photography and retouching by kate mckenna

Bags packed, moved, unpacked!

2010-02-13T13:25:00.001-05:00

Well, blogger, I've moved on. It's not you, it's me. I've outgrown you-

But don't worry avid readers (Mom). Come visit me at crabapplephotography.com/blog to see family / baby / wedding / retouching updates and photos and sweettoothboudoir.com/blog for boudoir updates!!

See you on the other side.

Big news, but small.

2010-02-09T17:34:00.001-05:00

I've got multiple photo shoots I'd like to blog about. I just can't seem to decide WHERE. This is what happens when you have 400 websites and you're beginning to suss out your photo identity. I've begun a new lifestyle website at crabapplephotography.com. I would actually love some feedback. It's about 70% done, a lot of work still left.

What's b00gling my mind at the moment is whether or not I should move my blog over there. Or I could possibly start a whole brand new URL with a blog. Life is so confusing.

Introducing Sweet Tooth Boudoir

2010-02-02T19:56:00.000-05:00

Introducing Sweet Tooth Boudoir Photography! Just what the $!@K is boudoir photography? The brand new shiny site has a frequently asked questions section definining boudoir, but basically it's *tasteful,* romantic & intimate photography taken in a bedroom setting ... although not always.

There are LOTS of reasons and occasions for boudoir photography, the most popular reason being boudoir albums make fantastic gifts. Albums make wonderful gifts for your partners birthday, Valentine's day, Christmas or other holiday gift. A romantic way to show your partner a peek into your passionate side is to give them a boudoir album on the day of your wedding as a surprise. Wedding boudoir is on the rise and it is fan-tastic.

The experience of boudoir photography can be very rewarding. It's amazing to see the transformation of a woman throughout the session. She is often a little nervous and most likely self conscious. But as the session goes on she gains confidence and absolutely embraces her beauty!

If you've got more questions or want to check out more info, please visit sweettoothboudoir.com and feel free to contact me!

2 Triptychs and a Diptych

2010-01-12T15:57:00.001-05:00

I recently (on separate occasions) photographed two confident, beautiful women. You might be able to guess the occupation of Lori, the woman in the first set of photos. The two triptychs are indeed meant to be together while the two bottom photos I put together for space/blog reasons.

Heather is a good friend and we decided to do a shoot together after I realized I've never shot her - a rarity among my friends. Here she is, doing her fierce:

AAAAAAnd here's Heather on the softer side:

He knows if you've been bad or good ...

2009-12-25T00:12:00.001-05:00

MERRY CHRISTMAS!
Nothing's cuter than a baby in a Santa suit! Well, maybe two babies in festive gear is cuter. But very little else.

Here is a sampling of TJ chillin' as Baby Claus-

And Kayla as Baby Mrs. Claus, and other festive outfits with Mom below. I suppose a shoe in the mouth should be an outtake, but I L.O.V.E. it! It's what babies do.

Jamesy is the perfect example of 'good things come in small packages'-

This year I had a lot of fun designing Christmas cards and was psyched to see them printed. I am a huge fan of printing on the cheap, but there was a noticeable difference in quality from what you might find from a retail online printing company. The card stock was much thicker, crystal clear printing and no disgusting over-the-top GLOSS! I did print a semi gloss which was quite nice, but I shouldn't be able to see my own reflection in your Christmas card.

First photo is an example of the front and the next are two versions of the back-

Newborn Baby Photography Bliss

2009-12-08T11:51:00.003-05:00

Introducing little Catherine Rose!

She was so amazingly adorable and well behaved! She snoozed a lot, on par with a lot of new borns, but she SMILED a ton! Showing us the cutest little dimple.

Mom had an old scale from the late 1800's that had been her grandfathers. A nice personal family history touch.

Catherine is actually the 3rd in line with an equally adorable older sister and brother. They were sporting their Wizard of Oz attire.

What's that you say?

