Big weekend! It is summer now, so it is back to the life of living out of a suitcase by week and backpack by weekend. Special and continual thanks to studio manager Meghan McKilligan who serves as home base while photog #1 gallivants across the country. The team aligns on Saturday for a mission of supporting creative arts in downtown Houghton with the 10th annual Houghton Spring Arts & Music Festival and a gallery opening in our favorite barn-wood-walled brewery – the Keweenaw Brewing Co.

What are we unveiling?

We are *not* showcasing pretty brides, lush aerial landscapes, or cute kids. We are showing off a 5 hour, collaborative effort between our friends at the KBC and an array of confident, tattooed models under the direction of Whitney Warstler. We shot with natural light in multiple scenes at two locations: the downtown brewery, and the South Range facility. Fun, fun stuff with models who threw modesty to the wind and let us create art inside these two unique, commercial facilities. You might remember that we got in a bit of trouble with Facebook for posting a few of these (they banned our page and personal accounts for a week as punishment) so we are thrilled that the KBC embraces the project. Come on Saturday to see the work in 30″ glory. All images are available for purchase, and grab a cold beer while you are browsing.

stout

As an added incentive to see the new images, we’ve timed the unveiling during the 10th annual Art & Music Fest which is happening right outside KBC’s back door. Brockit Inc. has helped the Copper Country Community Arts Center with this fundraising effort for a number of years now, and it is guaranteed to delight you and your family. Over 40 artist booths, food, activities, and of course music will all take place on the upper parking deck from noon-7pm.

The music line-up:

12:30 Huffing Pink
1:45 Gratiot Lake
3:00 Jellikit
4:15 Uncle Pete’s All Star Barbecue Blues Band
5:45 PasiCats

The event has some great sponsors and supporters including yours truly, and all our friends at Brassard Media, the MTEC Smart Zone, Minnesota Public Radio, the Keweenaw Brewing Company, Bohemia Printing, Wicker and Willow, Surplus Outlet, Rhythm Skateshop, Pizzaworks, The Blue Iris, The Lunchbag, Chickadees, and Downwind Sports.What a collection!

As added, extra incentive – a jet-lagged Adam Johnson will be helping emcee the event as well as running the music between sets.

What a Saturday – show up and enjoy it with us!

We took a break from shooting kissing couples, tattooed women in industrial ruin, and research laboratories to focus (pun intended) on some super cute gymnastics girls at the Superior School of Dance and Gymnastics the other night. And what a treat it was. We tried to avoid the traditional ‘stand here, smile, POP, okay next!’ process and setup three locations in their gym for group, action, and portrait shots. We think they turned out pretty well, but see for yourself. It helped that all the subjects were naturally photogenic, and again – not just cute, but super-cute. Special thanks to assistant and gymnastics interpreter Betty who kept the photog from looking too dumb, calling the bar the beam, and the beam the bar, but also moved gear in and out of the studio.

There are two galleries for the team, including one from a recent meet in Wisconsin. Ordering on the former is as-you-wish, with a wide variety of sizes, finishes, and digital downloads. The latter are freebies for fun

Many thanks to our host and gym owner, Nicole Polakowski, and her crew of coaches who helped corral fast moving, spunky girls – a job we likely couldn’t do without a glass of wine…

*** GALLERY ***

We’re all about supporting community, and this one is no exception.

GLOBAL CITY is a student organization at Michigan Tech dedicated to addressing critical, global issues, especially those that most directly impact developing countries. Its members meet regularly to attend presentations by invited speakers (our own Adam Johnson presented recently) to give presentations, present research, and to pursue the three main goals of the organization, which are:

To foster cooperation and understanding among nationals of different countries.

To promote interest in international affairs such as the environment, human rights, technology transfer, poverty, development, and sustainability.

To provide a forum for the presentation of innovative ideas to benefit the university and the world community.

The Global City group has solicited photo contributions from its members for an exhibit at the Keweenaw Brewing Co. Why are we involved? We like community, we like photos, and we like the KBC! We’ve offered to host their photos and facilitate the voting process.

These photos offer a glimpse of where Global City members have been and what they have captured that helps us to understand our own global community.

Please view the categories and photos within each to select your favorite images. You may select up to 3 photos per category, and you can give it a Facebook ‘Like’ or just leave a comment. The group will tally the results, and pick the winners. Excellent we will vote too! The breakdown is pretty simple, the five images with the most votes per category (Culture and People, Sustainability, and Landscapes) will be selected for printing and mounting. An overall prize will be awarded to the photo with the most votes per category. Photographers names and titles have been left out, images stand on their own on the voting site.. If your photo is selected you will be contacted to provide a title and one to two lines describing the photo for the exhibit at the KBC (if you haven’t already done so).

You have until midnight on Saturday, the 23rd of April to get your vote in. Start viewing now!

We’ve used our studio as many things: lounge, dining room, movie theater, tattoo parlor, nursery, kennel, and oh yeah… a studio. Well now its time again to use it as a classroom.

On Saturday, April 23rd from 10AM – 3PM, we’ll be hosting our second public photography class for adults in our Hancock studio. Who is it geared for you ask? If you nod your head or exclaim ‘yes!’ to at least two of the below, you should join us.

You have a good eye, but are wrestling with your digital camera.
You have good gear, but an eye that needs some training.
Your kids and pets deserve better photos than what you are currently giving them.
All the buttons on the back of your camera remain a mystery to you.
You are regularly asking ‘how did you take that photo?!’
You know someone who could take great photos if they just had some basic knowledge.
Your photos look great on the camera, but are you unsure of what to do with them on the computer.
You want to spend more quality time with your favorite photographer.
You are unsure what to give your best friend for Christmas.

