They have one of the coolest wedding related sites going these days. If you’re a bride looking for inspiration, ideas, do-it-yourself freebies, then you need to visit their site and follow them on Twitter. They’re always featuring new products, running contests and just kicking it hard for you brides.

So Randy, why all the love for the Wedding Chicks, you ask? Because they featured a very cool freebie on their site that was put together by a hard working behind the scenes chick, who’s getting married in October. The theme for their wedding is inspired by the Mad Men series on AMC.

If you haven’t seen this show yet, you really owe it to yourself to rent the entire series. Right now. Seriously. It’s that good. One of the best written, engaging shows you’ll ever watch. From the authenticity of the props to the issues featured as the backdrop for the show. If you lived in the 60′s or are intrigued by all things retro, you’ll enjoy this show.

What is the freebie that inspired me to write? This Save the Date card generator. You choose the colors, add a couple lines of text and have a 4×6 version emailed to you immediately, ready to print.

And yes… my wedding anniversary is May 23rd. These are two versions that I created and really liked. Makes me wish I was getting married again, just so I could send out these cool cards. What do you think? Isn’t this the coolest thing ever?

Thanks Wedding Chicks!

Walkabout sounds Australian. The Native Americans believed that you could find spiritual guidance in the everyday. An art walkabout is a personal spirit quest— a letting go of all expectations. Being present and immersed in the moment. Exploring whatever moves you as you walk. It’s about moving away from a technical approach to image making and shifting towards using your intuition and passion.

Rules are designed to give you repeatable results. Like a recipe. If you follow the rules, you get a desired result. It’s great in the beginning when you are first learning the art of image making. Finding an authentic voice or point of view requires departing from that and trusting your intuition in bending the rules. Finding out where the edges are and stepping outside the boundaries of rules.

My background in commercial advertising photography involved a lot of rules. The quest for perfection in lighting and image clarity and sharpness. My recent acquisition of a Lensbaby Composer has pushed me to break the rules and trust my intuition.

A Lensbaby is a wonderful, funky lens created by Portland native Craig Strong, that is beloved for it’s imperfections. You manually focus the lens with a sweet spot of focus that can be shifted around by literally moving the lens on a ball socket. The edges smear light and focus and create these wonderful shapes and patterns. It breaks all the rules. Think of running with scissors next to a pool during a thunderstorm with a kite in tow. Yeah, that’s a Lensbaby. It’s creative freedom.

Not getting caught up in the pursuit of perfection, but rather a world inside the viewfinder that is more about space relationships, form and light. A still moment that has no distraction, no sound, music or noise. Just you and the moment. The art walkabout is a solitary experience, soulful and present.

Letting go of the outcome, the rules of engagement changed. These are a few favorites from my art walkabout in Fort Scott, Kansas. Why Kansas? More on that in a future post. The images are darker than I normally prefer, but they feel right to me. It’s how it felt to stand there on that winter day in Kansas.

How do these feel to you? What do you like about them? I hope this inspires you to grab your camera and take a walkabout for yourself. Turn your world upside down and backwards. Change the rules of engagement.

Change is one thing in life you can count on. It’s inevitable. You can’t stop it or slow it down. As a professional photographer for the past 20 years, I’ve seen a lifetime of change happen overnight. New and aspiring photographers are always asking for words of wisdom from those of us who have seen so much change and thrived where others have struggled.

I may be an infrequent blogger, but I’m always thinking and writing lists of things to share. This is something I’ve given a lot of thought to, especially recently when I had a wonderfully talented high school senior shadow me for a week as part of a graduation project. Never before in the history of our planet have there been so many people documenting and creating images daily. How do you find your voice? How do you stand out in the every increasing number of voices struggling to be heard?

Then I read an article written by Colorado portrait photographer Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai and found it perfectly articulated what I wanted to say. With permission, I’m sharing her thoughts on what every aspiring photographer should know.