2009-11-22T20:22:00.001-05:00

Girl secrets! They'll never tell.

Gorgeous couture dresses and head pieces by the very talented Harper Della-Piana of SEAMS Couture, amazing hair and makeup by the fabulous artist Ashley Brecken. Beautiful faces provided by Diana Podaski and Briana Tripp.

They're probably talking about you anyway.

TJ - 6 Month Update!

2009-11-18T21:28:00.002-05:00

So, the secret is, we took some photos for a Christmas / Holiday card of TJ at 6 months. The best part of the secret is: they are absolutely adorable and I'm busting at the seams to show them! BUT - they are a surprise and can't been seen until Christmas! You may remember TJ from photos we took when he was 3 months, hours old, or in the womb.
Here are a couple of non Holiday pictures we shot, my favorite father / son photo of ALL TIME:

Adorableness:

Happy Anniversary Em + Nan!

2009-11-11T09:00:00.004-05:00

Emily and Nanny, on their anniversary ... A few pictures to remember (what wedding photography is really all about, right?)

My absolute favorite, favorite photo of the day (and arguably top 10 of all time):

(L) The first sighting! Chris waits for Emily at the bottom of the stairs. I thought her reaction was so awesome. (R) Emily freshly in her dress having some fun. Emily was super fun and super relaxed on her wedding day, it was fantastic and certainly made it easy for me!

Married!

Happy Anniversary, and best wishes for the future ...

hApPY HaLLowEeN!

2009-10-31T09:00:00.003-04:00

To be Seven Again

2009-10-29T22:13:00.005-04:00

When spinning around, getting dizzy, giggling and falling down was a fantastic way to pass an afternoon. When war was a card game and it was magic to watch Dad remove his thumb before he stole my nose.

No, life was not perfect or even easy. But the weight of the world on our shoulders seemed just a few pounds lighter.

Cross Process Magic

2009-10-28T19:17:00.001-04:00

I shot this portrait of the gorgeous Briana and was working on the beauty retouching when I started messing around with cross processing. Enter warm fuzzy feeling.

Smitten. Again.

Heart Pounding Beauty Retouching

2009-10-15T17:43:00.003-04:00

When I snapped this photo and subsequently saw it on the screen, I was smitten. I'm in love with a good profile and Briana's is gorgeous. Not to mention Harper Della-Piana's amazing head piece that compositionally balances the (stunning) hair (dress by Harper as well). If you're looking for an extremely talented hair or makeup stylist, Ashley Brecken is your woman ... this hair is a work of art.

I thought I'd post the before / after to illustrate what a little high end beauty retouching can do for you. You can see the ever gratifying mouseover before / after here at http://www.qretouching.com/index.php?&photo_id=16, it's one of my favorite parts and about 55% of the reason I love to retouch!

Resurrection, Polaroid Style

2009-10-13T20:17:00.001-04:00

YES!

I hate to admit it but it's true. When Polaroid sianara'ed back in December 2008 I lost interest in my 5, (yes five) various polaroid cameras. I even have film left. I now realize my aloofness was a defense mechanism, saving me from the pain of facing my loss.

BUT! Today the company that bought the Polaroid name (The Summit Global Group) announced they'd be manufacturing instant cameras again. Perhaps Polaroid should never have swayed from it's biggest hit.

Huge props to "The Impossible Project" who for the last year have been relentless in their effort to restart production of film for vintage Polaroid cameras. Apparently The Summit Global Group took notice and plan to have new instant cameras out and about sometime in the middle of 2010 ... and are having the The Impossible Project people manufacture the film. W00T W00T!

Best iPhone App Ever

2009-09-29T15:18:00.021-04:00

This is pretty much the coolest thing to happen to the iPhone since ... the iPhone. The smaller version preview photos have been a bit pixelated. I blame blogger, and not the iPhone app, click on the image to see the larger, non pixelated version. TiltShift Generator.