Enter ‘photography for everyone – taking better photos of the things you love.’

Participants will bring their own camera for a 5 hour hands-on, intensive session that will cover:

• basics on photography (light, depth, framing)
• mechanics of your own camera
• image processing, sharing, printing, and archiving
• hands-on exercises in-studio with live models
• photo critiques, tips, and equipment recommendations

The Brockit crew will provide:

• studio space
• instructor and assistants
• eclectic background music
• live models
• a variety of beverage selections
• catered lunch from our friends at the Keweenaw Coop
• a decade of photo experience to share

This is a hands-on class for adults, and limited to the first 10 participants at a cost of $250.

If you are interested, please do the following:

• Sign-up using the form below, and please indicate your equipment and diet preferences
• Wait for a confirmation from our studio, after which you will:
• Make a deposit for the class.

Hope to see you there – this will be fun!

*** See photos and comments from previous classes below ***

tricky lighting

before & after

aperture demo

adjusting for exposure

And a gallery from Brockit’s BettyJean

And what did attendees say?

Fabulous photo class today, brockit!

I had so much fun at the session and feel like I can finally grasp what I have been reading all of this time……..
there was a ton to cover, and even with my camera, I felt like I was able to improve my pictures by the end of the day…and even the ones that didn’t turn out technically great, are cool in a way!!!

thanks for the e-mail – it was a fun day. I am very interested in more classes

Thank YOU and the Brockit staff. I am interested in the “intermediate” class.

The class you held was fantastic and helped me in many areas that the online class did not. I was glad I had taken the online one just to get that step ahead on my camera before heading to the one you held.

Thanks so much for the workshop. Before I came in, I had no idea what ‘F-stop’ meant!

i had a blast yesterday and wanted to thank you again for teaching me how to finally get my camera off the P! i was messing around with shooting my daughter and got this awesome shot… on purpose; fully manual with all the settings chosen by yours truly. usually it’s just a fluke if i can get this good of a shot of her as she’s flying around the house. and even then i have to monkey with it in lightroom to get the colors and exposure looking right.

thanks for taking your time to teach us!  It was great fun, great food, and great learning!

and:

well, with a hottie like Rosie, you can’t go wrong!!

If you’ve been keeping up with our portrait work, you’ve probably noticed some subtle and dramatic makeup work going on. Rhian is the secret here, and we thought we’d give her a bit of a shout-out for her fantastic work. AND – if you are one of our brides or portrait clients, we highly recommend that you ask us about how to get Rhian to make your face even more beautiful than it already is. Below are some shots we did one sunny, Saturday afternoon in our studio. We pulled all the stops out on these: mopped the floor (again), turned up the trance music, dusted off the magic green couch, and cleaned the 50mm lens with more than just a t-shirt corner. All shots in the studio were done with natural sunlight, coming in through our 10′ windows, and with the magic f/1.4 lens. Our workflow is through Adobe Lightroom, and we ran the final shots through a very delicate treatment.

Rhian Harrington-Yeoman was born and raised in the city of Bath, located in the South West of England. She has had an interest in art, photography, fashion and makeup from a young age which she has only recently been realized as a career choice.

As evidenced by the photos here and in some recent project work with our studio, it is clear that she has an appreciation for individuals’ bone structure, skin type (even problem skin), aesthetic style and an understanding of what it takes to conceal and enhance different features. She essentially enhances natural beauty (which is why we like her!)

She is always willing to try new styles but has a current interest in natural, SFX, glam, special events and photographic makeup work. Rhian is interested in networking, working with local clients and businesses and assisting other established artists.

Rhian HY can be contacted by phone (906-281-7441) or email

Enjoy the below. Click on each image to enjoy details in hi-res.

Our friends at the Keweenaw Brewing Co. in downtown Houghton were kind enough to allow us to do a project shoot in their place recently. Manager Christine, owners Dick & Paul, and bartender Whitney helped brainstorm the idea with us as a fun project, with photos ending up as candidates for our revolving gallery in the KBC. As usual, we wanted to utilize an unusual location, and contrast it with some great tattoo work on some of our regular and some new models. Projects like this are always a blast because they are good exercises for our crew, provide portfolio pieces for our studio and models, and eventually result in large prints in our studio or in local galleries; everyone wins!

(Just posted ‘Whitney’s selections’ in a slideshow below. Be sure to hit the ‘play’ button or better, the fullscreen option)

OH, and many apologies to our fans who gave such rave reviews to the photos on our facebook page. We posted a trio of facebook-friendly photos to a gallery which stayed up for a good couple days until we were reported (shame on you!!) for inappropriate content. This is an often debated topic on this social network, and while we commend them for ‘protecting’ people, we must disagree with their removal of two of the images. Also kinda funny that they left one up. Alas…

One of your photos was recently removed because it was found to violate Facebook policies. As a reminder, the following types of photos are not permitted: Content that is pornographic or contains nudity, or is inappropriately sexual.

*** UPDATE – BANNED from facebook uploads ***

Um, wow. We feel like high-schoolers who were caught smoking in the bathroom. We knew the images were edgy, but they were carefully selected to be facebook-friendly, and in fact, the images were live for over 48 hours. 2 images (amber, stout) were removed for content and we were warned. We clicked okay and posted two ‘censored’ images to be cheeky. Facebook must have reviewed the uploads and assumed we had just added the ‘blonde’ shot that they missed. Instant Facebook detention for a week. Enjoy the images here. They are posted using Brockit Inc. terms and conditions, which means, well… absolutely nothing!

director Whitney setting up the blonde shot

safety briefing & shot planning

setting up a two-model shot