• Style is a voice, not a prop or an action. If you can buy it, borrow it, download it, or steal it, it is not a style. Don’t look outward for your style; look inward.

• Know your stuff. Luck is a nice thing, but a terrifying thing to rely on. It’s like money; you only have it when you don’t need it.

• Never apologize for your own sense of beauty. Nobody can tell you what you should love. Do what you do brazenly and unapologetically. You cannot build your sense of aesthetics on a consensus.

• Say no. Say it often. It may be difficult, but you owe it to yourself and your clients. Turn down jobs that don’t fit you, say no to overbooking yourself. You are no good to anyone when you’re stressed and anxious.

• Learn to say “I’m a photographer” out loud with a straight face. If you can’t say it and believe it, you can’t expect anyone else to, either.

• You cannot specialize in everything.

• You don’t have to go into business just because people tell you you should! And you don’t have to be full time and making an executive income to be successful. If you decide you want to be in business, set your limits before you begin.

• Know your style before you hang out your shingle. If you don’t, your clients will dictate your style to you. That makes you nothing more than a picture taker. Changing your style later will force you to start all over again, and that’s tough.

• Accept critique, but don’t apply it blindly. Just because someone said it does not make it so. Critiques are opinions, nothing more. Consider the advice, consider the perspective of the advice giver, consider your style and what you want to convey in your work. Implement only what makes sense to implement. That doesn’t not make you ungrateful, it makes you independent.

• Leave room for yourself to grow and evolve. It may seem like a good idea to call your business “Precious Chubby Tootsies”… but what happens when you decide you love to photograph seniors? Or boudoir?

• Remember that if your work looks like everyone else’s, there’s no reason for a client to book you instead of someone else. Unless you’re cheaper. And nobody wants to be known as “the cheaper photographer”.

• Gimmicks and merchandise will come and go, but honest photography is never outdated.

• It’s easier to focus on buying that next piece of equipment than it is to accept that you should be able to create great work with what you’ve got. Buying stuff is a convenient and expensive distraction. You need a decent camera, a decent lens, and a light meter. Until you can use those tools consistently and masterfully, don’t spend another dime. Spend money on equipment ONLY when you’ve outgrown your current equipment and you’re being limited by it. There are no magic bullets.

• Learn that people photography is about people, not about photography. Great portraits are a side effect of a strong human connection.

• Never forget why you started taking pictures in the first place. Excellent technique is a great tool, but a terrible end product. The best thing your technique can do is not call attention to itself. Never let your technique upstage your subject.

• Never compare your journey with someone else’s. It’s a marathon with no finish line. Someone else may start out faster than you, may seem to progress more quickly than you, but every runner has his own pace. Your journey is your journey, not a competition. You will never “arrive”. No one ever does.

• Embrace frustration. It pushes you to learn and grow, broadens your horizons, and lights a fire under you when your work has gone cold. Nothing is more dangerous to an artist than complacency.

Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai

A pioneer in the world of children’s portraiture, Cheryl Jacobs Nicolai is among the most admired and emulated portrait photographers working today. With a style described by Black and White Photography Magazine (UK) as “the anti-cute approach”, her work has helped usher in a more honest, respectful era of child photography. And she only shoots film!

Art walk in the city of San Antonio, Texas. © Randy Kepple Photographs

Portland, Oregon Park Blocks. Image courtesy of © Mark Kegans Photographs

Portland, Oregon captured with a Lensbaby. Image courtesy of © Jamie Bosworth

Photo by Norman Parkinson

A few years ago, I attended the ‘Almost Alone Workshop‘ with Australian photographer David Anthony Williams. It had a profound influence on my approach to photographing weddings. It reinforced my personal style and helped me realize the relationship between the images I create for my clients and the cycles of their lives.

David recently shared with me his thoughts on trends in photography. After my recent Photoshop post production techniques article, I thought it was perfect timing to share this with you.

