Summer of Senior Portraits

     Summer is here and that means it’s time for the class of 2019 to get the glam on in front of the camera before they graduate next spring and head off into the great wide world as adults. First, there is one more year high school, reports, tests and as some young women love and some young men dread the senior portrait session ahead of them.

     For most it’s their chance to show a more adult side, be the jester for one last time or just be the person they really want to be. It is all meant to show the world I have arrived. At Vagabond Photography we strive to help bring those dreams to the photos we create with our Seniors.

     We understand that sometimes what our Senior’s has in mind for an outfit is not always what the parent had in mind or will approve of. Recently with changes in the fashion industry to push young kids to dress more like adults (not necessarily always in the best ways) we have seen that trend reflected in our photography industry as well when clients bring outfits. The one thing we always recommend to all our clients (seniors, families and engagement couples) if it’s not something grandma and grandpa would hang on their walls at home or mom and dad would put on their desk at work because it might be seen as a little to provocative maybe it would its best also if you bring an alternate outfit so both parties are happy in the end.  

     The great thing about senior portraits is that is doesn’t just have a be a quick simple headshot for the year book like in years prior where we all lined up sat for a minute and a half and then were back in class. We can feasibly go anywhere and do almost anything (but not hanging your photographer from a rope off a cliff). Vagabond Photography is nestled out in East Troy, WI we are 40 minutes from the lake front & downtown in Milwaukee, 50 minutes from our state capitol in Madison and all around us in the perfect lake and nature settings. If there is another place outside of those areas that holds special meaning to you and your family we can travel there as well.

     Including sports and hobbies into our photo sessions is something we have always tried to get our clients to do more of. It brings the feeling of this is part of who I am into the photos and allows our Seniors to experiment with different poses that include their passions.  If possible bring your pets as well. While we understand at some locations it is not possible to have them there but when they are it always brings in the possibility of unexpected hilarity which translates into beautiful photos.

     Dates book fast we only do few sessions a day at Vagabond Photography and we do this to give out Seniors the right amount of time in front of the camera to bring their ideas to life. We are also able to do group sessions so if you want to incorporate a senior portrait session with your friends. We have all had that one friend we have grown up with who might as well be family and it is always a fun time when we can bring friends like that together.

     We look forward to hearing from you.

Today I marry my best friend: The Morgan's April 2017

Yesterday at Vagabond Photography, I had the privilege of being able to show a recent bride and her mother the photos from her and her husbands big day.  I never get over be able to watch the joy come over a husband and wife's face when being presented with they photos for the first time. In this case it was the bride and the mother but it was still fun none the less.

One of the things we enjoy covering at Vagabond Photography is military weddings and this young couple made for such an enjoyable day.

Nici and Jack we wish you both all the best in life.

Fair winds and following seas.

The positives and negative of being an outdoor, on-location photographer in Wisconsin.

The one thing we have always prided ourselves on, is being an on-location photographer with a willingness to go pretty much anywhere (minus dangling from a cliff) for our clients. Being an on-location photographer is not for every photographer though.  In this blog post we are going to look at the positive and negatives to being an on-location photographer.

In the beginning when we started our business there was a decision to be made where were we going to be located the majority of the time, in a studio or on location? Yes, we started out as a sports and journalism photographer but as we progressed to portraits and other styles of photography we had a choice to make. In the end, we decided it was in our best interest to be an outdoor, on-location photographer. For us at Vagabond Photography we are outdoorsy people and love the ability to bring the outdoor world into our photos and being indoors day in and day out become repetitive to us.

Now understand we are not saying that if you decide to invest a brick and mortar studio and work out of one place you won’t do on-location work as well far from it. This blog post is mainly designed to address some of the upfront ups and down of deciding to work exclusively outdoors.

The pro of photographing most of your clients outside is that your back drop is ever changing. Every location can be found and sculpted to fit the clients own personal style and that works great because some clients may want a more country/nature setting while others may want more of an urban setting. While this does have its upsides the down side is that as a photographer we should really only use these locations two to three times a season/year to keep it fresh for future clients. Also one thing to keep in mind when photographing in a urban environment is your surrounding and is it safe for you and your clients to be there.

