Ryan Estes Photography | Philadelphia, Main Line, Lancaster and Harrisburg Family, Newborn, Child, and Senior Portraits

philadelphia infant photography | baby jack

ryanestes — Fri, 17 Feb 2012 19:49:12 +0000

This is Jack.

He lives with his parents in a great part of Philly. Their house has a ton of great light and texture, and we made the most of it at his newborn shoot a few weeks ago. Jack was about 9 days old when we shot these. What else can I say? He took a darn good picture!

Jack’s turning into a pretty great air guitarist…

Looking forward to your 4-month shoot, Jack!

eight days in uganda

ryanestes — Tue, 14 Feb 2012 19:39:24 +0000

I’ve been waiting to post these images for about 4 weeks now. In January, I traveled with a good friend of mine, Cliff, and my uncle, Merle, to Uganda. It was a quick trip (just 8 days in country) which seemed too short, but the three of us all left families and businesses behind, so we had to squeeze a lot into our time. We were sent from our church to spend some time with this man, George, who I’m proud to call my friend. George oversees about 65 churches in Uganda. We were meeting with him to get a better sense of what he’s doing there, what his vision and needs are, and to see if there are ways that our church in Pennsylvania might be able to work with him.

We quickly saw that Africa is beautiful. We started off visiting Good Shepherd’s Fold, an orphanage in Jinja, where Merle’s daughter spent a few months working last year.

Many images that come out of Africa show extreme poverty. And while Uganda certainly has a lot poverty, it wasn’t my goal to come away just with pictures showing desperation. Yes, it’s there… but there’s also an incredible amount of hope. God is doing some amazing things, and I tried to capture some of the hope as well.

Mzungus (white people) can draw a crowd, especially among kids.

I did get a chance to take a few portraits while I was there. Love these.

Of course, poverty is very real.

And as George tries to help his people physically as well as spiritually, we helped get together a micro finance seminar for some of his pastors and leaders. Sarah, the trainer, is Ugandan, and is certified through the Chalmers Center for Economic Development, an organization that has a very well-thought-out strategy for poverty alleviation. If anyone’s interested in this sort of thing, I highly recommend the book When Helping Hurts by Steve Corbett and Brian Fikkert. The basic gist: poverty is rooted in broken relationships, and simply throwing money at a problem without addressing that underlying cause won’t have long-term effectiveness. The seminar went very well, and it will be exciting to see what comes next.

We spent some time visiting some of the churches George oversees. What a great experience. Some of my favorite moments — and pictures — came from this portion of the trip.

Probably my favorite picture of the trip:

The rest are just some scenes from Uganda that caught my eye.

One day, I hope to be back.

philadelphia family and child portraits | the jones family

ryanestes — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:54:29 +0000

I love these pictures of the Joneses in Philadelphia… I’ve photographed some of them before but this was the first time we got the whole family in some pictures. We met up one chilly, overcast fall morning. The kids were great: easy smiles and mischievous grins, clearly enjoying life with mom and dad.

On a technical note, on this particular morning the sun was nowhere to be found. It was actually fairly dark, and while I do love using natural light whenever I can, sometimes you have to be ready to use a flash, otherwise the images can end up flat and people have raccoon eyes, full of shadows. Thankfully I always have portable gear in my trunk, and we made our own light!

new hope kids in the rain | j + t

ryanestes — Mon, 30 Jan 2012 16:04:28 +0000

Sure, it’s easier to wait for a sunny day for portraits. Does that mean you should always do it? No way… J & T’s mother wanted some portraits of her boys, and it just so happened that due to scheduling, we could either choose to shoot on Tuesday (when it was wet), or wait until Saturday (when it was going to be cold). We chose wet, and got great stuff.

We decided to start the shoot in New Hope, and work our way across the bridge into Lambertville, NJ. J & T have a ton of energy and personality, which always makes for fun pictures!

kids day out

ryanestes — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 18:16:51 +0000

In November I shot these portraits of “E” on a warm Thursday. She’s got these beautiful eyes that you can’t help but love…

Because “E” and her parents are good friends of ours, I also brought Kelly and my girls, as well as their cousins and Aunt Abby, for a few photos as well. (Nope, this isn’t something I generally do on portrait shoots!)

Pretty typical of our youngest.

This photo below on the right is pretty honest about what life in our house is like…

And of course, by the end, V was getting pretty tired of having her picture taken…

hunter’s senior portraits

ryanestes — Wed, 25 Jan 2012 15:12:51 +0000

Hunter chose the city of Reading to give his senior portraits an urban vibe. You can see more pictures here…

home again

ryanestes — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 11:53:05 +0000

10 days later and I find myself back from Africa. I had traveled with 2 other men from my church to explore ways we might work with some Ugandan churches in meeting some of the needs there, and after nearly 32 straight hours of travel, it was wonderful to see my family again yesterday. Now I’m hitting the ground running once again, and if you’re waiting for a reply to an email or voicemail, it will be coming in the next day or so.

The trip was incredibly good, and I believe what we gathered will be very useful. I’ve hardly even begun to process the experience in my head, and I have a feeling it will be some time before I’m able to truly sum it up. For now, it’s enough to call it a story of redemption, not despair. That’s about as poetic as I’ll get in my current jet-lagged state.

I brought back many, many images, though I haven’t looked through all of them yet. As time goes on, I will be sure to share more of them with you, although I believe it may be a while before I’m able to. This is simply one that I liked visually. I am looking forward to telling some of the stories that go along with the rest.

away for a bit

ryanestes — Fri, 06 Jan 2012 19:19:12 +0000

I’m headed out of the office for a few days, and will be spending the time in Uganda. It’s definitely not for vacation, but it will certainly be a change of scenery for me and I hope to come home with some great images that I look forward to sharing at some point. At any rate, I will be out of the reach of phone and email until returning to the office sometime around January 18, and I’ll be returning emails and calls at that point. Happy New Year!

baby “b” | doylestown newborn photography

ryanestes — Fri, 30 Dec 2011 21:37:19 +0000

You may remember Zach & Laura from their wedding a year or two ago… I love celebrating with my wedding couples when they welcome a new family member. Little man “B” was born a few weeks before Christmas, and we spent some time taking these pictures shortly after…

main line children’s portraits | the “m” kids

ryanestes — Wed, 28 Dec 2011 16:44:29 +0000

Here are a few favorites from a shoot I did a while back. Even though it was late autumn, sometimes we get lucky with a lot of sunshine and warmer weather… these fun, energetic kids took full advantage of the day and had a great time running around. All I did was keep up. :)