Let me tell you what worries me…

So many photographers buy the gear, buy the programs, buy the action sets and think they’re a photographer capable of shooting professional standard work. Where do I see the gaps in this?

Great photography has always been about sensitivity, feel and LIGHT.

I worry for so many photographers who go with the quickie ‘wham-bam-thank-you-maam-buy-my-DVD/action set’ seminars and don’t learn and appreciate the fundamentals of light and scene appreciation. There is so much ‘I’ll fix it in Photoshop’.

So what are these people going to do when the current trend is over? … (and make no mistake, the over-processed look will finish)

Let’s remind ourselves that cutting edge in wedding photography thirty years ago was the bride and groom super-imposed into a brandy sniffer…then the bride and groom on the back of a Harley with sunglasses…more recently, spot coloring on Black and White.

But this WAS cutting edge at one point.

Let me quote two names to you: Richard Avedon and Norman Parkinson (books on both you should have in your collection!) You will observe that apart from the obvious give-away of clothing fashions — the work is timeless and not trendy.

David Anthony Williams

Photo by Norman Parkinson

Photo by Richard Avedon

Timeless and not trendy. Something all of us should aspire to in our very important work.

All of us want to be different. Yet, we are the same. All of us trying to get back to something.

This past weekend, we watched UP. An amazing movie that my wife called “cute”.  Any reference to old people in love is deemed cute. Without spoiling anything—what touched me is a reinforcement of a lesson I recently learned. That we are always free to change the choices that we make.

Have you ever decided to buy a car that you felt was perfect? A car that was unique—that really expressed who you were as a person? All of a sudden you see that car everywhere. That’s the way it works for me. Whatever lesson I’m supposed to be learning at any given point in my life is reinforced in everything that I see around me.

Recently, I attended the Life (as an artform) workshop with Jesh de Rox. One of the ideals I left with is that we always have the ability to change the choices that we make. If you know me at all, you know my passion for movies.  Here was that lesson whispered to me in the form of a movie. Later in the evening, we enjoyed another movie together as a family and I kept thinking of how important movies are to our society.

Joseph Campbell wrote about the power of myth in our society, which includes movies. One of the reasons I enjoy movies is that we get to witness the choices and consequences of choice in other’s lives.  I preach to my girls over and over again about about making good choices in their lives.

As the evening ended, I found myself alone on the couch watching a VH1 show about Steely Dan. Funny how I always seem to wind up watching behind the scene shows about musicians at the end of the day. A former musician turned photographer, I’m fascinated to learn about their creative process. What struck me was a comment from a session player who worked with them. He commented on how they would drive everyone to perfection and then go past it to a place where everyone found a comfortable groove.

If I could sum up the Jesh experience, it would be in his own words… if someone has been a friend to you,,,(life). He’s a photographic poet with the heart and soul of a wise and ancient teacher. We spoke very little about photographic technique and a lot on connecting to the heart of the individual.  He challenged us to look into our hearts and examine our creative process and be brave enough to see past ourselves. For me, it helped connect a lot of loose ends from the past few years. I hope to share some of this in my work in the coming months. Until then, be brave and live in love!

1.  You are based in Vancouver, Wash., do you ever get to travel for work? If so, how often and where are some of your favorite places to go?

Traveling was one of the reasons I wanted to become a photographer. I’ve been fortunate in my career to have traveled all over the country. Lately, it’s up and down the West Coast for destination weddings. Last year I traveled to Vermont for an incredible wedding weekend and the year before that to Jackson Hole.

2. You were a musician before becoming a photographer. Do you find the two artistic fields have much in common?

As a society, we keep our memories in music and photographs. Both are touchstones to a moment in time. There are many parallels. Both require a dedication to practicing the discipline of the art. This translates into a vocabulary— a set of tools that you reach for without thinking, to express your vision. I find it interesting that so many photographers are inspired by music. Personally, I can’t imagine a world without music. There is a magic to both arts that transcends the moment.

