Seattle Wedding Photographer, Videographer, Editor

My friend Adam Brown invited me to shoot some photos with him at one of his favorite places: Clark Lake Park in Kent.  This is close to where I grew up, but I hadn’t been there before.  I was surprised by how big it is!  There are 130 acres to explore.  A small parking lot is located right off 240^th St between 116^{th Ave} and 132^{nd Ave}.  After a short walk, there is a dock that has some nice views of the lake.  The trail to the left goes over a small stream and up to a grassy hill with sparse trees.  The trail on the right leads partly on a boardwalk though marsh lands.  On the opposite side of the lake from the dock, there are tall grasses, hills, less traveled trails and an interesting wooden structure surrounding a tree.  There is different wildlife around this area including various birds, coyotes, and even otters!

Steve Rydgren

Photographer

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January was a little busier than normal too! 

Stacy and I took a short trip to Las Vegas with some friends.  One of the highlights of this trip was an amazing maternity photo shoot with Erica in the hotel room!  I worked with the images in Lightroom and Color Efex Pro with some very colorful results.  We also stumbled on a motorcycle stunt show while walking in Fremont.

I shot some portraits of Jeremy again.  He’s 6 months old and he’s grown a bit from our last shoot.

The Zahn family has a brand new baby girl and we did some family shots at their house.  Very pink!

I also did some family shots with the Melrose family after their late Christmas. 

Baby Katie’s album that documents the first year of her life is done!  I will have a package on my website soon that covers maternity photos, 12 photo shoots, and a custom designed album. 

I learned a little about saddles in January when I did some product photography for a new product that keeps them safer.

There is a new locations section on the website of places I have shot in Washington.  This will help clients choose where they would like to do outdoor shoots, and may become a reference for other photographers I know.  When I go to the official park websites, I always wish they had more images and detailed descriptions.  It may be a little while before I get this section completely fleshed out, but look out for it!

I am looking forward to working on our website and doing some creative photo projects before wedding season starts again!

Steve Rydgren

Photographer

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I had a busier than usual December with family portraits, album design, and computer upgrades.  My Dad built a new computer for me for my birthday and now editing is going so much quicker!  I also finally upgraded to Adobe Photoshop CS4. 

I was contacted again by the BECU Trust Company  to do some updated headshots.

The Sroufe Family had some family portraits done in their new house.  Last year seemed easier with the kids not running around as much, but we captured some great shots of two year olds William and Harvey. 

The Lock family also had family portraits with their new baby Joshua.  He was very cute in his hooded sweatshirt!

I had an early morning shoot with the Bradfield family at their house, and was not expecting the amount of energy they had! 

Katie had her 1^st Birthday!  She did a great job with her cupcake.  Now I’m working on putting an album together of all the shoots we’ve done in her 1^st year.

I finally found a free Sunday during all the craziness, and asked my friend Jay to go hiking.  Jay has been hiking several times a week all last year.  Terra and Jay decided to take me up Mailbox Peak.  I have to say this was by far the hardest hike I have done in my life.  I was also the most unprepared with my clothing and gear compared to everyone else on the mountain.  It was a spectacular view at the top though.  I wish I could have taken more photos up there, but my fingers started to go numb and I thought it would be best to head back down.  I look forward to more hikes in the future!

Stacy and I took a trip up to Seattle for our adventure day last week.  We explored Pike Place Market and Post Alley. 

For Christmas, I designed an album for our parents the featured our trips and adventures from 2009.

For Stacy’s birthday, I started working on some new abstract photo art pieces, but I decided on one of my older pieces she liked to enlarge to 20×30 for our bedroom. 

Steve Rydgren

Photographer

Imaginessence

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I have continued to be busy as I finish up the wedding season.  I am booking family portrait sessions for the holidays so please let me know if you would like to schedule one!

The results for the Evening Magazine Best of Western Washington are in, and although I didn’t win, my friend Jean-Marcus Strole was voted Best Photographer!  We were in the Photography program together at UW.

My wife and I found the time recently to go to Leavenworth while the fall colors were on!  I made sure to bring my tripod and started to play with HDR landscapes.  I used Photomatix software for processing them, and I’m really looking forward to trying more HDR!

I shot Dylan’s senior photos at his house and a local school.  We had fun shooting and got some cool shots.

