September 2005 – Otis & James Photography

Broke Down…With Zach

Would you believe me if I told you that while out this evening with the musically gifted Zach, we almost had a tire fall off the car and had to walk home? You see, this is the Otis & James difference. Other photographers would not find themselves in this type of situation, but we’re not like all the rest.

No…we’re something different. We’re not afraid to make our clients ride in our mid-90’s Honda Accord (click here for a representation – even though this is not the Otis & James-mobile, you can understand the level of crapitude that we offer our clients), for this is what we like to call our ‘bonding’ time with our clients.

Nothing will bring people closer together than having to walk back to the studio after you realize you can no longer safely drive the car – and you have to perform what I like to call ‘abandon ship.’ We’re willing to go that extra mile, and do it at no extra charge. Zach was lucky to experience this, as we were lucky to work with him tonight.

He made it through the shoot – and for that we offer a big thank you to both him and his lovely assistant (Mom) for coming to the studio tonight and for being so great to work with! Well, enough bragging about what makes us so good (it’s the car), and let’s get to the pics – Enjoy!

Laura in the Mornin’

We opened our doors this morning to find our new friend Laura (and a couple of other special guests) ready enter the Otis & James Photographic World, or just simply O&JPW (love the acronyms – love them.)

We got a super fantastic amount of great stuff – and as an extra treat to you reading this today – we’re gonna show you some!

Thank you again to Laura for being great to work with – and Enjoy!

Matia!

Our day at Otis & James came to a lovely end yesterday, when we were visited by the ever-friendly Matia!
She came into the studio ready to rock, and thank goodness because we had just finshed getting fully loaded on roll. Thus, together we were able to fully rock and roll.

It was this combination that made this photographic session truly tear it up! We thank Matia for laughing and being serious at the drop of a dime, or hat. Whichever. We swear, nobody driving down the street that saw you fake laughing thought anything of it.

All right, I’m just speaking true gibberish, so I think that it’s time for me to sign off for the night and to get to the highlight reel – Enjoy!

Jerome!

This morning (acutally yesterday morning now), Jerome leaped and bounded and perhaps even once pranced through our studio and through the out of doors with swagger and gusto! After teaching Otis how to catch (actually Otis did not learn), and seeing that he had a wingspan of 18′, we ventured outside of the confines of the studio where Jerome let his rugged charisma shine through.

His unbridled energy kept on keepin’ on – through the cold shade to the warm sun.

I think that that last sentence was Haiku.

To you, Jerome, we say thank you for the hard work. And to you the reader, we say…Enjoy!

Unfortunately, at the end of the shoot he turned out to be a monster, and ate Jamie.

The End

Shana v.3 . Conclusion

This morning our four month long odyssey of a senior shoot (see her previous entries here and here) with Shana came to a thrilling conclusion, as Otis & James attempted to blind and put her into as many perilous situations as possible. Risking life and limb, she came through relatively unscathed (except for her black with grease feet.)

We had a great time – as usual – and thank Shana and her lovely assistant (Mom) for waiting for the right day for the photos. Without any further adieu, I will just leave you with these final snaps – Enjoy!

Greg!

Doesn’t it seem more exciting if the title of the post has an exclamation point after it? Perhaps I should have titled this ‘Greg!?’ – and that would have provided the element of intrigue. But no intrigue was needed. I thought of just ‘Greg.’ – but that seemed to be too ho-hum. So, in keeping with the title of so many other posts, I will stick with the exclamation point. What does this have to do with anything?? Nothing!!

Last night we spent some quality time with our old buddy Greg. We are acquainted with him, as he participated in a previous wedding (see if you can spot him.) Greg and father motored down to Otis & James central – and we got a ton of killer stuff. That sentence sounds as if we may be in possession of something illegal. But never worry, faithful reader, as there was nothing illegal of the sort going down (well, maybe a minor infraction – you know who you are, ‘Man With Keys’) – but it was all in the name of photo-graphy.

We thank Greg and his assistants for making the shoot last night great – but enough of all this half way to insanity rambling, and lets move to the highlight reel – Enjoy!

DO1MP V.4 . Tierany!

The Otis & James caravan of photographic love pulled into Minot at 3:00 yesterday afternoon, just in time for a session with our good friend – Tierany!

Seriously, we pulled into town, unloaded our cameras, got set up and started shooting. Thank God that we are used to this life of always being on the run, otherwise it would be hard. Tierany, however, made it absolutely as easy as it could be for her session. Seriously, we just turned the cameras on and she just commanded them to photograph, while we sat back and ate cookies.

We got a bunch of grrrrrrrrrrreat photo-s – so we would now like to show them to you – Enjoy!

DO1MP V.3 . James & Erin!

This past Thursday we had the honor of spending the day with James & Erin; and wouldn’t you know it – it was their wedding day as well! The Otis & James caravan of Love pulled into glorious Stillwater, MN, on an absolutely beautiful day!

Before we get too far with this, we need to backtrack to the day before (which was not such a lovely day – click here for an article about the storms.) As we hunkered down at our friends house (click here to see our friends), surrounded by hundereds of candles (seriously – when in need of a candle, just mention this to Deb as she can provide about 219 in four minutes flat), it didn’t look too good for the wedding the next day.

The high winds, downed power lines and torrential rains made it hard for us to escape our confines, so James actually had to conduct our last meeting with the Bride & Groom via candlelight and cellphone – bridging the gap from the 19th and 21st century. Old Otis & James didn’t even know how they were going to be able to charge their many batteries in preparation for the wedding (drama, suspense, etc.)

They awoke on Thursday to find that the power was back, and the skies were clearing. By the time we made it to Stillwater, they day had revealed itself to be glorious. When we made it to the actual location – we knew that this day was going to be absolutely beautiful!

We had a great group of people to work with, a beatiful couple, a beautiful day, and a beautiful location! Well, seeing as how this post is running at about 1000 words, I will stop running my mouth – or moving my fingers – and let’s just get on to some snaps from the day. James & Erin – thank you, and congratulations! Enjoy!

:: click images for larger ::

DO1MP V.2 . Mark!

Before the Otis & James caravan packed up and headed east, we had the good fortune of being visited by a man by the name of Mark. As it turns out, he needed photographs. Being photographers, we thought this would be a good match. Indeed, it was. Photograph we did, and photographed he was.

Calm, cool, collected and any number of other words starting with c is what mark was. We thank him, and to you the reader, we offer these photograhs to evidence our time spent. Good day…and Enjoy!

DO1MP V.1 . Anthony Pt. II

Congratulations to Anthony, as the title of his post is the most confusing series of acronyms, abbreviations and Roman numerals ever put together. I digress – we are now turning the Otis & James time machine back to this past Tuesday morning, when we had the pleasure of concluding the shoot of our old friend, Anthony!

Thank goodness for Chef Boyardee, and also that we held out for a better day, as this morning was simply splendid (although a little nippy.) Again, Anthony brought his A game out and we kicked out the james in a uniformly rocking good time. Even though I am not sure what any of that meant, I think we should just turn to the film for the hightlights – Enjoy!