Coeur d'Alene Photographer

Favorite 100 Portraits of 2016

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A difficult but rewarding task

It is that time of the year where I have a fun but almost overwhelming task.  It is the time that I go through all of my finished images of the last 365 days and narrow them down to my favorite 100. This starts out feeling like a daunting task and I experience sorrow as I have to eliminate images that I love.  Sorrow, however, is always overcome by joy as I get to be reminded again of some of the fun moments spent with my clients.  I relive the excitement of being able to show an athlete the back of the camera when we nailed the perfect sports action portrait.  I have the opportunity to experience again the awe of one of those amazing inland northwest sunsets.

Yes, it is a big and difficult job but it is always worth it!  I will say a bit more about the past year further on, but for those of you that are just here to see the photos I won’t keep you any longer!

Partnership with Interfit Photographic

One of the big changes in 2016 was a new partnership with Interfit Photographic. As a sponsored pro I made the switch to using the new S1 strobe and have been very pleased with it’s performance.  A large majority of the images that you see in the above video were taken using these lights.  I hope you would agree that these tools did their job well. One of the best parts of working with Interfit is that I am able to offer the photographers that follow my page a 10% discount on all their products.  If you want to know more about this check out this page: http://www.jasonduchowphotography.com/interfit-sponsored-pro-interfit-s1-discount-code/

Past Favorite 100 entries

This favorite 100 portraits post is something I have done at the end/beginning of each year for the last couple of years. For those interested in seeing my favorite portraits of years past you can check out those entries here:

2015 100 Favorites Portraits

2014 100 Favorite Portraits

Having such great clients is what makes all of these images possible.  I want to once again thank all of my clients!

 

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington.   Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of  dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work.  Jason is also a Sponsored Pro for Interfit Photographic (http://interfitphotographic.com/)

Favorite 100 Portraits of 2015

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Every year at the end of December I have the extremely difficult job of going through all of the photos I have taken for the past 12 months and picking out my favorite 100 portraits.  With such great, talented and creative clients this is a job I mostly look forward to, but with a hind of dread as I know will have to eliminate from contention many portraits that I really love.  I readily admit that I do have an biased connection to some of the photos that I choose as I know the challenges that went into making them.  It may be that someone else might choose a very different top 100 list, but then it would not be MY favorites 100 portraits of the year.  With the number of jobs and clients I have every year narrowing this list down to 100 unfortunately means that not every one of my clients or subjects makes this end of the year video, I wish they all could be here but then I would have to have a top 200 or 300 portraits video and that would double the play time of the video and with attention spans what they are these days keeping things shorter is often sweeter!

One of the photos featured in this video was selected by Senior Style Guide to make their yearly Hot 100 issue featuring the best senior photo artists in the country, I am humbled and honored to have been selected for this honor a second year in a row.  You can check out the winning entry on this blog post.  I think that is enough words, now on with the show!

Thanks for taking the time to check out my video. If you want to see my selections from last year you can check out my Favorite 100 Portraits of 2014 here.

Favorite 100 Portraits of 2014

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The job of narrowing down all of the portraits I have taken the past year to only my favorite 100 is so very difficult, I have great clients and every one of them have photos that I love and want to include in my final Favorite 100 portraits of 2014, but alas I have to narrow it down to only 100.  2014 was a great year for me.  I added new photos to my portfolio that I have had in my mind for a long time, I learned new things and I pushed myself to try new things.  For the first time I entered photos into the Senior Style Guide Hot 100 contest and was thrilled to find out that I had an image selected in the urban category, check it out here.  This was a hard job, but now I can present to you a short video featuring my favorite 100 portraits of 2014!

 

Jason Duchow Photography is located in Oldtown, Idaho and does on location portraiture throughout Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington.   Jason specializes in environmental portrait photography often with the use of  dramatic lighting techniques and is also known for his freelance sports photography work.  Jason is also a Sponsored Pro for Interfit Photographic (http://interfitphotographic.com/)

Gregory Family (Newport Photographer)

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We lucked out with a rare partly sunny January day for this fun family portrait shoot near Newport.  The bright sun and highly reflective snow creates it’s share of photographic challenges but the rewards can be so much fun!

