About a month ago I did a modeling workshop in Des Moines at the Joie De Vie Tea Salon. This was the location of my first boudoir shoot I did for a local salon’s advertising campaign. Like I mentioned in a previous post – the pics came out, followed by good ole’ fashion word-of-mouth marketing, and then I’m suddenly getting emails inquiring about a service that I didn’t have at the time. Since then my wedding business has continued to grow and keeps me pretty busy. I could of easily been content and gone with the flow. But being the creative I am – I still wanted to make sure I could offer something more that would differentiate me and other photographers in my market.

I subscribe to a lot of photography blogs and the trend that I was seeing taking shape out west and even on the east coast was the emergence of modern boudoir sessions. The top wedding photographers in the world were doing it. I thought to myself – “I think I could do that, hell.. I know I can do that”. However it took me awhile to think it over and decide if it would be a good fit for my business. See, I live in the midwest – Southern Iowa to be exact and in a very small town so trying to anticipate how my clients or even the public would react to me doing this was a hard decision to make. I could of created another brand and operate the boudoir business under a new company but I felt like that was me acting secretive. So I decided to launch the boudoir session under my original business – Jamie Cochran Photography. My thinking is my clients – the clients I’d like to work with – wouldn’t and shouldn’t care. They would know that whatever they hire me for – whether it was a wedding, senior portraits, even kids – I’d still bring my “A” game to their session and put forth all my passion for creating great images.

Back to the workshop… so here I was getting calls for something I didn’t have at the moment so I immediately contacted all the people who had previously contacted me – even gained a few new clients who heard about the workshop through word-of-mouth – again! I went back to the tea salon (more of a bed and breakfast) and set up small 30 minute sessions with each of them. Sara was one of my new clients that I photographed this time. The goal with her images and all my boudoir sessions is to make sure the final outcome is always sexy yet classy. Hope you enjoy and stay tuned for more to come.

I had a fun time on Blake’s shoot – we focused his session around his activities in school and outdoor sports. Gotta do a few things I haven’t done for awhile like lifestyle shooting – specifically fly fishing. Watching Blake go through the motion sequence of his fly cast was pretty cool – I’ll even admit I was so caught up into watching him a few times I missed his cast. Definitely some of my recent favorites for Seniors I’ve photographed.

Each month I offer a Signature Session that is designed specifically for the month it is. Shorter than my standard sessions, my Signature Sessions are 30 minutes in length and are photographed on location. This month I will be shooting out around Rathbun Lake located near Moravia, Iowa. I’m hoping to capture some beautiful fall colors with a lakeside setting – great for a lifestyle shoot.

Here’s what each Signature Session includes:

* a half hour photosession with me (Jamie Cochran)
* on Saturday, October 24th, 2009 (October 25th, if rained out)
* the sessions will be taking place at Rathbun Lake (exact location will be determined later). I love the fall colors, sandy beaches, even the wind and waves that the lake offers this time of season — I could never run out of things to photograph out there.
* sessions are for funky and fun lovin’ couples, families, teens, tots and kids who love great lifestyle photography.
* all sessions are $100 and includes a $50 credit towards your portrait order.
* 2 weeks after your session approx 24-36 images will be placed in a private online proofing gallery.

There are ONLY ten available time slots as listed below —

Time Slots (October 24th): 8:30AM, 9:15AM, 10:00AM, 10:45AM, 11:30AM, (12:15PM – Lunch Break), 1:30PM, 2:15PM, 3:00PM, 3:45PM, & 4:30PM.

Book your time slot before they fill up.

Book Your Session Now!

Keep checking back for images from Thaler’s second shoot – coming soon!

Devon is one of the Signature Seniors in my ambassador program for Oskaloosa High School. You can check out her Signature Senior Session by clicking here.

This was an early shoot – I believe we started at 6am or at least a little after. Then once we got out to our location the sky clouded up and we literally had to wait for about an hour before we decided to just start shooting. I remember everyone was a little chilled but Devon was a good sport about it – especially when I told her to get into the lake. Once the sun broke out and it warmed up a bit we really started having fun. I happened to find this neat little pond hidden back behind a field of wild flowers and thought how cool it was going to be. There were a few issues that kinda surprised us – like it wasn’t a pond after all and the fact I brought my dog along for the shoot and he decided to jump in. Not cool!

That didn’t stop us though and we headed into town to Knapp’s Autoworks. Jim and Eric build the coolest cars but the ones we shot with that day were located out back – one of my favorite locations no doubt. All in all the session was great and the images turned out fantastic. Thanks Devon and Amy!

My work comes in waves I’ve come to notice. I’ll get wedding after wedding, then it was senior after senior, and lately I’ve been booking a lot modeling sessions for clients – and not locally but from around the state. Jessica will be moving shortly from Fairfield to Colorado – she recently signed with Premiere Image based out of Denver. Jessica contacted me to photograph a modeling session to help build her book and compcards. Knowing that she’ll be hired for promotional work when she first gets out there I wanted to keep it simple yet fun. Promotional work can be very personal and models need to look “genuine”. Jessica was great to work with, very open to my ideas and the shoot was a success.

Kelsie rocks! So does her mom. The session was actually very fun – even with the clouds giving us a few rain drops now and then plus Kelsie and her mom’s affectionate squabbling. I had to laugh. I’m thrilled with how well the images came out – Kelsie was a little uneasy at first and saying things like “I don’t know what to do with my hands”. Nothing I haven’t heard a million times from other seniors. She did great, mom did great – hell even the dog was awesome. Or was it a squirrel?

Don’t ask me how I got to doing this – I was hired to do a commercial shoot for a Des Moines salon a couple years back that involved a boudoir look. The pics came out great and then word of mouth took off from there. Although boudoir photography has been making a come back, there was always a negative idea with the word. People thought boudoir was nothing more than a cheesy session, more like glamour-shots from the early 90s! Remember those? There are many prominent wedding photographers of today working hard to create a new impression of what boudoir really is: “Sexy and classy photos, for his eyes only.” This seems to be a growing trend in modern wedding photography – the addition of a boudoir shoot.

A boudoir session can be an incredibly empowering experience. Every session is very professional – a make-up artist and stylist is there to ensure each model feels beautiful! When a client walks out saying that she feels sexy, I know we have accomplished our goal.

I’ve been photographing Kelsey off and on over the past couple years and she contacted me to update her modeling compcard – Kelsey is represented by Peak based out of Des Moines. We concentrated more on a lifestyle session for her shoot. We hit the lake and took advantage of its beautiful scenery this time of season and it made for some great frames.

This past weekend I photographed my first Senior Session from Oskaloosa High School. Say hello to Blaine. Blaine session was a little different than my previous sessions this year. Usually I drive around the lake to my various locations, but this time we took off from the boat dock and was able to get into some very cool lakeside locations like the fallen tree and bluff you see in his images. Blaine then took off ripping up some early morning waves with the wave runner before we headed back into shore to finish up his session at a nearby barn.