birchblazephotography.com » The Photo Blog of Kerry and Taylor Struble

What a great time of year for photography! We love the way the sun drapes the New Hampshire hills, mountains and woodlands in late summer, early autumn. The golden tones of an August evening set against the lush greens that the oft-lamented rains have gifted us this year.

Alexa and her family are good friends of ours, and we had already talked about getting the oppotunity to photograph her, when we were asked to do her senior portraits. It was a beautiful day last week and we enjoyed shooting at some great locations near her home including a gorgeous mountain meadow, and a swift, rocky river. Alexa’s hair and makeup were styled by her Mom, Jen. With experience as a former model, Jen was great to have along, though Alexa was a natural and didn’t need much coaching! We all had a great time, and Taylor and I are so pumped about how these photos came out. One of our best shoots to date. thanks Alexa!

This next one has such a Peter Pan quality about it. Love it!


We were blessed with SO many keepers. I don’t envy Alexa and her family choosing their favorites, what are yours? –K&Tay

Wanderlust – “ a strong, innate desire to rove or travel about.”  It’ s in our blood. We’ve been known to become uncomfortably involved with a class VI road because we “just want to see what’s around the corner.” Anyway, while we can’t travel as extensively as we’d like right now, we try to have fun with little road trips. We’ve had beautiful weather lately, (in the wake of about a month’s worth of rain) so it seemed like a good opportunity to do some explorin’ .  This past weekend we found ourselves in Maine. Of course, we’ve been there many times before but we found some very neat places/things and we thought we should share. Enjoy. –Tay

…as we made our way to Ogunquit Beach, we came across two really cool places, the first was the Old House Parts Company, a recycled building materials warehouse in Kennebunk, Maine. Tay and I (Kerry’s handling the play-by-play for this post, btw) love this sort of thing and they had a ton of great pieces, all extremely well organized. It was a great photo op (the photo on the right, below, was taken at this place as well as the 2nd to last pair of photos):

The next place we came across was the Johnson Hall Museum, a fairly strange—but interesting—privately-owned curio shop morphing into a musem of sorts (also in Kennebunk). There were lots of quasi-historic out-buildings in various stages of decay, but again, crazy photo ops. Tay was a little creeped out by this antique jail cell, but not enough to avoid posing in it for me! Most of these photos are hers, by the way, she has a great eye for this sort of photography.

As mentioned, a couple from the Old House Parts Co.

Ahhh, finally at the beach! The ocean is so reinvigorating. We always say we want to get to the ocean a lot every summer, but then don’t. In the past two weeks we’ve been there three times, yes! This was a fun series of images. We were on a boardwalk amongst the dune grass and wild roses. I wanted this shot, but had to sit on the opposite railing, hook my legs underneath and lean way back over the rose bushes to get the right angle. Let’s just say my abs weren’t quite up to the task and Tay couldn’t keep a straight face for very long! Of course, it was worth it and I’m still waiting to take a bad picture of her. Love this shot.

–Tay&K

As some of you may know, I’m also a graphic designer. My biggest claim-to-fame so far is that I design & layout the new standup paddlesurfing magazine, “Standup Journal.” The mag photographically chronicals the relatively new sport that’s a lot like surfing, but you use a long paddle. It’s pretty cool ’cause you don’t need a wave to do it. Flat water, surf… they’re even starting to do it in white water rivers! It’s catching on fast and you’ll see celebs doing it in people mag, on TV, etc. We started out in ‘07 and now we’re in the major US retailers, like Borders and Barnes & Noble, and globally we’re now in 24 countries. The cover you see to the left is the current summer issue, on stands now.

One of the very cool things about working on this magazine is that I get to see hundreds of amazing photos from the world’s top professional watersports photographers, everyday. This has been, not only incredibly enjoyable, but it’s also been instrumental in adding knowledge and insight to my own photographic pursuits. Particularly in the areas of post processing and learning about pro gear (i.e. lenses, etc.).

One of the photographers we work with a lot, is a legend of sorts in the surfing photography world. His name is David Pu’u. David’s work speaks for itself, and it’s  regularly appeared in well-known publications such as Surfer, Surfers Journal, Sports Illustrated, National Geographic, The New York Post, The London Daily Mirror and Time. In the June issue of Standup Journal, We did a ‘featurette’ based on a photograph taken by David. It’s an amazing photo taken in the water just before David got slammed by the wave he was focusing on (fortunately, he didn’t get a surfboard in the head!). I love this photo and was so excited to get to use it in our Mag. I was pretty happy with the way it came out, but I was super-stoked (hey, why not throw in some surfing lingo?) when Standup Journal publisher and friend, Clay Feeter, forwarded me the following comment Mr. Pu’u himself made about my treatment of his photo in the article:

“…man, nice work. I am proud to be included and consider that page (the “Perfect” article) …to be the best single page use example of my work in my entire published history.”

To quote Steve Martin, “Wow! …wow! …All I can say is, WOW!” I am so honored by this incredible compliment from David. This affirmation means so much to me, because I did not go to college. I am completely self-taught in this field. I do not have a degree or college diploma in this world where a piece of paper is SO important to people. Standup Journal and this accolade from a surfing photographer heavyweight is my “piece of paper.” Thanks David. Here’s the article with David’s beautiful photo:

"Perfect." article in June '09 issue of Standup Journal, photo by David Pu'u

I’d also like to give a HUGE shout-out-thank-you to Clay Feeter, publisher of Standup Journal, who gave me a chance even though I didn’t have that ‘piece of paper’. As Clay has said, we make a great team! In addition to bettering myself as a photographer along with my best friend, Taylor, I look forward to being a part of the Standup Journal team and producing this killer watersports photography showcase for a long time.

-kerry

Ok, folks, I know, I know… yes, it’s been a while…So sorry about that, really. It might have something to do with the major remodeling project we have going at our house right now (as in, completely ripping out our floor, right down to the dirt!). But anyway, we have still been shooting and this post is proof! Rhonda Demone is a photographer from Nova Scotia who contacted us a few months ago and booked a shoot to coincide with her Family’s vacation in North Conway. We got together with Rhonda, Brian and the kids last week for the shoot and had a blast! The kids were awesome and thanks to mom being a photog, were used to being in front of the camera. We had a great time and want to thank the Demone’s for choosing Birch Blaze! Here are some of our favorites from the session…

Here’s one of those shots that was kind of like an inbetween shot, but with this treatment I think it takes on a very poetic feel:

What a beautiful and fun family! We had a great time and hopefully, one of these days we’ll drive up to Nova Scotia and say hi. Thanks again Rhonda, Brian and kids, and your image disc is on its way!