DC: A garden to die in, and Lil C

2009-09-20T20:28:00.015-04:00

While on a recent trip to Washington DC, I was able to photograph LG's childhood home, parent's dog (3rd child) and gorgeous nephew, "lil C." Read all about Cameron's exploits in his mother's blog mommyftw.com.
I've never been so happy to photograph flowers in my entire life! His mother's gardens are truly amazing ...

Baby Steven

2009-08-20T20:04:00.006-04:00

Baby Steven, Baby's Mommy & Baby's Daddy and I hit a park in Medford, MA for photos ...

Mommy Love

My personal fav

Happy baby, happy family

A Backyard Wedding

2009-07-30T20:44:00.006-04:00

On July 18, my good friend Paul tied the knot with the lady of his heart: Amy. Gotta love a backyard wedding -- Congrats!

Gettin' Married

Mr & Mrs

Thomas turns 3 months

2009-07-27T17:54:00.024-04:00

Thomas turns 3 months. I was pretty lucky back in March to get to meet this little guy on the first day of his life. Check out those newborn photos here.

TJ askin for hugs

When a baby loves his Mommy!

Baby James!

2009-07-21T21:26:00.000-04:00

TJ is Born!

2009-04-20T10:27:00.039-04:00

Introducing (3 weeks early) little Thomas Joseph! I was lucky enough to meet and photograph him on his very first day of life. It was a pretty moving experience to hold this teeny tiny baby with all the human bits and pieces ... just miniature.

We hadn't met him yet, but we photographed him a few weeks back. Check out the pregnancy photos here.

Grandma dotes on her first grandchild.

First family portrait. Look at those little feet!

Father & Son

Introducing Miss Kayla

2009-04-17T22:23:00.002-04:00

Miss Kayla, welcome to the world, we need more beauties! Born March 29, 2009 I photographed Kayla and her glowing new Mom Hilary 3 weeks later.

Kayla is already a great baby. At times she closely resembled a cherub.

Babies have such amazing raw emotion.

Landscapes Ain't So Bad.

2009-03-10T23:27:00.010-04:00

I taught this lighting class at the DeCordova this winter. DeCordova, for being a smaller sized museum (and sculpture park), has a rather sizable photography collection.

As part of the course, I was encouraged to include the museum's collection in the "curriculum," as it were. Which I was pretty ecstatic about.

In Paris I had a class called "Museums." It was awful. I had to go to a different museum every week and see fantastic photography and learn about all the greats. Just awful.

So needless to say, this brought me back there and wishing .... well ... wishing.

Saw some amazing photographers and their work - not behind glass or in the pages of a book:

Doc Edgarton (incidentally, the first place I ever heard of Edgarton was at a DeCordova show in the 90's)
Walker Evans
Larry Fink
Charles "Teenie" Harris
Jacobi Lotte
Arnold Newman
Edward Steichen
Eugene Richards (heard him talk at an agency VII conference in London once)
Arno Minkkinen
Brad Washburn
And a few others ...

We got to go up and close personal and had a discussion on light, subject, mood, composition, etc.

One thing I learned out of teaching this class that blew my mind was that perhaps I do like landscape photography after all. They bored me. I'm not afraid to say it. But seeing Brad Washburn's stuff, up close and personal, was amazing.

I understood for the first time how hard it is to take a picture of a mountain. I'd been spewing on and on to the students the importance of light -- creating it, taking it away, shaping and molding it. Well holy smokes! Imagine if you had no possible way on earth to "strobe" a mountain and / or "flag" it!? Jesus. That's some serious talent. Props brah.

Heidi is pregnant. OMG.

2009-02-22T22:56:00.000-05:00

Some photos of my 7 month preggar college roommate. Nothing like new life to breath new life into you. Amazing shoot, thanks Heidi, I'm excited to meet the little bugger.

