Portland Family Photography by Mike Harris - Freeze Frame Photography | No November Rain!

Family sessions can be the most challenging for many portrait photographers.  Not the case with this group!

Thea wanted to give her parents something special for their 40^th wedding anniversary so she hired me to photograph the extended family.  The only tough part was finding a date when the entire gang would be available. November isn’t usually the best month of the year to schedule an outdoor family session, but this day was absolutely great considering the number of rainy days leading up to it!

Portland Senior Photos 2012-Part 4

This wraps-up my Senior season 2012 blog posts. It's been a great year!  I've met several outstanding Seniors that I know will make the most of themselves and their opportunities.

I've known Chris for several years. His parent's wedding was the first one I photographed and I've shot their family portraits ever since!

Alex is a Senior from Glencoe and Dakota hails from my neck of the woods, Sherwood.  Not only are they both guitar players, but they are also cousins.  This was a double Senior session and a really fun one. I've always been a giant music fan so the idea of working guitars into the sessions was cool.

Portland Senior Photos 2012-Part 3

This Senior season has been great and it's not over yet!  I've genuinely enjoyed working with my Senior clients and look forward to the next session.  In case I haven't mentioned it before, shooting Seniors is the best. To see more of my portrait work head over to Freeze Frame Photography!

Connor attends West Linn High School and lucky for me, is a member of the Lake Oswego Country Club. I love golf courses despite the fact, I have no idea how to play. Maybe I'll learn someday? I've known Connor and his family for ten years now so I've had the opportunity to see him grow up.  He excels at athletics, specifically golf and soccer.

Caitlin is the first Senior I've photographed from Century High School. She and her father, Duane, were awesome to work with!  Caitlin chose Sauvie Island for the location without a suggestion from me which I thought was great! I've been to Sauvie Island a few times before and even done some photography there, but this was my first Senior session at this location.

Martin Prihoda: Authenticity

This is great. Check out Martin's awesome blog! Martin Prihoda: Authenticity

Portland Senior Photos 2012-Part 2

Here are a few more highlights from the 2012 Senior season of my Portland area portrait business, Freeze Frame Photography.  Did I mention shooting Seniors is my favorite?  It would be cool to one day shoot the wedding of a former Senior client.

Natosha is a 2012 Senior from Sherwood High School.  Stand-up comedy is an art form I enjoy watching and have a tremendous respect for.  Natosha has the voice, timing, and delivery to pull it off!  Had lots of laughs during this session.

 Oregon has the best old barns! This is a popular one out in Wilsonville.

 This place was never an actual working gas station, but it makes a great backdrop for pictures. Send me expensive camera gear and I'll tell ya where it is!:)

Mireya hails from Glencoe High School.  Her friends are obviously a huge part of her life and it was fun to work them into the session.

 I often split session locations (read stop, pack up gear, drive to another spot-unpack gear and start again) in order to get very different looks for the same Senior client, but in this case, we used one very large location that featured lots of variety.

Mireya's mother requested that she pose in the white dress.  We pretty much shot until there wasn't much light left.

Bailey is my first Senior client from Liberty High School.  This session was atop my list of most enjoyable!

 Bailey is naturally relaxed in front of the camera and poses effortlessly.  She could easily model if she chose to.

 Bailey and her mom are clearly very close and both were a pleasure to work with!

 This was another one of those locations that offers nice variety eliminating the need to load-up and drive to additional places.

Portland Senior Photos 2012-Part 1

Time to dust off the blog and provide an update! I've been very busy shooting portland area seniors lately for my portrait biz, Freeze Frame Photography. Senior sessions are my favorite. They give me a chance to explore and try new things since seniors are usually up for anything. Finding new and interesting locations is fun and challenging as well. Fortunately, there is no shortage of great spots in the Portland area!  Like to see a few highlights from this senior season you say?  Without further ado....

Meet Kendall, a Sherwood High School senior.  I genuinely had fun working with her mixing things up.  We found a great, surprisingly empty, half-court to use at Laurelhurst Park for these court shots.

I knew we wanted to finish up after dark using the city backdrop for these images.  The timing was perfect for a wardrobe change and a quick drive from the park to the east bank of the Willamette.

This is Sierra, a senior at Glencoe High School. She requested somewhere featuring tall grass and a barn. I'm not shy when it comes to asking for permission to shoot on private property so I have a decent list of nice locations.  This was a location I'd never used before, but fit the bill pretty well. 

 This building is an old school house that was used until the mid forties.  Very cool inside, but weren't allowed access to the interior. 

 This was a nearby property that I have used a few times.  While I try to use new locations as much as possible, it's a fun challenge to shoot differently at a familiar spot to come up with new looks.  Sierra was a natural. I hope to work with her this fall for a portfolio-building project I have in mind.



Paige hails from the 2012 senior class of Beaverton High School. A different photographer was lined-up for her session when Paige and her mom came upon my portrait website http://www.ffphotog.com/ .  Paige preferred my work so I got a call and after a brief discussion with her mom, found out Paige liked horses. Lucky for her, I know the folks out at Oakhurst Thoroughbreds.  They even provided a freshly groomed horse! 

 The Oakhurst property provided multiple opportunities for us to take advantage of photographically. Looking forward to shooting out there again. It was a very hot afternoon but Paige was a trooper despite the 90 degree weather!

More great stuff from Don

Don Giannatti giving great advice for working towards a career as a photographer

Family Photos

This afternoon we joined CJ and her family at their home with plans to shoot indoors and out.  Family portrait sessions can be challenging work, especially with multiple kiddos involved.  Luckily for Jenn and I, CJ and Corey were super easy to work and came up with a few ideas before our session.  The rain stopped as soon as we arrived so we began the session in the front yard.



Corey is a wine distributor so they have a huge collection as well as lots of corks.  They thought it would be cool to incorporate the wine corks and I agreed.  We used the wine collection as a backdrop, added some holiday lights for effect, then, brought in the corks and this gigantic wine glass.  Jenn got the boys laughing and smiling while I grabbed as many frames as possible.

Next, we took the session into Hudson's room which featured artwork done by CJ hanging above the crib.  Hudson was a ham once in his domain!

The session came to a close in the backyard since the rain was still holding-off .  Braxton wanted some photographs by himself and was lots of fun to work with.  A huge thanks to CJ and Corey for choosing Freeze Frame Photography for their family portraits!  We hope to work with them again.