Leighton Photography & Imaging

Natural Disasters + Natural Beauty = Best Portrait Session

Rich Leighton — Thu, 30 Aug 2018 14:58:15 +0000

Today is going to be a post that has been floating around my head for a few years. I’m going to try and keep it short and succinct, while letting the imagery do most of the talking for me. For this shoot, we used a natural disaster (forest fires) into an incredible opportunity for an amazing portrait session! Story below:

….

Even before I read Austin Kleon’s “Steal Like an Artist” (highly recommended!) – I have been saving images, screen grabs, quotes and drawings for years on my various computer hard drives for future inspiration when it was lacking for years.

One image I had saved years ago was of a Japanese woman in some sort of fog or haze in black and white with loose hair tied into an unruly bun at the back of her head in silhouette. It might have been old enough to be from the 1940’s, but really moved me. She was photographed from down low with her eyes closed, as if in grief or deep contemplation. For some reason, that image burned deeply into my brain, along with dozens of others, of course.

Recreation of my original “Idea Image” in black & white – (I’d show the comparison but I don’t have the rights to the “concept” image)

About a year ago, I met a really cool and sweet Korean woman named Vivian who was new to Seattle, who I think has a great sense of humor. I meet a lot of people in my daily life, and as a full-time, self-employed studio photographer, my brain is naturally tuned to scan faces for interesting features and incorporate them into new or existing ideas. Then one day I saw her with hair a bit astray and in the exact same look and I thought, that’s like the photo I saved! So right then I asked if she’d pose for me and she said she would.

Next step… I needed fog or rain but it was summer in Seattle…. the only time it’s sunny almost all the time. And this year it was REALLY dry.

About four months later and a bunch of texting and emails later, the wildfires started. Not so much in Washington State, but in California and British Columbia the fire season (still going at the time of writing this) has been ferocious and unprecedented, and the winds blew all that smoke right into Western Washington. Even here in Seattle, public health officials have been warning those not in full health to stay indoors with the windows closed.

Call to action! The time was now. I called my friend Vivian and she met me at Discovery Park in Seattle and in less than three hours we banged out an amazing set of images that not only recreated the shot that I wanted even better than my “stolen like an artist” image, but she absolutely crushed the photoshoot as a first-time model.

What do you think of this set of photos? Let us know in the comments below, and send Vivian some love! She’s a natural and needs to be in front of the camera more often!

~ see more images like this ~

Individual, Family and Groups Portraits

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Rich Leighton
August 30, 2018

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©2018 Leighton Photography & Imaging

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My New Sanibel Island Art Installation!

Rich Leighton — Thu, 26 Oct 2017 00:02:00 +0000

This is a post I’m really proud of. Earlier this year, I was contacted by the “Ding” Darling Wildlife Society on Florida’s Sanibel Island about the possibility of one of my images being used for an installation at the J. N. “Ding” Darling National Wildlife Refuge. Even though I now live in the opposite corner of the country, The Sanibel area is where I was born (actually Bradenton – about an hour north the way I drive), but I lived in Fort Myers (same county) for 11 years and spent half my life either fishing or photographing wildlife on Sanibel Island. Months of emails, proposals and a massive file transfer later, it’s now a reality forever reproduced as a tile wall at the new Visitor Center. Now I can’t wait to go back home and see it in person!

Photos courtesy of the “Ding” Darling Wildlife Society via Carrie Alexander

The Mangrove Coast (My Original Image – December 2008 – Sanibel Island)

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Rich Leighton
October 25, 2017

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©2017 Leighton Photography & Imaging

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A Slightly Different Look at Seattle

Rich Leighton — Tue, 19 Sep 2017 00:50:03 +0000

Last week I was shooting a business event at a law firm in downtown Seattle on the 34th floor near the waterfront and had periodic stretches of downtime, which I spent marveling at the absolute beauty of the busy world far below me. I decided to knock out a few shots with the portrait lens I was using and these are what I brought back. During the editing process, I was inspired by a blend of styles from 1940’s-era newspaper photographs and some other outdated film-development looks and decided to go for the old iron toner (gives a slight blueish tint to the final black & white image). To me, the effect seems to make the frenetic activity in the scenes stop and gives the images an almost ghostly, serene and silent quality. What do you think? Let me know what you think in the comments below!