Family photo in the snow by Priest River, Sandpoint, Coeur d'Alene, Newport photographer Jason Duchow

Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow

Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow

Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow

Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow

Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow

Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow

Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow

Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow Family Photo in the snow by Newport, Coeur d'Alene, Sandpoint, Priest River photographer Jason Duchow

Jason Duchow Photography is located near Priest River Idaho and serves all of Northern Idaho and Eastern Washington.   Jason specializes in on location portrait photography and often employs the the use of dramatic lighting techniques to create his distinctive style.   Jason also does freelance work providing top quality sports photography for www.idahosports.com, The Coeur d’Alene Press, The Bonner County Daily Bee, Priest River Times and Newport Miner.

Fall Family Portraits (Sandpoint Idaho Photographer)

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These photos were shot back in early October with the plans of using them for Christmas cards and gifts, so as to not be the Grinch that stole the surprise I have waited until after Christmas to publish them!   We had such a great combination of colors for this early fall family photos shoot, with the use of a nice big diffuser we were able shoot almost exclusively with natural light which makes life much simpler when you are photographing a family with three kiddos!

Abbot Family Photos (Sandpoint Photographer)

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I met up with the Abbott family for a “Dad and Kiddo Friendly” family mini-session.  The goal was to get a great shot for Christmas cards while avoiding hypothermia.  Most of the trees in the Sandpoint area had decided to shed their nice fall leaves for the winter but thankfully we were still able to find a spot that was still holding on to a remnant of fall color.   Here are a handful of the shots we were able to get in our short session.

No, this quite turn around was not prompted, I am sure glad I did not miss it!

We wanted to get one more look in our time together so we picked a spot where we could get a kind of washed out, back lit look to a few of the shots.

 

Ciammaichella Family Portraits (Sandpoint Idaho Photographer)

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It was a little chilly for this family portrait shoot but we had our lights set up on their back porch which was only a few steps away from the warmth of the house!  There was also a bit of a breeze, but as you will see in the photos that kept the clouds moving so even in a short period of time we had a different looking backdrop in every photo.

Klynstra’s Family Photos (Sandpoint Photographer)

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My family has had the pleasure of attending church with the Klynstra family for the last couple of years and our kids adore each other, which makes the purpose of these family photos a little heartbreaking for them. This wonderful family is heading off to serve in the mission field for Mission Aviation Fellowship and they needed a good family photo for their prayer cards.  I was glad to help them out, it only took us a few minutes to get the kind of format that M.A.F. needed and then spend some time getting a few bonus photos for both of our families.

 

Rained out Family Portraits (Sandpoint Photographer)

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This last week I had a portrait session scheduled with a family that was gathering in Sandpoint for the weekend.  There was only 1 day that everyone would be together and available and the plan was to get some outdoor portraits with Lake Pend Orielle as the backdrop.  The day rolled around and of course it was raining, eliminating the possibility of outdoor portraits.  Since this was the only day that the entire family would be together it was decided that we would adapt rather than cancel and we set up for some indoor portraits in the house that they had rented for the weekend.

The one room that we could work with was tall, narrow and fairly dark.  You can see the room we were working with in this early test shot:

To give the room some depth and make the photo more interesting we added three more flashes to the setup with two strobes behind the chimney upstairs and one behind the chimney downstairs.  Here is the final image with the entire family, I think those extra lights made a pretty significant difference!

After getting the hardest photo out of the way we moved on to some smaller groupings, here are some of the portraits as well as some of the happenings between portraits!

To wrap up the afternoon we even took a few engagement photos!

 

Cowell Family (Bonners Ferry Photographer)

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A while back I held a contest on my facebook page and wen the winners were drawn the cowell family was selected and chose to use their winnings for a family portrait session.  I have to say this was about the easiest group of 9 kids and 2 adults I have had the pleasure to work with!

Play Time! 

After the portraits were done we set up a couple of lights in a shaded area and just let the kids play, it did not take too long to fill up a card with fun, unplanned shots.  Here are some of the family’s favorites from play time!