When setting up for a client’s session the main thing we as photographers must keep in mind is the weather. In Wisconsin and like other states in the snow belt we are all aware that the weather is something we always keep an eye on and it is constantly changing. It’s been stated that in Wisconsin you can have three of the four seasons all in one day and over the year we have seen it happen. In the summer, you still have to keep an eye on the temperature and with the added inconvenience of whether or not it may rain. Which is why having reschedule date in mind for you and your client is must even though we hope you never have too. Now this works for family and senior portraits and some corporate clients, but for weddings it’s a one day only deal with no reschedule date. For us in the north, come winter we keep in mind about how cold it is outside and what your clients are wearing. While a colored snow ball fight between loved ones on a field or ice-skating engagement sessions seems like a cool ideas for a photo session if it’s under 20F it may not be the best idea. This has two reasons one; clients and photographers get cold quick and frost bite is nothing to fool around with, secondly is gear can become brittle and is easily damaged when the temperatures get bellowing freezing.

One of the better things about working on location is we can go bigger. It allows photographers to incorporate larger things such as a cars, trucks, bikes or animals. Its comes in quite nice for senior portraits especially if a client would like to incorporate a classic car that they may of helped restored with their family. Also incorporating animals can bring extra life into a photo especially if it is a horse or the family dog and it is something that we always recommend our clients to consider incorporating into their sessions. The down side of both of these is going too big and not being able to deliver in said session this can hurt the image and return business. In addition, with large animals they can be easily spooked by flashes and noises if they are not used to being around those. Having recently attended ImagingUSA in Huston we watched as a long horn steer get spooked from behind when a fair amount of people were around it, thankfully no one was seriously injured granted this animal was not spooked by a flash but still this is an example of what can happen if you as a photographer are not prepared for what could happen. Animals decide when they are done, not you and you can only string them along so long.

Working outdoors and on site means that the light is always changing and that is something you always should be attentive to. If you start in the early morning around sunrise if will go from blue hues, to golden, to full white light and the opposite it true before sunset.  This is a great thing because depending on what/who/where you are photographing a photographer can get several different moods in a short amount of time. On the other side of the coin it can also be a hindrance if you are not ready for how fast the light is going to change. Working outside also means that you have to contend with the sun due to your time of day during your photo session. This is a time where one would want to remove excess light by using scrims and gobo’s. This is quite the opposite when working in a studio where light is much easier to control.

These are just a few of the positives and negatives we have encountered in Wisconsin over the past few years and it is just something you may like to consider when working outdoors. We can say that even though it presents several unique challenges the benefits far outweigh the negatives.

Year in Review 2016

As the year draws to and end and I sit here and enjoy the last breakfast of the old year and eagerly await the beginning of the new, it’s time to sit back for a minute and reflect on what a good year it has been for Vagabond Photography.

Vagabond Photography had a good year with some ups and downs. While at Imaging USA in Atlanta in January, I decided it was time to start writing down some of our experiences in the photography industry. This has turned out to be a good way to communicate with you our clients and readers.

Bookings didn’t come in quite as quick as I had hoped for, for weddings and senior/portraits in the first half of the year but we did have a large expansion into the Corporate photography niche, with this new area now comprising about a quarter to a third of our business.  Something that I learned from my father is that even though you may have intended for your company to serve/provide one style of service, sometimes it can take on a life of its own and move in a different direction.

In April and May we had the joy of teaming up with two non profit groups in Milwaukee called Sweetwater and the Water Council of Milwaukee. They both have a great mission Sweetwater aims to help clean up the Milwaukee River, Menomonee River and Root River basins. While the Water Council of Milwaukee looks at ways of restoring our aquifers and delivering clean water to the area. It was such a great experience to be able to work at both of their conferences, I learned a lot even though I was just there to document the day for them.

Over the summer, we saw the launch of our new website for Vagabond Photography. www.vbphoto.co  For many years, I used and loved the hosting company Zenfolio, they have great layouts and custom designs but with diminishing returns though search engines and a lack of being able to do customized SEO, I decided it was time to make a move. After some research beginning in late July I decided on moving our hosting duties to Square Space. It took a little while to get everything set up and also, I had to find a new hosting platform for our client galleries and for that we settled on a little-known company called Pixieset. I was able to integrate both platforms to create a seamless new website that I think looks marvelous.

As the fall approached we moved to the last of our Senior Portraits and a few weddings. It was so great to a part of our wedding client’s special day.  I really love fall weddings so much more than summer weddings. There is such a great wide range of colors from golden hues of yellow, fiery reds, hazelnut browns and every other color in-between.