A Creamy Photo Retouch

2009-02-15T14:47:00.001-05:00

I'm not too psyched that I have to display my before and afters like this, but c'est la vie. Can't seem to get the javascript rollover to work on blooger. Boo blooger, boo!

In any case, I decided to retouch this photo so the result would be a creamy monotone and her skin would feel like silk. That is, if skin in a photo can felt like anything.

Check out a better before and after version and get some close ups of this shot at qretouching.com.

Golf cart, golf course, golfers. Must be a ... WEDDING!

2008-08-23T21:15:00.032-04:00

John & Marlene tied the knot where they met: at the Vesper Country Club in Tyngsboro, MA. Gorgeous day full of fantastic sun for a wedding OR a round of golf.

Two are better than one, double the fun!

Those eyes

2008-04-22T08:03:00.005-04:00

.... are amazing and oh so intense!

Fun with the SX-70

The whole look is real interesting

2008-03-28T16:17:00.009-04:00

validation, y'all.

I don't think you know how good it feels when someone looks at your photo and sees a story in it. Validating. Appreciated. Talented. (Although there LITERALLY are 100 shots I took that day that I prefer).

The owner of the bag company sent me an email regarding this photo:

"Stark, girl in elegant dress, on elegant settee, in somewhat of a drab room with her 'art' hung on the wall. She looks like she doesn’t have much except that she has high quality style.

Her bags are so precious she uses them as art. She looks like she is waiting for someone(?).. maybe a little sad that “he” hasn’t shown up yet.

Beautiful color balance, and the lighting is great. [... ] That shot belongs in a high end glam magazine.

[...] The whole look is real interesting."

Bruce Davidson

2008-03-26T19:53:00.012-04:00

The first time I saw work by Bruce Davidson, a member of Magnum, was February last year (2007). the Fondation HCB in Paris was displaying his harlem east 100th street (black and white photos here) series and his civil rights movement series time of change. Two emblematic visual testimonies of 1960's America.

I recently joined CIPNE. you know, to "network" and be "a part of community" and such. I have no idea how they did it, but they got Davidson.

He stood in front of a screen that projected his various series (the dwarf, Brooklyn gang, time of change, coal miners, east 100th street, subway, central park, stills from movie misfits, Paris nature) and chatted. He shared stories. There are things that I would like to remember from his talk. I will put them in a list with bullet points. Because if it were me reading this, I would never pay attention to paragraphs.

From the mouth of b. davison:

dude shot 100's of annual reports (note to self: stop being too proud)
he shot the harlem series over 2 years, and his central park series over 2 -3 years (note to self: photography takes time)
worked for LIFE magazine, then quit, looking to work on the things that mattered to him (note to self: you can be proud sometimes)
his early career he shot with a leica.
the harlem series he shot using a 4x5 ending up with over 4,000 negatives.
he was asked why he used the 4 x 5 for this series. it affected me, his answer:

the 4 x 5 is not a camera you can be quick with. you cannot escape the presence of the camera. the use of the 4x5 must be methodical, and requires complete collaboration from your subject.
when the 4 x 5 came out, it was called the "miniature camera."

And the number one thing b. davidson said:

"To edit is to face your truth."

That quote deserves another blog. Loooooook out.

b. davidson himself:

The Shredder

2008-03-15T12:38:00.004-04:00

Last night I had a dream that I literally took my Photographers Market 2007 book and shoved it through my shredder.

Thoughts?

How Dare You? Times 12.

2008-02-25T10:50:00.007-05:00

So I happened upon this blog post. It claims there are 12 things you must photograph before you die.

I was instantly annoyed at such in the box constraints. But of course that lasted all of 6 seconds before I got paranoid and decided I must prove that i have taken all 12 of them!!

So then I actually read the post. I suppose I agree with the first two:

1. A perfect portrait
2. A complete story

Although in agreeing that one must take a perfect portrait and make a complete story, I also disagree, of course there is ever the portrait or the complete story.

Every photograph taken leads to the next one y'all, so don't stop now!

