Sunday Programs

Creative Concepts & Artistic Posing
Sunday, October 15
8:30m-4pm

Sponsored By

This class focuses on capturing creative portraits of families, children and tweens. Maria will cover everything from prepping and styling to effectively working with clients. She will also demonstrate a live shooting session, followed by an editing session to demonstrate how she enhances the final image.

By the end of this class, students will have gained comprehensive knowledge and hands-on experience in capturing creative family portraits. You will have learned how to effectively prep and style families, work with younger children, develop unique concepts, execute successful photoshoots, and polish the final images through post-processing.

Join us in this exciting class to expand your skills, unleash your creativity, and create memorable family portraits that stand out and evoke emotion.

Maria will cover:

• Prepping and Styling: You will learn techniques for coordinating outfits, selecting props, and creating a cohesive visual theme that aligns with the creative concept. She will explore how to balance individuality with unity to capture the essence of each family’s unique dynamics.
• She will delve into the art of working with families, including younger children and tweens. Students will learn effective communication strategies to establish rapport, engage with children, and ensure a relaxed and enjoyable photoshoot experience. She will discuss techniques for capturing candid moments, genuine emotions, and natural interactions within the family group.
• Creative Concept Development: The class will explore the process of developing creative concepts that go beyond traditional family portraits. Students will learn how to brainstorm ideas, collaborate with families, and create unique and personalized concepts that tell a story or evoke a specific mood. We will emphasize the importance of tailoring concepts to suit the family’s personality and interests.
• Through a live shooting demonstration, students will witness firsthand how to implement the discussed techniques and concepts. You will see Maria’s shooting workflow to ensure you capture all necessary images for the final gallery including group poses, individual poses, and interactions between family members. Students will observe how to utilize different angles, compositions, and lighting to capture visually compelling and impactful images.
• Editing and Post-Processing: Following the shooting session, Maria will delve into the post-processing stage. Students will learn editing techniques to enhance and refine the final image. We will cover aspects such as color correction, exposure adjustments, retouching, and adding artistic touches to elevate the overall aesthetic of the photograph.

Meet Maria Arellano

Maria is an award-winning photographer that creates unique photography art for families.

At her studio, Maribella Portraits, she specializes in child, family, and Goddess portrait photography.

She offers a full-service studio, providing styling assistance, hair and make-up, and high-quality fine art products.

Throughout her career she has seen how girls and women are transformed by the power of our photography experiences.

Maria is passionate about supporting other photographers believing that as a community we can rise together. She feels that while nurturing your creativity and perfecting your art is important. Photographers need to focus on the business systems and marketing strategies that will allow them to succeed as professional photographers.

Printing In-house & On Location
Sunday, October 15
8:30am-Noon

Do you receive those last-minute calls for a print needed immediately? Do you want more control on your prints? Do you want to be able some different paper, substrate options for your prints? Do you want to be able to print onsite?

If you answer yes to any, or all of these questions, then “In-house and On Location Printing” is what you want to attend at I Heart Photography.

Bill Vahrenkamp and Matt McComic with over 50 years of printing experience will teach you so much on getting started with doing your own printing with different Epson printer options.

Instructors will cover:

• What size printer do you need?
• What inks and how many?
• What paper substrates are available?
• How to get the best color when you print?
• What software to print from and the options?

Meet Bill Vahrankamp

I’m a retired Navy Medical Service Corps officer turned Consultant in the Healthcare Technology vertical.  I was an independent consultant for about 11 years and loved the “non-corporate” life.  But even the days of consulting are behind me now as I embrace full-time retirement and spend my days on two primary activities: Photography and Corvettes! Oh and I can’t forget travel… which has taken up a fair amount of my first couple of years of retirement.

Fine Art Bugtography
Sunday, October 15
1:00m-4pm

This is a basic course for anyone wanting to try a creative approach to Macro photography on insects.  Macro can be highly technical–but this workshop will show it can also be very intuitive and creative!  We’ll come at this topic from the standpoint of creating Art–to show both standard and out-of-the box macro techniques and tips, as well as quick editing methods for this fascinating photographic subject.

We open with a quick overview of a few different methods, lighting, and equipment, as well as explanations and techniques of working with specimen insects.  We’ll go over off-camera lighting and light painting techniques and other options.  Then a short demonstration to show actual methods, creative options, and how these affect your overall images.

Hands-on practice: Several stations will be set up for participants to photograph different insect subjects.  For the hands-on portion we will be using constant light set-ups or light-painting options.  (Insects, set-ups, and backgrounds are provided)

Afterward, there will be a quick session of editing the images in Lightroom and Photoshop, to show a workflow option and how to stack images and enhance them.  This will be followed by a short Q&A if needed.

What you will learn from this workshop:

• Equipment, techniques and methods (and how they influence the look of your resulting images)
• How to select good subjects and prepare them to be photographed, as well as reliable sources for ‘specimen’ insects
• Hands-on practice with your camera
• Editing workflow: ways to edit and finalize the images you just captured, using Lightroom then Photoshop.

What you will need for this workshop:

• Camera with a macro lens
• Working knowledge / familiarity with your camera and settings (if you choose to take part in the hands-on section)
• a Tripod
• Focusing rail (optional)
• Shutter remote (optional) OR know how to set your shutter speed for longer exposures
• Note-taking materials
• Your Laptop if you wish to work on images in Photoshop / LR while there.  (please bring card readers, extension cords, etc or any other supplies you will need)

Meet Lyne Raff

Lyne Raff is from Lumberton, in deep southeast Texas.  She has a BFA degree from Oklahoma State University and began her professional career as an illustrator in Austin, TX before becoming a photographer in 2005.  She worked in publishing through the mid 2000’s, and photographed equines for two decades until becoming a portrait photographer in about 2016. She began to photograph insects not long after that, after acquiring her first macro lens.  Lyne shoots both film and digital cameras and finds her biggest and best influences through old cameras, art history, and historical photographs.  She was featured in the March / April 2023 Issue of THE PHOTOGRAPHER.  Learn more about her work at www.LyneRaffPhotography.com