Keith Ferris Photo

I’ve known Melissa since college where we graduated from the same photography program. It’s always a great compliment to me when another artist or photographer asks me to shoot their wedding. It’s also a great responsibility and makes me a little nervous, but I like to use it as a challenge to make fantastic images. They live in Brooklyn but I had met Doni a couple of times before and I knew that he was a really easy going and down to earth guy. Melissa contacted me in the spring about her fall wedding. No problem, plenty of time to plan a wedding. One caveat; she was planning on hiking the entire Appalachian Trail with her dad and would be off the grid all summer. Despite logging some serious miles in the months prior to her wedding Melissa and Doni managed to throw a terrific party with plenty of hand made touches at Mount Gulian Historic Site in Beacon, NY. Bridge Creek Catering did a fantastic job with the setup, the food and the service. Overall it was a great wedding and I’m happy to have shared this special day with one wonderful couple.

Melissa contacted me a couple of months ago to schedule a family shoot in the peak of fall at an apple orchard. I met her and her husband and their two boys at Terhune Orchard in Salt Point NY and we enjoyed the sunny crisp morning walking around the orchard. Sam and Alex are as sweet as can be and it was not difficult at all to make them look adorable on camera. Below are a few of my favorites from the shoot.

Stephanie and Jon’s wedding at Mohonk was picture perfect. It was a bright sunny day and a beautiful day to be at Mohonk. Stephanie went to school at New Paltz so tying the knot at Mohonk Mountain House was a no brainer. Here’s some of my favorite photos from that day.

Alissa and Mike contacted me about their intimate wedding at Mohonk and I was hooked. Rather then have everyone they know come to the wedding they decided that they would just have close family for a weekend at Mohonk Mountain House and then have a big reception party in their hometown in Pennsylvania. They chose Mohonk because of their love of nature and the outdoors. It was a beautiful day and a beautiful wedding, perfect in every way.

Beautiful light in the garden.i think this picture really sums up the newlyweds.

Kate contacted me about modeling for stock to help build her fitness modeling portfolio. She’s new to modeling but not new to fitness. She was a college athlete and still works out regularly. We shot a few different concepts and got a ton of great shots. I look forward to working with her again in the future.

Low key fitness shot.

working out.

working out.

Matt recently took up acting so he wanted to work on his portfolio. He contacted me in reference to a stock photography ad I had posted so we worked on some stock concepts in addition to some headshots for him. Overall he’s very versatile and outgoing so he makes a good model and I’m sure he’s pretty good on stage too.

The thinking man.

My wife slipped Casey my business card when they had her shower at work. She decided that she wanted some maternity pictures done so she gave me a call. We decided on Vanberbilt Mansion in Hyde Park since she lives in Poughkeepsie. There are countless places to shoot there so we had a great time walking around the property. Casey told me that she thought the photos were great and she would have a hard time choosing which ones to print. I think that’s a good problem to have. Below are a few of my favorites.

A portrait in front of the columns of the Vanderbilt Mansion.

There is a saying, the cobbler’s children have no shoes. This is often the case for photographers as well. I admit that I have to make a conscious effort to photograph my own son since, as a pro photographer, the last thing I want to do on my time off is take pictures. We have a few non-professional cameras around the house and I often use those for snapshots since my pro gear is usually packed safely away from toddlers hands. Cole’s first birthday was a couple of weeks ago so we wanted to do a shoot to commemorate it and we were planning to go to my studio. Well, last weekend we decided to go for a hike at Split Rock in the Mohonk Preserve with Cole so I decided to pack the big guns to take some outdoor photos instead. It turned out to be a fun albeit relatively short shot. The hardest part was picking out the best ones since he’s so darn cute in all of them. Below are a few of my favorites from the trip, I hope they make you smile.

I gave him these flowers to play with and they turned out to be a fun distraction for him.

Stephanie has a lot of TV and print experience and wanted to update her portfolio. When we planned our shoot she knew what she wanted, a fresh new headshot with a casual look. I used the windows in my studio for some natural light portraits, then I set up the lights. We also took some photos with her twins and some for stock. Here’s three of my favorites.

Natural light headshot.

Dhebora’s mother is a belly dancer so she wanted to do a bellydance themed shoot. She had never modeled before but I had the lights set up in advance so once she got there we were ready to go. She also came with her friend who’s a make up artist so that helped. Overall it was a great first shoot.

action shot