3.  So when did you realize that you could make a living shooting pictures?

Ironically, when I was a musician, my day job was working as a custom printer. I printed black and white art prints, wall prints and even worked for an aerial photographer a few years. That inspired me to go back to college and get a degree in commercial advertising photography. I had been in so many bands over the years and they always ended up falling apart. I could see the writing on the wall, it was a natural progression for my artistic sensibility.

4.  Was there a photographer (or anyone else) that inspired or influenced you?

When I started assisting, I was fortunate to work with some of the best photographers in the business. From Michael Grecco to Chris Cuffaro to Stephane Sednoui, all of them inspired and influenced me. In school, I found that I related to the work of Josef Sudek and Alfred Stieglitz. Recently, the photographer who has been a profound inspiration is David Williams from Australia. His dedication to the heart, soul and passion of photographing people has forever left it’s mark on the way I shoot.

5.  How would you best describe your style?

Style is always a tough one to describe. For me, it’s a point of view. The voice of the artist. I watch a lot of movies and find inspiration in the way they frame the shots to the lenses used to create a feeling in the film. So many photographers come into the industry armed with an arsenal of actions and textures and camera gear, emulating everything they see that catches their eye. Somewhere along the way, you learn to trust your personal vision. This is the development of style. That point of view is always there, from the beginning. It just gets lost in the noise of inexperience. I’d like to think my style is cinematic, emotionally honest and intimate.

6.  Any horror stories you’d like to share? Something bad that happened during a shoot?

I’ve heard some great horror stories that have happened to other photographers. If you do this long enough, you’re going to have a horror story. It’s just the way life is, no matter what you do. The challenge is to be prepared as much as anyone can and build in a system of checks and balances. From the way you pack your camera case to all the other rituals you develop.

However, there was a wedding back when I was shooting film with a Hasselblad. The shutters were built into the lenses. They break. It happens, but you’d never know unless you were using a flash or shooting Polaroids. At this particular wedding, I was using a long lens for my formals. We were using natural light and a reflector to light them. For the rest of the wedding, I used my normal-wide lens. A week later when I picked up my film from the lab, I was told there were 10 rolls of blank film! The shutter broke on my long lens and many of the formals portraits were lost. We were able to put together a very nice set from the 35mm images my second shooter captured during the formals of the family. In the end the album was amazing, but that was one of those moments you never forget.

7.  Do you ever do any photography just for fun? If so, what are your favorite things to shoot?

Photography for fun? I love being behind the camera! However, it’s easy to lose sight of the reason you became a photographer in the first place, given all the demands of running a business and staying on top of constantly changing technology. Last year, I decided to start doing art walks. Taking a day and going out with my camera and photographing whatever inspired me. I used to do this when I was in photography school. It was a great exercise and very challenging. I was very happy with the body of work that I produced and would like to do this more often. I think it’s a necessary part of practicing and developing your artistic vision. I posted three of these journeys on my blog last year.

8.  Any predictions on the next big trend in the wedding photo industry?

Don’t we all wish we could predict what the next trend was, especially in this economy? Obviously, things are very tough out there for everyone. During times of recession, people return to classic styles. Look at fashion magazines and you’ll see trends in imagery that show up in wedding photography. Trends are cyclical. Eventually, everything come back in style. I think timeless black and white will make a big comeback and that’s great. My roots are in black and white film and printing. I’ve been fortunate to have that background as it gives me a sensibility for how my black and white digital images should look to emulate that classic style. Trends keep the industry fresh and that’s what makes being a wedding photographer so exciting.

9.  What type of local publications or resources do you advertise in? What about international publications?

I advertise regionally with a national wedding site and locally with ISPWP, which is an amazing group of talented wedding photographers. I have tried print advertising, but it never really works for me. Word of mouth from satisfied clients has always been the best form of advertising for me.

