Today I am featuring my friend Niki Strbian of Niki Strbian Valokuvaus, in Finland!

Check out her work here:

Website
Blog
Facebook

10 Questions
About the image…
1. Why do you love this image?
Because it was created in an instant, because it tells about my love for hats and accessories and because it shows how photography enriched my life in so many ways. Not only I get to meet so many great people, not only families share their love for each other in front of me (even in such reserved country as Finland). On top of that photography taught me that there is nothing like bad weather. I used to be a sunshine junkie, but now I know that every minute of every day, independent of the weather conditions, there is something worth capturing out there. So I better get my butt out and capture it.

2. What were your settings with this image?
ISO 800, f/2,2, 1/2500 shot with 50/1.4

About Photography…

3. Why did you start in photography?
I wanted to have good photos of my daughter. And look where I ended. While I take good portraits of many people every week, my kids just don’t pose. I am lucky to have one photo of them every 3 months!

4. What type of sessions do you find the most challenging?
Babies 1-4 months of age. They don’t sit, they don’t sleep, they are so round! I see only limited amount of ways how to pose such a baby on different blankets

5. What is the one thing that you tell every client?
Together we are going to create art that you are going to love forever.

About Your Life…

6. Who or what inspires you?
I am inspired by my clients’ homes, hobbies and life styles. I am inspired a lot by fairy tales and movies and very much by my fellow photographers.

7. What 3 word describe you?
determined, smiling, energetic

8. If you could live anywhere for a year, where would that be?
Tuscany, Italy. We go there every summer, but I would love to see all seasons.

9. What is the best purchase that you have made this year?
Shoes from Zara. Love them! They look like the warmest shoes in the world, yet they are really just office shoes and you freeze your toes if it gets cold outside. LOL

10. Did you go to college? What was your major?
Yes. I am a logistics engineer.

Come back next week as I put the spotlight on Rachel Aberle of arna photography in Green Bay, Wisconsin

Today’s photographer spotlight is on Emily Southerland of Emily Southerland Photography in St. Louis, Missouri!

You can visit her on the web here at http://www.emilysoutherland.com/, or visit her blog, and her facebook page.

10 Questions
About the image…
1. Why do you love this image?
I love this image because it just makes everyone smile. How can it not? I loved the mama’s “outie” belly button and HAD to try this shot, adapted from a Tara Whitney idea but with my mustache twist.

2. What were your settings with this image?
ISO 500
SS 1/200
aperture 3.2
lens: 24-70L
natural light

About Photography…
3. What do you love about Photography?
I love catching perfect moments in crisp, beautiful color/black and white. I love seeing personality in my subject’s eyes. I love being able to preserve the RIGHT NOW for myself– a big sappy sentamentalist!– and to be able to do that for others as well.

4. What type of Photography do you specialize in and why?
I specialize in portraits of babies, kiddos, and teens… With family moments thrown in. I do love photographing couples in love, but most of my work leans towards the younger set. I particularly adore babies and high school seniors. I find myself drawn to this instead of weddings/landscape/macro because I love the spontanaeity you get when you can arrange the best times and places for photographs. I love that I can get most any subject to let loose and really become themselves in front of the camera. And I love the intimacy of working with people, but in small numbers.

About your life. . .
5. What are your favorite hobbies and pastimes?
I LOVE baking– particularly cupcakes. And I have discovered a passion for sewing that has taken over my imagination completely. I’m an artist at heart, and love love love creating something out of nothing. Fabric just happens to be my medium of choice these days. As for pastimes, I love going to movies, eating amazing food, exploring markets fairs and festivals, road-tripping, and playing board games with family and friends.

6. Who or what inspires you?
I am inspired by wildly creative people, most of whom I find online these days. Etsy artists, other photographers, designers… I am in awe of the original ideas out there that still exist. How do they come UP with that stuff???
I am also inspired by vintage, boho, gypsy, Anthropologie, my nostalgia for my own past, and my mother.

7. Who are some of your favorite singers/bands?
I am currently loving Regina Spektor and Ingrid Michaleson, but also adore folk/bluegrass singers like Allison Krauss and the Wailin’ Jennys, etc. I prefer ballads to fast songs, and mellow to hard.

8. Do you have any personal projects?
Indulging my own creative projects has been my creative lifeblood these last weeks of winter. So far, I’ve taken a belly photo for each week of my third trimester (you can find them here), made an elaborate set of snowflakes and hearts for Valentine photos of my son (found here), and done a LOT of sewing and crafting. having personal projects keeps my creative well full and I LOVE doing them!

9. What would your ideal day be like?
Wow— this will be fun! My ideal day would begin in a breezy apartment in Rome, Italy, waking slowly to the sounds of the city outside my open windows. My hubby would be with me, and my kiddos asleep in another room. After a leisurely breakfast on a balcony/patio, we’d head out to explore the city with a stroller, good shoes, and some spending money. I’d also have my camera and journal in my bag, so that if the whim stuck me, I could stop and capture some of our day on paper or in photographs. We’d enjoy a mild, sunny day in piazzas, getting food from street vendors, sitting by a fountain to drink Orangina while the kids splash their hands in the water. We might check out some outdoor markets, watch painters doing their thing… take the kids to an outdoor puppet show…When we get a bit worn out, we’d head back to our apartment and everyone would get a nap, me included… I’d read a great book to fall asleep, and the open windows would waft city sounds to us as we dozed. In the late afternoon, when everyone woke, my sister would come and make us an amazing dinner from fresh marketplace ingredients, then stick around to babysit while Joe and I headed out to have a date together– perhaps some cinema, maybe some outdoor musicians, or just a stroll to get gelato and enjoy the night. The day would end with some romance *wink* and since my man goes to sleep before me, I’d then burn the late night hours away doing something creative, just for me, be it a sewing project, some painting, some altered art… Something. And I’d fall into bed exhausted, but completely content. Mm!

10. If you weren’t a photographer, what other profession would you like to pursue?
I used to be a high school teacher… And while I am not missing that specific job, I think I’d still love teaching in some capacity— even if it was just an evening community college class in writing or art or photography. I’d also LOVE to be a life coach!! Weird, I know… but I’d LOVE that. Or a movie or food critic… Lots of things sound amazing to me! Mostly, though, I love being an artist and a mama, so I am content.

Come back next week as I put the spotlight on Niki Strbian of Niki Strbian Valokuvaus!