~click any image to enlarge ~

The Ferry, “MV Tacoma”

Seattle’s Great Wheel

The Puget Sound

Downtown Seattle

~ see more images like this ~

SEATTLE, WASHINGTON AREA GALLERY

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Rich Leighton
September 18, 2017

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©2017 Leighton Photography & Imaging

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Civil War Reenactment

Rich Leighton — Wed, 04 Jan 2017 16:45:15 +0000

It’s a new year, and for the first time in a couple of years I’m going to try a couple of new things with my blogging platform (which is also used as an extension of our website). The biggest thing that holds me back is the sheer amount of time formatting these posts. One paragraph and one photo can take me an hour or more to set up and publish, so with the help of a few new publishing tools and some new shortcuts, I’m going to try and lower that time to about 10 minutes. It’s both a challenge and a goal. My hope is instead of 3-5 posts per month, I can increase the number to around 20.

Since I’m currently hanging out in a toasty-warm apartment just south of Seattle, Washington on a blistery below-freezing morning, I thought I’d use for my subject a set of civil war reenactment images I shot a number of years ago at Natural Bridge Battlefield Historic State Park just outside of Tallahassee, Florida. I’d love to hear some feedback on the format itself. I want to make it more visually appealing, have more content, and give easy access for all to see and learn more. Any or all of these images are also available as fine art prints – just click on an image below to bring you to the main gallery containing 280 full-sized images.

Civil War Reenactment

A two-day event showing a very comprehensive view of what it was like to live through the Civil War as a local Floridian, for those who were black, white, poor, or rich. Life at camp and being a black man in the Union Army were shown in contrast with poor white soldiers and privileged officers. The grand finale was a full-out battle with men of all backgrounds, races and creeds fighting by cannon, musket and sword for glory, honor and freedom.

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Rich Leighton
January 4, 2017

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©2017 Leighton Photography & Imaging

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Second-Last Outdoor Portrait Session of the Year

Rich Leighton — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 12:19:45 +0000

Wrapping up 2016! After the Christmas parties, events, portraits, corporate fundraisers, more parties and other events I’ve been working daily for the past couple of months, I did schedule some time to do some smaller family outdoor portrait sessions with attendees of the corporate jobs I met along the way as the end-of-year party season ramped up for the big close-out of 2016.

I found this particular family especially endearing and fun to interact with during our shoot. Sometimes the coolest people feel weird around cameras until I start running my mouth…. my job is always to make you feel relaxed, comfortable, acting like your true self and get that on camera. Every time…that’s why I set a max of shoot limits of two per day.

As I’ve been saying since 2004 – I NEVER look at my watch. I’m not using film. You’ve got me until we nail it, and every past client I’ve ever had over the last 14+ years knows what I mean. I don’t particularly care about internet ratings, and I let my Google, LinkedIn and Facebook reviews do the talking for me….

FIND OUT EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OUR FAMILY PORTRAIT SESSIONS HERE

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Rich Leighton
December 31, 2016

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©2016 Leighton Photography & Imaging

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Last Outdoor Portrait Session of the Year

Rich Leighton — Sat, 31 Dec 2016 07:11:19 +0000

As the final days count down, 2016 has been a wild and exciting ride as we finish out with one last outdoor portrait session of the year. This wonderfully sweet and warm family finally got ready just in time for the Seattle’s winter rain to start, and it almost ruined our scheduled shoot. Luckily I knew of a place where we could find a little “hidden” overhead cover and make a rainy day look less rainy….

FIND OUT EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT OUR FAMILY PORTRAIT SESSIONS HERE

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Rich Leighton
December 30, 2016

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©2016 Leighton Photography & Imaging

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Indira and Justin’s Wedding in Everett, Washington

Rich Leighton — Wed, 30 Nov 2016 19:22:03 +0000

A couple of days ago I finished and delivered the Indira and Justin’s images (my last wedding for the season) that was held at the beautiful Monte Cristo Ballroom in downtown Everett, Washington just a couple of weeks ago. I had an absolute blast on this one, and everyone involved couldn’t have been nicer! The day started out early at an incredible barbershop where the groomsmen and father of the bride got cleaned up, the moved over to the nearby ballroom where both the ceremony and reception was held. Truly a spectacular venue and visual joy for this photographer! Here’s to wishing the bride and groom a very long, happy life together!

I’m going to let the images do the talking here, but a special shoutout goes out to the guys at Jonn Laurenz Barbershop – these guys are true professionals!