10.  What are you working on next?

I’d like to work on a tan, and I may get that chance if the economy doesn’t start picking up soon. I recently put together a collaborative blog project called My Portland Photographer. 24 photographers joining together and committing to post one new image every week showcasing our unique styles. It’s a great resource for brides, wedding planners and a unique opportunity to drive traffic and bring exposure to our individual sites. Together, we are joining to elevate our profession. Other projects include a lighting workshop that I’m creating with Kevin Focht.

This year I’m taking a step back and evaluating my business. It goes in cycles. I have 2-3 years of creative inspiration and then I spend a year working on the business. Updating the galleries on my Big Folio web site and evaluating my pricing, products and services are the next steps for my business. I’d like to travel to Germany with my father and explore our family genealogy. You never know what life has in store. Most importantly, trust the process and continuing to strive for something.

It’s that time of year when one dark day can push you over the edge. It’s always been tough to make your living as an artist, but it seems even harder in recent days. We all know the economy is on the brink of disaster. Technology is decreasing the entry threshold into photography and society is struggling to understand the differences between a weekend hobbyist and a professional.

Technology is depressing. I tire of technology, especially when it fails and it seems to do THAT more often than not. Where technology does work, human greed steps in and it breaks again. Is this the nature of technology from this point forward? Will we ever find balance in our lives and satisfaction? Will we figure out that merely having the technology to create a great exposure does not mean we have created anything of substance?

My brand new Apple Mac Pro is stunningly fast and I utilize every ounce of speed it has to offer. But I’ve already had to replace the logic board and power supply. Countless hours of troubleshooting, waiting on hold to talk to tech support. Setting up appointments to have a technician evaluate the problem. Hours of lost production. Hours of my life I’d like to have spent doing something, anything but watch the endless blue task bars.

Dish Network and ABC have been fighting over pennies for months now. During this time, my wife can’t watch her favorite Sunday night shows. They gave us a $1 credit for our trouble. Wow…thanks Dish. I recently added Boxee to my Apple TV so we could watch television shows and movies on Hulu. Now the content providers are blocking Boxee users. Apparently, I’m not alone in my frustration. And once again, a web site such as Lifehacker steps up with a solution.

My RSS reader is filled with blogs of photographers who usually inspire me. Lately, I find myself trying to figure out my place in all of this. So much incredible work and so many talented artists. Never in the history of the world have we had access to so much information. I can’t help but wonder if all of this exposure is numbing us to the value of the art form. All of this has given me great pause and for that reason, I’ve been stalled with my blog. In the midst of this darkness, I stumbled upon the voice of a fellow artist. A call to transformation by Zack Arias. If this touches you, be sure to visit his blog and comment. Feel free to comment here too!

Woodstock is a quaint shire town that feels like stepping back in time. The architecture is amazingly rich with detail and history. There are many homes that were built before 1830. That means they were already 100 years old before the Great Depression! It’s hard not to stand there without imagining how different life must have been. Many homes are intact, much as they were hundreds of years ago.

What struck me while driving across Vermont was the lack of billboards. Apparently, there is a toll free number for tourists to call and talk to a live person with information about things to do and places to see while visiting Vermont. Walking around Woodstock, it also struck me that all the curbs were made of granite. No concrete curbs anywhere. Everyone seemingly has a red barn and many of the homes looked to be multiple buildings, joined together over the decades. I’m assuming this is for practical reasons due to the extreme cold during the winter. It’s been said there are two seasons in Vermont — winter and preparing for winter.

Some day soon, I hope to return to Vermont to visit new friends and old ones. The thunderstorms were just as I remembered from growing up in the Midwest. Booming thunder, bolts of lighting and rain that fell so hard you had to pull over and wait for it to pass. I’d go back just for a few days of that, but I hear Fall is spectacular as well. Of course, Vermontians are best known for their maple syrup. Here are a few of my favorite images from Woodstock, I hope you enjoy them as much as I enjoyed being there.