At the end of October/beginning of November I interviewed with an auto auction company called Mecums to possibly photograph cars for them part time while still being able to run Vagabond Photography full time. It didn’t pan out but I am thankful for the time to learn from there master photographer David Newhardt. I always love to learn new things and in a couple of days photographing with them it turned into a great learning experience. Learning something from a gentleman that has photographed classic cars for over 40 plus years is a great treat.

As Christmas approached we moved back into our Corporate Christmas season. I was great, to have our friends at MUZA Metals in Oshkosh ask us back for a second year even though getting there did happen on one of the more hazardous snow storms we have had it Wisconsin in a while. But it was fun, they all were but this one stick out in my mind the most because the getting there was just as interesting as the actual event was.

Christmas was spent back in my home town with my family and it was great to have some down time and to be able to be with friends and family for a few days.  I keep telling myself one of these years I need to bring my gear home with me and photograph a Gumz Family Christmas on Christmas Day but I have yet to do this. It’s a great time with mom and dad on my dad side of the family all the aunts and uncles show up with all the cousins and it turns into a great time when you stick 75 to 100 people into a town hall with the same last name. I guess next year should be the year to do that before the family starts to dwindle.

As we look forward to the new year it comes with hope and a little apprehension of the unknown. I cannot wait to get to San Antonio in the first part January for Imaging USA’s annual convention and trade show and to escape part of the cold Wisconsin winter.  We are still working on bookings for 2017 and I would love to be a part of your wedding or collaborate with you on your senior or family portraits. No idea is too big or too small for us. For our corporate clients, we would enjoy teaming up with you and photographing your summits, meeting and conventions and we can work with you based on your business size.

Have a great and safe New Years Eve folks, if you venture out tonight and you find you had a little too much to drink call a friend or a family member because a little lecture is better than not having your presents to enjoy. And as my favorite character Sherman T Potter from Mash says “Here’s to the new year. May she be a damn sight better than the old one, and may we may we all be home before she’s over.”

I look forward to hearing from you and seeing you in the New Year.

Best wishes,

Tim Gumz
owner and principal photographer

Summer Travel & on Site locations

t Vagabond Photography we are known as a on location photography company. If there is something we love to do whether it be with work or personal time, its traveling. Traveling and scouting for new locations is something we just like to do in our free time when we are not working on photo shoots, editing or that dreaded thing called paperwork. Over the years the great thing we found out about traveling to a location is you don’t necessarily have to go far to feel like your half a world away from your daily responsibilities.

This is something we also like to work into our photography sessions as well. When talking with our clients we like to get a feel for who they are where they like to travel to and relax and play. Especially if it is some place close by in Wisconsin and we can find a way to work it into our clients session for their senior portraits, engagement session, family shoots or something that is just for fun.

Below is a few of our favorite places we like to work at during our photo sessions. In the comment section below we would really like to hear some place in Wisconsin or anywhere that you would like to have a photo session at.

Spring is here, finally and hopefully summer is not too far off which means some of our favorite locations are about to be usable again. Which means we can finally start photographing on and around Wisconsin many lakes are waterways. We love Lake Michigan beaches on the western shores because they are great for sunrise photos especially if you go just north of Milwaukee. We also have Lake Geneva with is beautiful shores and nice small town which is best if you shoot a session there before memorial day or after labor day before all the school gets out or midweek during the summer months. Also we have the Wisconsin River between Steven Point and the Wisconsin Dells the rock formations along many stretch of this beautiful river.

As for urban areas we really enjoy working in and around the greater Milwaukee area. We like to work around Discovery World, Riverwalk, the Milwaukee Art Museum and the historic third ward.

We also like to spend our time in nature and in southern Wisconsin we really like to spend time in and around the Kettle Moraine State Park, the trails around the ATV routes around Black River Falls.
In the Kettle Moraine we really like to use Paradise Springs Park just North and West of Eagle. It’s a great place because of its streams, old bath house and large prairie land across from the parking lot. Pewits Nest around Baraboo and the Wisconsin Dells is another great place that we love to use as a shoot location its tall water carved walls give great texture and depth to pictures.

Those are just some of the areas we like to work on with our sessions. We would love to hear from your our friends and perspective clients on plaice you like to travel to and some places that you would love to do a photo shoot.

Have a great weekend it’s finally supposed to be nice out in Wisconsin.