My Love and Me

Some holga film from Mike and my hot date this past summer.  finally have it processed and scanned.  its beautiful.

please enjoy.

love.

all images are ©kirsten tornes photography.  please don't steal.

Gretchen Kindred

So.  It's been forever since I have updated the world on the goings on of Kirsten Tornes Photography.  Rapid City has been a very interesting place for me to work, full of challenges and new concepts.  Being an artist in such a small city with such a nonexistent art population is definitely something to adjust to.

Thanks to a lot of wonderful connections, I have been hired by Midwest Marketing, a company in Rapid that is very involved and highly active.  They have hired me a few times now to do commercial work for some of their clients.  The most recent project has been for a country club in town called Arrowhead.  I worked closely with Midwest Marketing's videographer, Jon, to cover different aspects of Arrowhead county club in video and still which is being used in advertisements and commercials.  The first ad was in the paper today!

In other news, I took pictures for Cassie & Dustin Kindred of their little girl Gretchen for her first birthday.  We did the shoot at Canyon Lake Park.  Here are a few of my favorites!

I'm really happy with how these pictures are turning out, especially since it had been so long since I shot portraiture and it was my first attempt with a child.  Things are definitely going well and I've been picking up my camera a lot more lately than I have been in the past few months.  Very soon I'll be taking post-wedding engagement pictures for my friend Nicole and her husband.  They never had the chance to get them done before the wedding in June.  I'm really excited for that, they are an awesome couple.  

All Images are © Kirsten Tornes Photography 2010.

Please Don't Steal.

kicking & screaming

becoming a local in rapid city has been a challenge.  i have had trouble finding my place here, finding a niche to fit into.  socially and creatively.

i met a local photographer, angela, for a glass of wine a couple weeks ago, and it was really nice to have time with another artistic person living and working in rapid.  we talked for a couple hours and she even referenced a bride to me this week.  that relationship has been a real blessing so far, but in terms of my own work and pursuit of my own business i have been a little uninspired here.

frustrated and confused i have been talking to mike about it quite a bit.  i am a photographer, and i know that i love taking pictures of the people around me and life that is happening all around, but for some reason i have been giving myself a hard time, thinking that if i am going to take pictures they better be REALLY good because i'm graduated now and should be much better than in my former days in school.

i know this isn't true and mike reminded me that i just needed to start photographing again and i would realize my comfort and love for the art.  so, kicking and screaming, he made me bring my camera out to take some pictures of him at the park.

thank you, mike, for reminding me of my love for this and offering your handsome face for my practice.

Also, i need to give a shout out to the girls of the Secondhand Happenings for the wonderful headband they gave me in the raffle back in may.  i LOVE it!!!!!

Finally.  A couple weeks ago mike and I decided to do some garage sale-ing.  among many wonderful finds is an old fashioned typewriter.  and it WORKS!!!!  my writer boyfriend is absolutely loving it, writing letter back home to friends in indiana.  i myself enjoyed taking a few pictures of it.

I miss these girls!!!

So this has been a long-awaited update.  I know, its been bad lately.  After moving to South Dakota, my life is a constant catch-up game, and I finally won with these pictures.

I am really comfortable here, but I miss my friends from Indiana the most, it's hard to live so close to these beautiful people and then be over a thousand miles away so suddenly.  Adjusting is hard.  But it has really been so good.

Mike and I have done a lot of great exploring.  We went to the Badlands on monday and let me tell you, they are incredible.  Pictures to come for that, too.

So these girls were my closest roommates maybe ever in college.  I miss them everyday.  Morgan and Andrea are both artists too, so we spend all year speaking the same language and finding out how we were different even in our similarities.

Even editing through these pictures made my heart hurt.

Also, I'm obviously in some of them, and photo creds for those go to Taylor Shanks.  Thanks girl!!!!

Without further adieu....

So beautiful right??

Here's a preview from the Badlands!!!

All images are © Kirsten Tornes Photography 2010