Front Porch Tale

The Nelsons

Hey there! let me apologize for my lack of post on the blog :S I’m doing my best to get things up to date for you. Gotta love when fellow friends photographers ask you to capture their moments, especially when they look as good as theirs! I promise you, they are a real family and not models we hired for a shoot! ;)

Thank you so much for trusting our work, girl!

Naomi Forgy

“Jordan and I started prepping for our powerlifting meet and as I started lifting heavier, my knee issue became more persistent. I originally thought I had imbalances in the movements I was doing in the gym - like my body was overcompensating on one side more than the other and so since I couldn’t figure out what was wrong I hired a coach to help me figure it out after a month of working with George the knee pain was still there. Come June of 2019 - We had just got back from vacation and my knee issues weren’t feeling like my “normal” knee issues. Something just didn’t feel right. After a little encouragement from a gal I used to go college with I made an appointment to get it checked out and get an MRI. After the MRI, they wanted to do further testing and sent me to The University of Iowa Hospitals & Clinics to get a bone marrow biopsy.”

We are so thankful her last round of Chemo it’s done! Super happy and honored to do these pictures with Naomi as she’s trying to use one dark part in her life to remember others how great life really is!

Thanks for looking!

Liliana Sanchez "Quincianera"

Sweet sixteen are for Americans why Quincianera is for Hispanics. Girls, dream for the moment they jump from being treat them like little girls to a more mature young woman. These images are normally showing the sweet side of the girl but this time, Lili was very sure not to be using any of that, she wanted to break the mold and have pictures about her and her spirit!

We definitely had a blast working, walking, talking and finding great areas for her photos!

Enjoy!

Once again, thank you Lili, for trusting our work!

Thanks for looking.

Big Old Boy

We had an interesting visit here in town, yesterday. An old steam locomotive was going to stop by as part of its trip through the Midwest. I thought it was going to be something small, but as soon as I arrived with my kids I realized this wasn’t going to be an “everyday” thing. People with photo cameras, video cameras, cellphones, and anything that could capture the moment, were gathering there. I was actually not expecting any of this! I guess I had no idea how special or how big of an event this was!

My youngest son absolutely loves trains and tracks, so it was a no brainer to take him to see -in real life- something that he truly enjoys. We waited under the sun for a few minutes, it was very hot, but we were so excited that we had some of the best seats in the house, we were right by were the Big Boy was going to stop!

We heard the whistle and we knew the moment was approaching, everyone got their equipment ready and I just couldn’t stop looking at my son’s face and how bright his eyes were, “Papa look, a train!” he would repeat constantly, his hands were moving so fast with excitement!! but all that happiness came to an end as soon as the Big Boy came close to us, stopped and played its whistle as hard as you can imagine! Black smoke started coming from the top and steam from the sides! Exactly at that moment, Victor changed from happiness to TERROR. He started to scream like I have never seen him before, he stretched his arms so I could hold him, kicking and yelling “NO! NO! NO!” like begging me to take him far away from it (the train was indeed big and impressive, so I could totally understand his terror!). I didn’t care about taking any pictures, as a father, my instinct was to get him as far as possible from there, but how was I going to do that if I had a bunch of people coming our way wanting to take photos of the Big Boy? it was a big crowd. I hustled my way out with my two boys, while Vic was having a panic attack! I couldn’t believe how many people were staring at him and laughing, there’s a difference between crying from being scared at the sound of a train than kicking, crying and screaming “NO, NO, NO”! He is just 4!

I managed to get into our car, and luckily we were parked close to the tracks -close enough that we could still see it pass by-. My oldest son looked at me and said “Wow, that was big and loud”, which once again made me realize How most of us are able to understand lots of things, and associate them with good, bad, fun, scary... but Victor -who has autism- and us as his family, have to learn that he might react in a different way and that he might not like the regular things we all do. What looks like a simple fun time for others, can be something extremely difficult for him. What was supposed to be a great time with the kids, enjoying something you don’t get to see everyday, ended up in a scary experience for our little one, who by the way, was finally able to calm down once he was in the car, holding his ball and notebook with geometrical shapes.

At the end of the day, he was able to enjoy watching the train, not the way we wanted him to experience it, but at least he smiled when he was in his safe space!

This is a work in process for everyone in our family, we are trying to help Vic to learn how to cope with Autism and teaching him, how not to be defined by it. Even though it wasn’t the experience I wanted for him, it definitely showed me how to become a better father for him and to show him I will be there for him no matter what!

“Autism is not a tragedy, ignorance is”
Unknown.

Thank you for reading!!

Be Gnarly!!!

Lately, I’ve being able to spend time with my oldest son taking pictures. He is interested in learning how to take portraits, so I have the be one in front of the lens instead of my typical place behind it. But this has helped me to understand more about how to deal with those who are nervous and intimidated by the idea of getting their picture taken, I get it, is not easy!

I’m very excited by the time I get to spend with my son talking pictures. This last session we did together, I was able to do something I have not done since I was a teenager, get on a skateboard, on this case a longboard! but it get me that feeing of adventure and freedom I have not feeling in a while! I guess I will be riding the longboard way more often now. Can’t wait for summer!

