giveaway: j kesterson photography

This week's Meet the Maker is more appropriately entitled Meet the Picture Taker, because today I am featuring the work of my very best friend, business partner, husband Jeff of J Kesterson Photography. Am switching things up a little this week to bring you one extremely cool giveaway and to celebrate the grand opening of our photo blog. Yup, that's right. I've officially taken on some of the behind-the-scenes duties, including blogging, because after all, that's what I do best. ;)We are giving away a free 1 hour photo shoot including online proofing, AND a disc of 10 of your digital images!! The photo shoot can take place at a location of your choice (although we're happy to lend suggestions) within a 50 mile radius of Minneapolis/St. Paul any time during the month of April. Families, babies, couples, you name it. This is an amazing opportunity ($200 value) so don't pass it up!

To win & get yourself in front of our cameras:

Leave a comment stating why you’d love to get your picture taken.

***

If you want to double or triple your chances of winning, in your comment also mention if you:

Become a facebook fan or subscriber to the new photo blog

AND/OR

Post a link to this giveaway on your blog, twitter, or facebook and help spread the word.

***

A winner will be randomly chosen and announced first thing Friday morning (4/9).
now for a little Q & A with Jeff:

Who are your favorite subjects?

If you had asked me this just a few weeks ago, I wouldn't have hesitated to say "kids." They're so spontaneous and wonderfully unaware of (or at least, unfrightened by) the camera. You can never predict quite what you'll get, but you can be sure it will be something really fun. Now I'm torn, though, thanks to the awesome wedding workshop we attended just last weekend (I'm sure Jessica will tell you more about this soon). I still think wedding days are a bit stressful, but more and more I'm discovering some of the great possibilities that wedding shoots offer (particularly engagement and trash-the-dress sessions).

Bluebelle said...What's your favourite lens to use - if you had to pick only one to take out for the day, which one would it be?

For a long time, my go-to lens was the Nikon f3.5-5.6 18-200mm. The price tag might be out of the question for some, but this beauty can get 90% of the shots you need. Now that we’ve upgraded to a full frame camera and pro lenses, my main go-to lens is the Nikon f2.8 24-70mm. Tack sharp photos, creamy bokeh, great low light abilities, and a zoom range adequate for 75% or so of the photos I take.

From Sunday to Monday said...Would you ever make a trip out to Colorado to capture a wedding in the majestic Rocky Mountains? Just curious how far you travel for a job.

We’d love to head out to Colorado, Amy. Does this mean your boy has a ring ready to spring on you at just the right moment? We’ve already done a little bit of traveling, and it’s something we’d like to get increasingly into. We’re more than a tad jealous of photographers such as Tara Whitney who schedule tours around various parts of the country each year.

summer said...i'd love to hear about what kind of processing you do on your photos...

I use Photoshop’s Camera Raw utility (Lightroom has similar capabilities) for the majority of my processing work. Allows you to pinpoint color temperature and saturation, exposure, black levels, and so forth. Best of all, it allows you to adjust hue, saturation, and luminance for each color independent of the others, meaning you can make your blue skies pop and your green grass come to life. Recently I've been falling in love with an action for Photoshop that gives my color photos as well as my black and whites a mild 70’s cross-processed feel. Oh yeah, and I’m a sucker for vignettes.

What has been your biggest challenge in starting your own photography business?

Biggest challenge has been managing my time (just ask Jessica—wait a second, Jessica is the one asking this question!). Between taking and processing tons of photos, learning Dreamweaver and Flash from scratch, trying to get a handle on the administrative end of business ownership, recently moving across the country, holding down a separate part time job, and handling a cute little beast of a boy when Jessica is at work, it's been a juggling act, to say the least. It also doesn't help that I'm a terrible perfectionist who has a very hard time leaving well enough alone. Thankfully I've got a wonderful wife who is really into this stuff too, and will be sharing more and more of the workload as things pick up. All things considered, it's been a very rewarding experience so far, and we can't wait to see what's in store for us.