both.

“Que the monkey wrench!”

Yesterday afternoon I get a phone call. The man sounds slightly paniced an wants to find out if I can do a photo session with his daughter, two dogs, and himself. It’s for his wife and it’s for Valantine’s day. Every part of me that actually respects my own time told me to tell him “no” and then I remembered that the whole reason I am working hard during the off winter season is to encourage people to pay me to do what I love and what I am good at, photography! Then I mentally slapped myself and said to myself, “Self! This is a real client! I know you aren’t used to getting them in the winter, but this is what it’s all about!” So I sqeezed him in.

This part is awesome, I love his request! He wants a quick group photo with the above mentioned people and then he needs it printed today. Here is what we firgured out. He comes over, we spends ten minutes getting a nice group shot, come to my office, I download the images, He picks his favorite, I get the selected image print ready and burn it to a disc, he goes to get it printed at a one hour photo place. All this while his wife is at the gym because he doesn’t want her to find out until he gives it to her. Is that sweet or what?

Because I don’t like the thought of having a 1-hour photo of my work displayed in anyones home, I intend to send a nice print to him in the usual 2-4 week print delivery time to replace the one-hour photo.

And now for WPPI!! I am so exited to say that Mel (my sister) and I are going on a road trip to Vegas! WPPI stands for Wedding & Portrait Photographers International. They host the largest photography convention in the US and they have the largest trade show for photographer vendors too. Mel and I leave on Monday and we will be back on Thursday. I plan to take lots of pictures and give a full report (a fun report) when I get back.

A little later………….

Okay, here are some images from the second session.  Happy Valentine’s Day!!!

I just wanted to try out taking some pictures at this really cool apple tree by my house.  Mel donated her kids, my nephews, and Juliana, my sister opted to be a part of this outdoor extravaganza.  My brother, Marshal, and Mel, and I all took part in this session, so our pictures are all jumbled together.

This next little sequence is what happens when you give a toddler candy, sure it’s cute at first…

I was so excited to do pictures for my friends Nathan and Shiara. Here is their baby, Owen. He is so adorable, even though he was teething, he was still so good and super cute! Later in the evening, because we hung out for the day, Shiara gave him some baby tylenol and he was so super smiley I couldn’t believe it! Next time will be even better than this time, if you can believe that.

Nathan watching football, Jeff was watching too, though I don’t show it here.

And of course, we couldn’t leave maple out.  Can you the grin in the middle pic?