Feast your eyes on a portrait of Clara. i wouldn't say it's perfect but I love it.

Sometimes, even a truck is a camera.

2008-02-19T00:05:00.004-05:00

http://www.cameratruck.es

Too many favorites

2008-02-16T22:35:00.002-05:00

We messed around and moved around so much for this shoot that it resulted in a ton of unique and interesting shots with different moods. Every time I think I know which my favorite shot is, there is another one I am enamored with. I only wish we had a wardrobe change in there somewhere. Out of about 3,000 (560) photos - these are my absolute favorites.

Special thanks to Katie, Karla & Kristin & dress by Ari.

Memory and the Absence of War

2008-02-15T11:45:00.006-05:00

You're lookin' at it. The final final. Someday I'll show you the two that didn't make the cut. For now we focus on winners only.

If you click anywhere in this sentence, you will be taken to a page where you can view larger versions of each image.

Next, I'm going to paraphrase the artist's statement that was a required accompaniment to the photos.

"...

During the month of August 2007, I was lucky enough to find myself in a situation where I could photograph many World War II historic locations in and around Normandy, France. My paternal grandfather had been a Lt. Colonel in WWII, giving over 37 years of his life to the United States Army. His death at age 92, 9 months prior, had left me with an insatiable curiosity about the events surrounding D-Day. The army was never far from his thoughts. In the end, as his physical health deteriorated, his mind returned to those same battlefields where he had felt the most alive.

This series of photographs explores the notion of war and time. More specifically, it explores the effect of war and time on a physical location, as well as our collective human memory. The idea that the monstrous and bloodied events that took place in Normandy could ever fade seems cruel and unimaginable. Yet the jarring sounds of guns and wails of dying soldiers dissipate into the calming quiet of a rolling ocean, as the cries of children at play permeate the beach, some 60 years later.

..."

and on and on. and. on.

Happy Valentine's Day Photography.

2008-02-14T10:14:00.012-05:00

Happy Valentine's Day

Photography ... My ass has been officially kicked. I am smitten with you sky photo.

Once again, the object of my desire is a photo taken with my SX-70. the camera, incidentally is still in the shop.

Moment of silence.

I am conclusively in motion. I am putting together a submission for a juried show in the spring. What happened was this.I did a little visualizing. I imagined myself at the show with none of my photos on the wall. I surmised there could be one of two reasons for this. One would be that I gave it my all and simply didn't make the cut this year. The other would be I was too depressed, self involved, or lazy. Unable to summon courage to lay some sometimes not pleasant stuff on the line and submit work.

I decided the latter felt a lot worse.

So, look out! The flood gates are open. I am a scan-o-holic at the moment. Skim scan skitchin' my Normandy, Nice & Ireland polaroids like it's goin outta style.

From the view of a photographer

2008-01-25T15:59:00.002-05:00

I didn't take this picture, my mom did. It's a picture of Christmas dinner at my grandparents house. I look to be about 5 or 6.

I sent it to my mom after my grandfather died to highlight the sad fact that 4/7 people in it are no longer with us.

She responded that she was sad that it was a family picture and that she wasn't in it; thus making her not important.

I told her that in fact, she is the most important person in this picture. Everyone (except me) is looking at her. She is the focal point. And actually, the biggest point to be made here is that the photo wouldn't exist at all if she hadn't taken it; making her absolutely the most important person to this photo.

So the phrase "from the view of a photographer" is facetious. Just look at their pictures.

Thoughts on a Diptych

2008-01-24T16:52:00.001-05:00

An SX-70 Diptych taken in various SF locations.

SX-70: One of the loves of my life

2008-01-23T23:52:00.002-05:00

Allow me to introduce Miss Miffitt. Or Mrs. Keimig. Either one, really.

Taken with my sx-70 in SF in September '07 which I recently realized was broken. Sometimes shooting with my dSLR can feel like a job. Not my sx-70. Never.