Author Archives: Heidi

I’m a Los Angeles photographer. I love music, animals, babies and love. When I can combine my passion for photos with any of those things, I am a very happy girl.

Courtney Brandt: Author Photo

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Courtney Brandt is the author of a book for young adults called The Line. It’s about the lives of some high school kids who happen to be in the marching band. A self-professed “band geek,” Courtney aimed to give a voice to fellow band geeks of the world through these stories of young love, high school drama and marching band mayhem. The follow-up, A Fine Line, will be available next month.

Courtney decided that her current author photo didn’t feel natural enough and wanted a new one taken for use on future books and all promo materials. Though she currently lives in Dubai, we met up for a shoot while she was in L.A. visiting friends. She wanted some casual shots that looked like her and were less stuffy than the studio shot she used before. I think we succeeded. Naturally, Courtney gets final pick and I can’t wait to see the one she chooses! My faves are below.

If you were ever in marching band or just enjoy reading about teen melodrama as much as I do, check out The Line or A Fine Line!

I think this one is probably my favorite from the day:

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Ninah: Work and Play

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Yesterday I spent some time with my new friend Ninah at Lemon Creek Park in Diamond Bar. For the past couple of years, Ninah has been expressing interest in acting and being in commercials, so her grandma asked me to take a few headshots so that she could put together a portfolio for her. I was happy to oblige, but I already had it in my head that I wasn’t going to make an eight-year-old spend a couple of hours at a park without getting some play-time in, so we got to work right away with some headshots, with a plan of finishing our time together with some rowdy fun. Here are a few of my favorite headshots:

Ninah was kind enough to let me indulge my artistic side with this one:

After getting those out of the way, we let loose a little. Ninah was all business up until I said it was okay to fool around–an activity she obviously takes very seriously:

She even recruited her cousin, who was hanging out behind the scenes, for some piggy back action:

And, of course, we got some jumping and running in. Wouldn’t be a trip to the park without those two activities! Note the Camp Rock outfit, which Ninah picked out special for our shoot. Jonas Brothers reprezent! (She thinks Nick’s the hot one, in case you were wondering):

I had a superfun time hanging out with Ninah. With a face like that and personality to boot, I know she’ll go far.

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Free to Succeed

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Well, it’s August already. Our one-month wedding anniversary came and went and we are settling into married life quite nicely. The month ahead seems to be quite a relaxed one with only a few photo shoots sprinkled here and there, but come September it is GO, GO, GO all of the time. I honestly can’t wait.

Tomorrow is a shoot with a beautiful young girl who needs headshots for her commercial portfolio as well as some nice portraits just because. We’ll have a fun day.

Tonight I plan to fill my head with knowledge at the Free to Succeed seminar, hosted by wedding photographer extraordinaries David Jay and Jasmine Star. I know I will learn a lot today and plan to put their sage advice to use in order to make my own photography business better and more successful. I’m looking forward to benefiting from this myself so that my clients may benefit, as well.

All in all a jam-packed couple of days! I shall return with images from tomorrow’s shoot!

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Getting Back to Normal

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Well, despite my hopes and promises, I was not able to blog our honeymoon while in Sydney. Needless to say, I returned home with several hundred images to go through and edit and I have finally finished! We had an amazing time in Sydney despite two thins: Chris got a pretty nasty cold on day two of the trip, which kept us inside for a day and a half; and when we arrived we discovered that World Youth Day was being hosted in Sydney, which meant the city was full of the pope and 2,000 young Catholics. Now, I have nothing against Catholics or the pope, we just weren’t prepared for that kind of dynamic so it was a bit jarring at first. But, I have to admit they did make our trip more interesting. Everywhere we went there were huddled masses of twenty-somethings from all over the world singing, banging drums and dancing.

I’ve decided to post a few of my favorite images below. After the last image you will notice a link to a slide show of even more of my favorites. Another thing you’ll notice is that many, many, many of the photos include an animal of some kind. I’m not usually so inspired to take animal photos, but we saw a lot of them on our trip and they were all so adorable, I couldn’t resist!

Enjoy!



CLICK HERE TO SEE A SLIDE SHOW OF ALL OF MY FAVORITE IMAGES FROM OUR TRIP!

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Hello from Down Under!

