These two brothers work for the county sheriff’s department and wanted to get some photographs made for their parents’ upcoming anniversary. Well done, men.

My friend Randy Storm manages the bookstore at Lincoln Christian College and Seminary.  Here’s a portrait we made of him recently.

Deanne Mott (whom I recently interviewed) directs the Logan County Fair Pageant and asked me to make the headshots of the contestants. Here, then, are the five ladies who will be competing for this years’ honors at the Fair on July 29. I was surprised and pleased to learn that Jairris–whose senior photos I made last fall–was one of the contestants.

I’m working on a podcasting project for my employer and made these portraits of my colleague, J.K. Jones, to accompany the podcast posts.  J.K. was the first interview subject and not only takes a good photo but gives a great interview as well.  Thanks, J.K.

Easter is coming and Lincoln Christian Church wanted to do something different to publicize their services that day.  The church administrator contacted me and said they wanted to have a photo of a woman on the telephone with a surprised look on her face.  The photo would be used on a billboard with the caption, "Shock Your Mama"–the idea being that you could surprise your mom by attending church on Easter.

My model, Julie, attends the church.  She was a great choice for the session because she loves acting and can truly "ham it up" when called upon.  Below are just a few of the shots we made:

Here’s the image that was selected for the billboard:

And here’s a shot of the billboard with the photo as it was actually used:

UPDATE: Proofs are now online–click here.

My friend and former student Rachel Zamrazil cuts my hair.  We’ve talked about doing a project together for several months: making some photographs of Rachel and her clients to hang in her shop.  I was in for my semi-monthly haircut (too infrequent, I know) two weeks ago and suggested to Rachel that we make some photos of Rachel and her two colleagues, Krystle and Jessica, as well.   So I spent part of an afternoon last week at Rachel’s shop making photographs.

Here’s the proud owner of the shop, Rachel Zamrazil:

Krystle has been friends with Rachel for several years.  Krystle works at the shop as an esthetician.

Jessica has been working with Rachel for several months now and cuts hair as well.

To help get themselves and their clients through the long Illinois winter, Rachel had a beach scene set up in one of the rooms of the shop.  It was taken down by the next day but preserved thanks to the magic of photography and the Internet.

I’ll have more news about developments with Michael Gowin Photography and Zamrazil Studio soon…

My wife Suzanne has been part of a group of girlfriends for 10+ years. In that time, they’ve come to call themselves simply, “The Ladies.” Earlier this week I suggested to Suz that we do a photo shoot–everyone would dress in blue jeans, white shirts, and black leather jackets. I told her we’d make them look like rock stars. Suz sold the idea to the girls and we met downtown for an hour on Thursday night. The results were fantastic!

My wife’s mother is visiting us this week to see the kids as well as her daughter perform in My Fair Lady (see below). I took the opportunity to make a portrait of the two ladies together.

Here are a few frames from another recent autumn session at the local park.