Santiago | Kyle Hepp

October 2, 2011

Suuuuuper excited to post this session! And also suuuuuuper excited to shoot this gorgeous couple again on Thursday!!! Their actual wedding is this Saturday. At the time we were booked, but Ani and Suraj hired us to shoot their Mehndi ceremony on Thursday. Neither Seba or I have ever been to an Indian wedding, much less an Indian-Chilean wedding. And much much less the Indian-Chilean wedding of a fun, cool couple like them. So yeah. PUMPED!!! I’ll write more then, but for now, I’m off to bed! It’s been a long (good and productive) day.

Ps. Sorry for the short posts lately. The season has just begun and I’m swamped already!

PPS. Tomorrow I’ll announce which photos will be printed and you will be able to comment to receive a postcard if you want! So that means still one more to to vote if you haven’t yet done so. Round 1 here. Round 2 here. Round 3 here.

14 Comments

September 11, 2011

Adam likes awkward moments in elevators. I LOVE awkward moments in elevators. Val is forging her own path in a new country, enjoying the challenge. Me too.

Val and Adam are mega-smart…waaaaaay smarter than us — doctor + lawyer as opposed to…photographer + photographer But aside from that minor detail, we have a lot in common.

And our session this weekend was SO fun. Meeting new people is by far my favorite part of this job. We are incredibly lucky that only cool people book us. I know that sounds like an exaggeration, but it’s really not. I feel like my webmaster Jennette must have put up a subliminal message somewhere on this website that says, “If you are not awesome, do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars, do not hire Kyle and Seba. Go directly to jail.”

Val and Adam did not go to my metaphorical website jail. They hired us for their wedding in Feb and I’m pumped because I feel like aside from shooting them we also made two new friends. They are such interesting people to talk to, they’re both engaging and happy. They’re funny, they love each other , they have strong opinions. They’re the exactly the kind of people that I’d hang out with even if I wasn’t photographing them. Heart.

PS. Gorgeous makeup by Rodrigo Farah. Boss. He has such a gift for making sure people look like the best version of themselves.

Favorite of the day. Super duper extra LOVE.

Val is so pretty.

Kind of digging this next shot too. Big time.

CUECA! I love Chile around dieciocho time.

28 Comments

March 9, 2011

This session I shot FOR ME. Just saying those words out loud feels blasphemous! I can’t remember the last time I took pictures for the sole purpose of making the images that live in my head become real. Don’t get me wrong, I love shooting wedding photos for clients and I love shooting travel pictures for the blog. I push myself to try and do creative things that still fall within the realm of expectations. I push myself to exceed expectations. I push myself to try and make people look more beautiful than they ever imagined they really are.

But I wanted to be able to take photos and not worry about whether or not they’re flattering to the people in them. I wanted to shoot and not worry about getting a good amount of close ups and a good amount of panoramas. I wanted to take pictures where you can’t see their heads and where I chop off important body parts in the way I crop the photo that makes other people say, “That’s weird,” and that makes me say, “BUT I LOVE IT.”

All I really wanted was to take pictures that leave you wanting more. That leave me wanting more. We’re smack dab in the middle of high season and we haven’t had a weekend day off probably since December (and even then it was only because I put my foot down and said “No, we will not do a photo shoot on Christmas Day.” Even when we were in Patagonia we were still taking photos for the hotel. And then our session for last Sunday had to be rescheduled for another day. And I decided that I’d rather shoot for me than take a day off. I didn’t even bother asking Seba because I know his response would be to ask if we couldn’t pretty pretty please go to an asado (grill-out) with his friends and then take a nap?

It turned out to be the right decision. I feel creatively recharged. I want to take more photos like this. Photos that I love. Photos that are just for me. But that maybe someone else will happen to love too.

I started with the idea that I wanted to tell a story — a couple who arrived at the beach and were there having a good time.

But as it turns out, when I’m totally set free, I tend to lean towards the more abstract.

Love, love, LOVE these next two shots.

I wanted to play around with some superoverexposed photos to try and get them to feel less…direct. I don’t really know how to explain myself but I like when I look at a picture and it’s not immediately obvious what it is. Photos that make me keep looking for more are the kind that I like.

With the white sky and the people coming out of nowhere they sort of remind of Max Wanger. I’m not comparing myself at all. He’s the master of that style.

The photo below grabs me. I don’t know why, but I keep coming back to it.

Haha, poor Yan. First, in the photo above where he and Karla are jumping, I told him I wanted him sideways, so he had to kind of jump and then fall into the sand. Then later, I was looking at my notes and he was all suspicious, like, “Wait a minute. What does that say?” As it turns out my notes said, “Yan: sand on face.”

The moral of the story here is that he and Karla are the best. models. ever.