The best party of the year is the Czaplinski Halloween party and I showed up with camera in hand!  Ryan had turned the garage into a crazy dance floor with fog, lights, and zombies!

I headed up to the Washington Park Arboretum to shoot Ashlee and Dean’s engagement photos.  The fall colors were amazing!  I will have to try to make it up there every fall.

Stacy and I celebrated our 1^st anniversary by heading down to Cancun Mexico for a week.  While we were at the baggage claim in Mexico, a woman from the Associated Press interviewed us about Hurricane Ida and we made the news!  It was windy for a while and there was a storm surge that prevented beach access.  The weather did clear up after a couple days.  We visited the local malls, Isle Mujeres, and Xcaret.    We had a good balance of relaxing, reading books, hanging out with some new friends, and exploring.

Steve Rydgren

Photographer

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I would like to thank everyone who voted for me for the King 5 Best of Western Washington Photographer!  Winners will be announced soon.

As the main wedding season is dying down I’m still busy finishing everything up and starting to book for 2010 and 2011.

Ryan and Rachelle got married at the Federal Way Community Center and I had the honor of doing their photos.  This was a huge wedding and Heather helped me out again as a second photographer.  Just about all of my friends were there, along with my parents and three couples whose weddings I’ve shot in the last few years.  Rachelle had her hair done in downtown Kent at Salon Ivoni.   Rachelle’s Uncle Angelo Pizarro played music for the outside portion of the wedding into the evening.  He is an amazing guitar player and he regularly plays at Blossom Asian Bistro in Renton.   Bigtime Entertainment handled the DJ work and had their big new system going!

I was recently contacted by Druids Glen Golf Club to do some promo shots for their website, and I will be one of their featured vendors for next year!

I did engagement photos for Rachele and James down at Lake Wilderness Park in Maple Valley.    This is one of my favorite local spots!  The fall colors were starting to come out.

I also did Jacob’s senior photos at Lake Wilderness recently.

I finally had the opportunity to shoot cute baby photos at a pumpkin patch for my 10^th session with baby Katie!  We went down to Spooner Farms in Orting.   They had fields of pumpkins with big spiders, a corn maze, gift shop, animals, and covered areas for when it started to rain.

Later the same day we visited Karen, Brian and their new son Jeremy for a shoot up in Kenmore.  Jeremy had a wardrobe change into a cute skeleton outfit with a matching hat and socks.

I took this photo of our cat Jazz while he was sitting in his favorite spot on the couch.

Steve Rydgren

Photographer

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Evening Magazine on King 5 has a Best of Western Washington contest and I am one of over 200 photographers in the running.  The contest runs until October 11^th.  If you would like to vote for me, you can find me on their website here.

I submitted 4 images to the Puyallup fair this year and they choose to display 3 of them for the 2009 Washington Photographers Exhibition!  They are on display upstairs at the Pavilion.

I tried using some new software called Photomatix to put together a HDR image for the AMHS Cheer team.  I look forward to playing with more HDR images on future photoshoots!

I had a short photo session for my 9^th shoot with baby Katie at the Tacoma waterfront.

Milisa and Jason got married recently at a private residence.  I checked at the venue before hand, and was surprised that I had been there before!  I went to a Boeing party with my Dad several years ago.

There was a field trip for Ritz University at the Puyallup Fair last Tuesday.  I helped people out with some night time shooting, and also got a few shots in myself.

Steve Rydgren

Photographer

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Danielle and Jay had their wedding at the Pickering Barn in Issaquah.  This is a beautiful venue with plenty of variety for outside photos.  We started off in the morning at Salon Michelle in Des Moines.  Rachel Power was the Hair Stylist/ Make-Up Artist for Danielle.  I also got to chat with the owner Michelle Fawcett for a while.   Before the wedding I got a chance to meet the Wedding Coordinator Sherry from McKenzieKate Weddings. She was busy directing people and she had to break into her emergency kit to sew a dress.  The ceremony was one of the shortest I have seen, but that left more time for the party! I tried out a new lighting technique during the dancing and got some really cool results.  Just as I thought the party was slowing down, Jay got on the mic and got people going!  The DJs were Rante and Patrick from Bigtime Entertainment.  Rante was the DJ for our wedding.

