Sunday, July 25, 2010

Colorado adventure

Fresh from our summer trip to Colorado, I have two images that really strike my fancy. The above image is from the Canyon Creek ride at Waunita Hot Springs Ranch. We ride horses about 3 hours until we get to the camp where the staff cook dinner for us. It is always so peaceful and I think from the photo, you can see why. Beautiful.
Below is an image from The Great Sand Dunes. A cloud was casting such an artistic shadow on the sand. John and I saw the photo op at the same time. . . and this is the result. Pretty cool, huh?

Monday, April 5, 2010

Lovin' the barn



Headed out to a photo shoot location with no idea where it was, what it was going to look like, or what look this high school senior was going to be sportin' . . . formal, informal, would he have any props. I was going into this one "blind." With hubby by my side, we quickly surveyed the property as we got out of the vehicle. The barn jumped out at both of us, especially when he pulled out his boots and cowboy hat. I am excited about the results - great job TJ.

Friday, March 26, 2010

I want to share some images of places and things that are special to me. I have been shooting portraits for about eight years and I still enjoy it (don't misunderstand me), but I have been falling in love with capturing the landscape and character in China and Colorado. It may be awhile before I get back to China (two trips in eight months) but yearly trips to Colorado are keeping my creative juices flowing. Above and below are from Beijing. Years ago ('90-'92) when I lived in Hong Kong, I began taking pictures of random bicycles (back in the day of film cameras, gasp). So now it's kinda my thing to look for when I travel. The one below was outside a Tex-Mex restaurant, yes, I said Tex-Mex . . . in China.


Below are two images from trips to Colorado. I found the kayaks while hubby and I cruised around Salida as it began to snow. The color of the boats against the red brick with the snow on the ground makes it one of my favorites.


I caught the tail end of this rainbow at Waunita Hot Springs Ranch. I was running as fast as I could to get just the right angle to shoot. I knew it would be gone as fast as it came, and it was.

I have a printed portfolio of a group of images from China and a group of images from Colorado. I would be thrilled to show them to you, if you find yourself interested in having a print. Feel free to contact me at lchivvis@gmail.com.

Friday, February 26, 2010






I have been needing to post some new images for a while now - last shots were posted in October. Ouch. A friend asked me today if I had some baby shots up on my website . . . now I do! I need to make sure to post them here (on my blog/website) in addition to posting them on FB.

I loved shooting these two wee ones, once their mom got them good and asleep. I guess I had forgotten how difficult it is to put a baby down after you have been holding them nice and cozy, rocking them to sleep. They absolutely know when you lay them down! But oh how sweet they are when they are sleeping.

Monday, October 26, 2009

Pumpkins . . .again




Pumpkins. It started with a film camera (remember those), black and white film, a dark room in my bathroom, a faithful compadre's house with hay and cornstalks, a few friends and their kids dressed for fall, and of course, pumpkins, lots of pumpkins.

My first "fall photo shoot" in 2001 started with a desire to give my friends a fun fall photo of their kids or family with tinted pumpkins. It was a great success - lots of orders. The problem was I never anticipated the time it would take to hand develop each print, spray it, color tint each pumpkin with chalk pastels, and spray it again. I was up until the wee hours of the night just with the developing, while John and a college student were tinting them - it was crazy. All those beautiful, orange, round pumpkins that I kept throwing in each shot (seemed like a good idea at the time), were getting cursed at 1 am in the morning. I think I probably came out in the red for that shoot because of the amount of man hours it took to get a final tinted print!

So when the girls emailed me to take fall pictures . . .with pumpkins . . .I thought it would be fun. And it was. Except this time all I needed was my digital camera and Photoshop. . . .throw in pumpkins, lots of pumpkins, as many pumpkins as you want . . .not a problem!

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Not my normal portrait shoot

I have been wanting to try something a little more creative, more model-ish, if you will. I knew Katie would help me out and have lots of fun doing it. We headed out to the country and my "propmaster" and I drove around in the Ranger scoping out just the right spots for what Katie brought to wear. Below are just four of my favorites. I am not sure what to do with all these cool shots (took over 170), but it undoubtedly stoked my creative fire.

Thursday, July 23, 2009

3 . . .4 . . .5 . . .got it.


I jammed myself up in a door frame but still couldn't get all of her in the frame, so I held the camera up over my head and pointed and clicked . . .and clicked . . .and clicked. I finally achieved the proper angle and voila, I got this shot. I love the theater in the background. Another fun shoot had by all.

Thursday, May 21, 2009

Something new in someplace old


John headed down an alley to look for something a little different in Downtown where we have been shooting in the last year. This red metal door caught his eye, something new for a back drop. The red is very vibrant and it worked perfect with what she was wearing. We will be using this spot again, I am sure.

Baby face . . .


You just have to love that face. I was so excited when I saw that I had captured that pout. She is adorable. I always enjoy letting the baby/child move around at will - they are happier longer. Don't get me wrong, we have to have pauses and stops along the way to shoot them being still, but I like giving them a little freedom. I like to capture their natural expressions.

Thursday, March 19, 2009

something simple . . .



Stephen needed something simple and quick to put on his blog page. We just shot on the back deck one afternoon and came up with this . . .he says he does think this way sometimes! I really wanted a shot with the light shining on one side of his face so as to leave the other side dark. All were happy with this result.