Even when I was the one in front of the lens, I had to also snap some picture of my little man doing his thing! Man, I love seeing him discovering new things each time he snapped a picture.

Thanks again for taking part of your day to go through this gallery! Much love for you!

Life is worthy!
The ArteRaw team.

Christmas Traditions

La Hallaca, is a typical Venezuelan dish traditionally served on Christmas and New Year's Eve. It’s made of cornmeal and stuffed with all sorts of meats (beef, pork, and chicken), raisins, capers and olives, wrapped in a banana leaf. This is not just a typical meal Venezuelans prepare during Christmas time, this is a tradition where all in the family get together to chopped, clean, cook, stuff and rap the Hallaca .

People chat about different families in different states in Venezuela prepare them with a specific ingredient that would make them typical of the area. Or when do they start making them, you know, some families will make them on Christmas’ Eve and others way before.

But not only we do the Hallacas, We also prepare Pan de Jamon (bread stuffed with ham) and Pernil (pork)! The Pan de Jamon may be one of my favorite meals during Christmas, this bread it’s filled with ham, raisins and green olives (not a fan ;p); that gives this bread its distinctive blend of savory and sweet flavors. This is not a bread you can buy at any store, this is a bread that it could be typical of Venezuelans.

The pernil, is the food that takes most of effort and skills, normally takes between 4 to 6 hours to prepare/cook and not many have the patience to cook such meal. This is a recipe that is share during generations, some, even use the same books their grandma/mom used to use.

But above all, this is a time to spend with our love ones to remember and celebrate the greatest gift of all, Christ! Have a Merry Christmas and a great 2019.

Thanks for looking,
The ArteRaw Team

Jaqueline - Senior Session

We met Jaqueline trough her sister who contacted us to do her senior pictures. Jaqueline lives in California and she was visiting her sister for the summer so this was a once in time thing. One of the things Jaqueline asked us to do during her session is to have a sign she made and also her favorite kind of flower which is sunflowers. 

We went out and look for places to shoot her outdoor session but the weather wasn't collaborating that day which has to make her feel a little down because the sun and sky were not looking as she wanted. As photographers, we need to use what mother nature gives us so we had to take the images under a very cloudy and wet day. At first, she was shy, but we were able to get her to relax to a point where she was actually asking if she could do this or that. She told us about her passion for photography so we used her polaroid camera. At one point rain came so we had to find a plan B location. Good thing I spotted a laundry mat place so it was there were we finished her session.

Our goal as photographers is not only to capture great images that would look timeless, but it is also to make our models to feel like a million dollar!

Best of luck in your future Jaqueline!   

Senior - Megan Qualley

When I was approached by Megan to talk about her photos I knew it was going to be an interesting one for sure. She's a young and talented artist who also works the camera as well so she knew what she was looking for. She wanted her senior pictures to look like fine art photography, she also wanted to have her pictures taken in her hometown. She is a shy young lady so it was a little hard for her to believe in my vision, she was used to the idea of not looking good in pictures but like I told her, it was my job to make her look good! 

We started in an area where plenty of people have been photographed before, and her wish was to make it look like we were not there at all! We played with the foliage and some angles. Then we head around town looking for some interesting (sometimes ugly) spot where it was filled with different textures and nice contrast! Remember, we are taking portraits of her so I really needed something that would contrast her bright her and light skin. It was great to see her reaction looking at the raw files on camera while moving from locations mentioning how she would never expect the image to look the way it does on the place we took it. We went all over the place, from a calm green area to a more urbanistic, to finish on a field like a good Iowan :)

It was definitely a great learning experience for both! For her because her artistic box got open to new ideas and for me because it made me look for new ways to portrait old and repetitive areas into a new and interesting backgraounds. 

Best of luck in your bright future Megan! Thank you for trusting our vision and work.

Andres is 10

Growing up is part of life as humans! As parents, we don't want our kids to grow up not because we don't want them to be on their own, but more because we cannot be protecting them the entire time and it would hurt to see them suffering. "Enjoy your kids while it last" is something we hear a lot and it does not hit you hard until you can see it! We feel if it was yesterday when Andres arrived to our lives, and now he is a young gentleman. 

Andrés is protecting, loving, kind, smart, inquisitive and curious kid. We can see our influences in his life everyday which makes us feel good as parents. He is a child who cares for others, wants to play with everybody, loves playing video games, enjoys making people laugh and its always telling jokes! btw, one of his dreams is to become a famous YouTuber (yeah, after he's done with College), he likes sports, but what he loves the most is to exercise his brain, he absolutely loves reading- and has been working on the Harry Potter books for a while now. He wants to know about everything. How things are made and why, history, science, health, architecture, lost civilizations and any other thing that will catch his eyes.

He was so excited to finally be double digits! We know is just a significant change but in his eyes, this is something that needs to be recorded in time, which is why we decided to do a small session in his favorite place beside his room. During this time, he came up with ideas, places to shoot and books to hold! I mean, how awesome is that? He pretty much was in charge of this photo-shoot without knowing :)

We hope you enjoy the images the same way we did creating them!