I had the opportunity to shoot team photos for the Auburn Mountianview High School Cheer team.  After the original venue fell through, I did some scouting and we decided on Game Farm Park in Auburn.  This is one of my favorite local places to shoot, and where I had my bio portraits taken.  I also used my new battery backup device which I can plug in a full size strobe light to help with the big group shot.  I pulled out my speed lights for the individual and smaller group shots.  Most of the girls wanted to do their shots up in a tree!

I recently had my eighth portrait session with baby Katie in our 12 part series.  We went down to the Rose Garden at Point Defiance in Tacoma.  Everything was in bloom with so many different colors.

Steve Rydgren

Photographer

Imaginessence

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Last month Ryan and I got our new website up!  It still needs a little work but we are much happier with it.  The flash photo galleries are so easy to update with my most current work.

Kathy and Olivier got married at Lake Wilderness in Maple Valley.  This is a beautiful venue with a lake, view of Mt Rainier, and 3 story lodge with a spiral staircase and totem pole.  Christina Threlkeld did Kathy’s hair and makeup.  There were plenty of photographers in action during the ceremony!  My assistant Heather was taking pictures, as well as Jeremy and Ronald (Father of the bride!).

Rebecca and Nick got married at the Kiana Lodge in Poulsbo.  This has to be one of the most amazing venues I’ve shot at in Washington!   It was on the water with so many flowers everywhere.  There were also skylights throughout the main hall, walkways, and dancing area.  My camera loved all the light!

I had my seventh shoot with baby Katie at Wapato Park in Tacoma.  She’s getting so much bigger and expressive!

Access Floor Corp had a new product roll-out for their residential access flooring.  Imagine easily running all you video game and surround sound speaker wire under your floor!  The event was at The Vineyard Table tasting room and Atlantic St. Artisan Vintners in Seattle.

I also had the opportunity to visit Mt St Helens with my wife Stacy.  We had a nice picnic lunch and visited the Johnston Ridge Observatory.  There were a lot of beautiful wildflowers out.  We went to Coldwater Lake while we were there.  It was so calm and was surrounded by hills.

When Seattle hit record temperatures Stacy and I decided to get out of our non air conditioned place and go to Ocean Shores.  It was nice and cool there!!  I took some pictures as the clouds started to roll in by the beach.

This year I finally entered the Photo Exhibition at the Puyallup Fair.  I entered these four landscape prints.

Steve Rydgren

Photographer

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06-19-09

It’s busy wedding season! Ryan and I recently shot Ileana and Brian’s wedding in Seattle at the Blessed Sacrament Church. That venue was so amazing with the huge ceilings and old design!

I also loved getting photos of them showing off their dance moves at Hotel Deca.

I did some engagement photos for Fawn and Darren down at Point Defiance Park in Tacoma. This may be my favorite park to shoot at. The roses were in full bloom.

I finished Jamie and Kwadwo’s album in in record time just in time for their second reception in Michigan. It is one of my favorite albums I have created so far.

I finally got my new Color Efex Pro 3 software from Nik up and running on my work computer. There are some amazing filters and so many combinations to choose from!! I did some tests with my photos of Erica from my Vegas trip and really like the results.

I also did some maternity shots with Karen and Brian at their place.

I’m back to work editing photos, designing albums, and working on the new website!

- Steve

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I just got back from a week long vacation with my wife! We flew out to Las Vegas and stayed at the Flamingo. It was nice to get away from the cold and rain of Seattle. While in Vegas, we got to meet up with my friend Erica who lives with other artists. One of the rules when you visit is that you must create some art while you are there, so we had a quick photo shoot!

Stacy and I then rented a car and drove to Zion National Park in Utah. On the way we stopped at Fire Canyon and started to see the beautiful red rock. We were very impressed with Zion when finally got there. The park was very well organized and maintained. There are buses that run up and down the canyon that stop at trailheads and vistas. We hiked up and saw some of the pools and waterfalls.

I also got a new blackberry phone and switched my service to Verizon. I get much better reception with my phone now. I also have a data plan that keeps me connected with people through email, facebook, myspace, and model mayhem.

I’ve ordered some new gear recently from Nikon that will help with lighting and I also have the new Nik Color Efex Pro 3 software on the way. This software has 52 different creative filters that I can use to further stylize and enhance my work.

Wedding season is coming up soon! I’ve shot several engagement session in the last several weeks and I’m getting ready for Kwadwo and Jamie’s wedding. There are a couple other photo projects I’m also preparing for in the next few weeks.

Steve Rydgren
Photographer
Imaginessence, LLC

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