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Well, we made it! It is currently 5:00 on a Sunday morning here in Sydney and Chris and I are wide awake and ready to go explore. Problem is, it’s still pitch black outside, so we’re trying to kill some time with bad Australian television and $25 per day Internet access. The cost of the latter activity means that I probably won’t be updating photos daily like I had originally planned, which is super disappointing.

So, if you don’t hear from me until our return, that will be why. I plan on taking a gazillion pictures so at the very least I’ll have tons to update with when we get back! For now, here is something I snapped with my point-and-shoot during our layover in Fiji yesterday.

G’day!

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On Honeymoon!

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Well, the big day I’ve been waiting for has come and gone. Chris and I were married on Friday, July 4th, and I am now Mrs. Heidi Ryder. I now get why they call it “wedded bliss,” because I couldn’t be happier!

Tonight we take off for our honeymoon to Australia so I won’t be posting any client photos, but I promise to post as many as I can of our trip over the course of the next week. I am so excited I could just squeee! SQUEEEEE!!

Please keep checking back here! I’ll also be available via email so don’t hesitate to contact me for booking and rate information–I’ll be itching to work when I get back!

xo,
Heidi Ryder

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Faiza: Portraits

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Faiza is another girl I worked with over at mystyle. When she saw the photos I had taken of Danielle and Davi, she decided she wanted some of her own. She didn’t have a business card in mind for hers, though–instead, Faiza just wanted some nice portraits of herself for no particular reason at all. I was more than happy to help her achieve this as I am a firm believer that everyone should have nice photos of themselves, if only because a photo shoot can make one feel super special and the end result is pretty nifty, too.

Faiza and I had fun hanging out in a park near work. It was a pretty hot day, but Faiza stayed cool as a cucumber.

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heather + che: engaged!

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Heather and I went to high school together but we hadn’t seen each other since graduation day. That was ten years ago and don’t even get me started on how freaked out I am about the fact that I am ten years out of high school. Most days I don’t feel a day over 19.

Anyway, Heather and I have been friends on MySpace for years now. She found out about this little photography business of mine through that grand social networking site and hired me for an engagement session with her fiancè, Che. Heather and Che have not yet formally announced their engagement–only their closest friends and family know. As I understand it, they will be using their favorite photos from this session to tell the world. How exciting! I am truly honored.

I got to spend several hours with the couple at the Montage Resort in Laguna Beach. Wow, is that ever a beautiful stretch of oceanside. If you ever get a chance to spend any time at that resort, do. You will not regret it. It was a picture-perfect day and we couldn’t have asked for better weather. Heather loves the beach so she was in heaven. Che, on the other hand, admitted that he’s not a fan of getting dirty so the beach isn’t exactly his cup of tea. You’ll notice he kept his shoes on the whole time, thankyouverymuch. He did not complain even once, though, which told me how much he loved Heather.

I had the best time on this shoot and am seriously in love with so many images, I wish I could post them all. I’m not even done going through them all, but I just had to post a few favorites…I couldn’t continue keeping them to myself!

Heather and Che, thank you for being such a fun couple to work with. I had a blast! Enjoy…

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Rama: Maternity

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I had the pleasure of meeting Rama and her husband, Ario, over the weekend. I met them at their home for a maternity photo shoot, and while I usually like to scout locations before I shoot there, I liked the idea of a maternity shoot taking place in the comfort of the parents-to-be own home. They had a beautifully-manicured backyard with beautiful foliage and flowers, which was a pleasant surprise.

As you can see in the photos, Rama was beautiful and absolutely glowing. Ario had me chuckling the entire time with his quips and sarcastic one-liners, which set the mood for the entire shoot. I know that when their son is born, he will be surrounded by love and laughter. Thanks to the happy couple for letting me into their lovely home to capture this very special time.

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Dahvi: Headshots

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Here’s another set of headshots from a girl I work with. I actually took Dahvi’s photo for the mystyle Test Drive section and she liked how the one turned out so much that she decided to hire me. That is always nice! I have at least two other headshot sessions confirmed, both of which spawned from Dahvi and Danielle’s shoot.

I’m so sorry about my lack of blogging lately. Four weeks until my wedding! So much to do! I’ve got two back-to-back shoots this weekend, though (engagement and baby bump), so I promise to blog those next week so y’all can see what I’ve been up to.

And, without further ado, here’s a few of the lovely Dahvi:

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