Wendy Woods Photography

Detail Miniatures

Do you know the feeling of seeing a toy, a blanket, hearing music, and suddenly you have a cascade of memories, people, places, things forgotten? The things that trigger memories are often the things we take for granted, until they appear at a later time, a later stage in life. We all get these feelings from objects, places, or sounds that we at one point subconsciously associated with something else. This is the idea behind detail miniatures, an array of photographs that can trigger memories. David Williams of Heartworks in Australia pioneered this idea for wedding albums; he does a series of detail miniatures on a full album page, capturing the sense of place. I am now doing that too. Last week, we photographed a wonderful family, Kristy and Tracy, and their twin girls Courtney and Sydney, at their home in Lake Elmo. As they are twins, they have a lot of matching items. This detail miniature was created from images around their room and throughout their home. Once you get started looking for details, they are everywhere. You begin to see how they represent the people who live there. The mosaic describes their life and what is important to them. David also encouraged us not just to photograph children alone, but at least sometimes with their parents. Use the parents as "props" so to speak. "We are the temporary caretakers of these photographs," is my favorite quote from him. When the children grow up and inherit these pictures, it's the parents they will want to see in their photos, images that represent how they felt about each other. Kristy and Robb allowed us to do that, and we hope they love these and that some day the children will look back on them and remember....

David Williams' 3-Day Mind-Boggling Workshop

At least once or twice a year, I personally need to have my head twisted off and handed back to me on a platter by someone really inspiring. I attended his workshop in Vegas almost two years ago and he managed to do it then, and he did it again last week. Australia's David Williams visited us here for a 3-day workshop at Leslie Hale's summer family home on a cinematic cliff in Osceola, Wisconsin. David Williams is a tremendously accomplished photographer who's won every award there is practically (listen to me gush) but even with his stature in the industry, he's gentle, funny, and approachable, as well as a great teacher and all-round guy. The workshop brought 20 of us - only the Twin Cities' finest :) - to Osceola Nov. 14, 15, and 16. The topics ranged from 14th century frescos to "loaf posing" or "photographing people as they are, rather than artificially," to looking for good light, to doing our own fine art printing with the Epson 4800 (he prefers the Epson Archival Matte paper). His Vellum Opus albums are an exquisite departure from the usual - and he's big on the concept that "photojournalism doesn't always mean hiding behind a tree. It's telling a story with a camera." Details details! The detail miniatures concept is illustrated below. Each time David changes locations at a wedding he does a series of detail images, because it's details that we remember, that trigger memories ("neurochromes"). For a class project we all did details miniatures on Leslie's octagon cabin - mine's below. Nick and I are breathless and inspired, there was so much we learned... Thank you David!! You can view David's web site at http://www.davidwilliams-heartworks.com/ Click on any image to open larger in a separate window. Leave a comment! We would love to hear from you.

David talks, I listen.

David is showing us a "loaf pose"
Back row, left to right Kristian Olson, Joe Dickie, David Williams,
Nick Gorski; front row Tamer Salim and Lindsay Magnuson, our model.

Model Josh Sohm poses for us during a class exercise.

David and an Epson printer. Photo by Verna Pitts
http://www.vernapittsphotography.com
Verna also did this lovely portrait of David below.

This and next photo by Leslie Hale
http://www.lesliehalephotography.com

This and next photo by Ngaire (Naree) West-Johnson
http://www.ngaire.net

A page of detail miniatures, as they would appear in an album.

Pat and Jessica Downtown in St. Paul

Yesterday Pat Leeney and Jessica Erickson joined me downtown in St. Paul for an engagement session. They are to be married on December 2, so their engagement session is just in time. They are fans of Peanuts and hockey, so the statues of Lucy and Herb Brooks, hockey coach, came in handy for a few of the portraits. You may recognize Jessica if you frequent the Wild Onion restaurant on Grand Avenue in St. Paul where she is the general manager, while Pat's company is in marketing for radio stations. Pazzaluna, a restaurant nearby, is one of their favorites, so we hopped over to the bar inside where it was warm and cozy. Thanks to manager Larry Corson for letting us do this impromptu photo session. We are really looking forward to photographing their wedding. It should be fun! Click on any image to see larger.

Hastings Minnesota with Kaitlyn

Minnesota at this time of year is a challenge for us portrait photographers. Brown and gray. Add the cold and there ain't much to brag about for six months out of the year. But every once in a while we make a discovery. About 15 miles from Stillwater is the town of Hastings, on the banks of the Mississippi, a town right out of Norman Rockwell, where dogs sleep on the sidewalks, American flags line the street, and storefronts look the same as they did 100 years ago. There is a little train station right out of a storybook, and bridges over a gorgeous river. Kaitlyn, a senior at Hastings High School, suggested we do her senior portraits there. What a find. There is fantastic light under the bridge, great paint jobs on buildings and murals, a photographer's dream town. Here is some of what we did yesterday. Special thanks to Kaitlyn for being so photogenic! Do you know about any other great places to photograph at this time of year? Please share! Click on any image to enlarge.