Indira and Justin’s Wedding Gallery

MORE WEDDINGS FROM LEIGHTON PHOTOGRAPHY & IMAGING

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Rich Leighton
November 30, 2016

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Casey and Eliot’s Big Day

Rich Leighton — Tue, 01 Nov 2016 01:09:37 +0000

It’s been a seriously busy couple of months and I’m just trying to get caught up sharing some of the most amazing photoshoots I’ve been lucky enough to be apart of since my last flurry of posts when I got my last break. I just wanted to share some of the images from the latest wedding I was privileged to shoot for Casey and Eliot. This is my favorite kind of wedding: outdoor ceremony, mixed guests from all over the country and excellent choices for both venue and receptions. The ceremony itself was held in Seattle’s Seward Park. The reception we moved over to The Stables in Georgetown (which is a pure visual delight for any working wedding photographer!)

BEAUTIFUL WEDDINGS IN THE SEATTLE AREA WITH CREATIVITY, STYLE AND EXPERIENCE – SEE MORE HERE!

HOW TO CHOOSE YOUR WEDDING PHOTOGRAPHER

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Rich Leighton
October 31, 2016

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Military Portrait Photo Restoration

Rich Leighton — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 12:45:03 +0000

One of my favorite jobs I am increasingly getting at work are photo restorations. For someone who is always running all over town setting up photo equipment, shooting, breaking down and hitting the next location – the option of sitting in one place for a couple of hours is pure joy to someone like me. Since I’m just in between doing a family studio portrait session and a photo editing job at the moment, I thought I’d share this military portrait photo restoration I did for a new client at work over the weekend. There was just enough loss of critical detail that it took more artistry than technical know-how to get it done correctly. My new client was very happy I could recover his military portrait, and I was very happy getting a break so I could listen to about two-and-a-half hours of podcasts in pure silence while having an interesting job to focus my attention upon.

Photo Restoration: Before and After

Photo restorations are a common and welcome request at Leighton Photography & Imaging. I did my first restorations in 2008 and because I’d already had over a decade of using digital restoration tools in my everyday workflow when working with “less-than-perfect” images, it was a logical progression.

Years later in 2014, I finally decided to add it to my regular services. Not because I have a particular passion for it, but I see and hear so many upset customers who have first turned to the many box-store services and Photoshop hacks that do such poor jobs by using an automated “one-size fits all” program function that the results most often look terrible.

After a lifetime of artistic composition and technique classes, and actually using the non-automated functions of today’s best digital editing software daily, it may not be easy, but at least I can restore old damaged photos the right way in a reasonable amount of time. It takes time, and often imagination if the original print is damaged, ripped, stained, or if sections are even missing. It’s all digital, but all done by hand with a professional editing tablet and pen, state-of-the-art software and dealt with in just the same style as an old-school stencil restoration. The tools are a little different, and I can zoom in really close to work pixel by pixel, but the technique is exactly the same. Long, laborious and rewarding work – for both myself and the client!

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT PROFESSIONAL PHOTO RESTORATIONS HERE!

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Rich Leighton
October 25, 2016

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In Pursuit! In the Studio Photographing a Local Artist’s Wooden Model Ship Masterpiece in Miniature!

Rich Leighton — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 04:45:52 +0000

Last week I had my second shoot in as many years with the a local master model ship builder who first hired me for the second time after apparently having a terrible experience with his previous photographer. As I build a rapport with someone after hours and hours of discussion, emails, texts and phone calls on how the project should be planned, proceed, and ultimately finish, there is no doubt on how the client wants his work to be photographed and ultimately perceived to the world and how his past, present and future buyers will view his work. It’s not the photography alone (that’s the easy part) – it’s shooting in a way that guides and directs how the viewer feels about the photographs that they are viewing that counts. Knowing how to get your client’s clients excited and emotionally involved is the name of the game.

I decided to attempt this project much the same as our last collaboration, but this time I wanted to match the colors of his project to his website for a much more pleasing experience for his visitors. Lots varnished wood, weathered canvas and turquoise seawater seemed to match the color scheme of both closely enough, so I made that my mission. The technical side of intensely detailed micro-artistic work is something I do in the studio regularly enough, but matching to a repeat client (and artist!) is something I know they can appreciate!

SEE MORE OF OUR STUDIO WORK, INCLUDING MARKETING AND PRODUCT PHOTOGRAPHY

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Rich Leighton
October 24, 2016

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