Armand Hekimian Photography Blog

About two weeks ago, we had the (almost) annual Legacy Shop Christmas Tree Lighting event. It was a perfect time here in Dallas to get out on closed streets and wander around with clowns and other animations waiting for Santa to light up our tree.

One of the animation we saw this year was just amazing, at least to me. It reconciled me with the art of dance! This is thanks to Prodigy Dance and Performing Art Center. They are very local to me, as they are based in Plano in the Legacy Shop area. The spectacle that their students put up that day was astonishing.

The whole background blurred way the moment the first dancer was hitting her first movement. Everyone went from a casual day to watching a full blown spectacle like in an auditorium. Chattering gave place to, first, curiosity and, then, admiration. I could not resist the envy of photographing their students. They were elegant but strong. They were controlling their movement but they had the insouciance of their youth. They have inspired me that day.

Here is a slide show I put together. It think it says it all.

Prodigy Slide Show

Here are a few other pictures of that day.

Little Chef'

Another Little Chef'

Gathering

The Nutcrackers

I felt honored when Maud asked to work again together to capture images of her son Skye, who has grown so unbelievably up since our last photo session only a few months ago. This time gain, we also took advantage of Skye sleep time to capture images of Maud and her companion Matt, indoor and outdoor.

I like the result very much. I can see in these photographs the emotion that characterize very much Maud, the cool personality of Matt and the energy and positive attitude of Skye. We have several pictures that really captured the love of the mother and the father for their children. And that is what I’m all about.

One side note. Along that bridge you see here below, we discovered we had some fan watching us during the photo shoot. We had the usual ducks, birds, squirrels, etc. but also a venomous snake. Very troublesome for such a public park we were in, should I add. Conclusion: watch it before you sit on it ;-0).

This was a good session. Thank you, Maud and the gang.

Well, that day, I think we got lucky. Skye was smiling and smiling and smiling. What a pleasure, I have to say. We worked several hours with Skye and his parents without a hitch. No fussiness, no nothing: jut amusement. We have created great photographs. Here they are.

Dear angel Skye...

An angel in a safe place...

Fly, Oh!, Fly

Here we are, a few weeks after the birth of our second daughter. I had a harder time to capture her portrait as she cried a bit for the past few weeks. But with patience, I captured a few moments.

First bath in her home

Listening to conversations around her

Sleeping angel

Like in a painting

Sharing love

Mum's warmth

Happy feet...

Asleep...

Waking up.

I had to do it. We just had our new baby born a few weeks ago. Things calmed down a bit for now, the right time to show some photographs I took at the hospital.

Still in mum's belly

Baby's heart beating at 152 bps

Mum is asleep

A few minutes old

Now, a few hours old

Happy baby makes happy parents

First sleep outside mum's womb

First contact...

How not to fall in love, all over again?

I had a good time there. CANON came in town to provide us with training on their 580EX flashes. By the same time, I tested the 85mm f1.2 and 100 f2.8 lenses. They are fantastic. My main lens that day was however the 70-200 f2.8 IS. Stunning lens.

Anyhow, we had three models working for us, one male and two females. I had my preferred one as you will see in this post but all of them were great. Even though it was not setup to talk to the model and get them to know me, they are pro’ model and as such they needed less direction to reach somewhat natural result. Unfortunately, the training was first a CANON photo shoot and not a model photo shoot. I have no name or e-mail address to reach those models ever again or  to give them their pictures. I just know that my preferred model liked my work that day when she saw an 11×14″ enlargement.

Let’s not wait. Here are a few prints that are decent enough to show up on my blog.

The model of the day