Photography Session with Kansas Pitts
It’s not often, well or ever..that I share any type of personal posts within my website, or social media. But, I HAD to share a few of these images from our photography session with Kansas Pitts of Kansas Pitts Photography.
Back in October my hubby and I decided it would be awesome to take a trip with our kiddos somewhere. After the long, frigid cold winters here in Milwaukee Wisconsin, we knew we were going to be in need of a hot beach to defrost. It had been a while since taking our last vacation. Our son who was only 4 at the time of our last trip, is now 9! It had been way to long since the last time we got to explore outside of the state of Wisconsin. My husband, kids and I usually take small trips or weekend getaways to Northern Wisconsin. My parents have a cabin up north, so it’s easy and with little kids a lot less stressful than full blown road trips. But THIS TIME…we wanted the beach!
The Beach
Ever since I was a little kid I’ve had a love of the beach. My Dad jokes around because I always wanted to pack my swim suit when we would go up to the cabin in the middle of winter. When we did go during the summer months, I wanted to spend the whole time playing in the sand and the sun. I was pretty lucky that my parents would let me bring back buckets of sand to the cabin to play with.
As an adult, I can’t imagine not living near a large body of water. Although Lake Michigan here in Milwaukee isn’t anywhere near the same as the Gulf Coast. I’m glad my hubby was in the U. S. Navy and not any other branch of the military. We had the opportunity to live in San Diego and explore the West Coast. The beaches off California are stunning. If we had been stationed within the middle of the country and been land locked it would have been a huge bummer due to my love of the water.
After researching more and more about Florida’s beaches and more specifically the Gulf of Mexico we decided to take a road trip south. The gorgeous photos online of the sugar white sands and crystal clear, teal waters was exactly what we wanted. While making plans and booking our stay I told my husband…if were are going to the Gulf of Mexico and Destin area we HAVE to book photography session with Kansas Pitts.
Kansas Pitts
I’ve been following Kansas’ work online for years, here is a link to her facebook page. I absolutely fell in LOVE with her use of the Fisheye lens, along with her dramatic sunset skies. Kansas revolutionized the fisheye lens for portraits.
As many photographers know the “ideal” portrait lens is not wide angle due to the amount it can distort your subject. Although there are many rules within photography on what you SHOULD and SHOULDN’T do, lets face it…rules should be broken!
I tried explaining how amazing Kansas’ work is to my husband while booking our trip. I told him she’s hands down one of the best beach photographers, and that she has total celebrity status within the photography world. Just to prove him wrong on what his thoughts were I said “GOOGLE IT!” After he googled Kansas Pitts, he realized she was actually ranked as one of the best beach photographers in the WORLD. To make a long story short, I ended up booking our session with Kansas. 🙂 At this point, I wasn’t sure if I was more excited for the vacation itself of the photo session haha.
We made the 16 hour road trip to the Emerald Coast of Florida, and were in awe of the gorgeous sand and surf. The sand was SO white, and fine it literally would squeak when we would walk on it. I noticed even the first night of our trip that the stunning golden sunsets would just reflect off of the pure white sand and turn it a shade of golden peachy pink.
Our Session
When the evening came for our session we had the most perfect weather! I was so nervous it would rain, or we would end up having to reschedule. We met Kansas on a beautiful beach, which was fairly private in comparison to the Destin beaches that had tons of people at any given time. It was SO fun meeting her in person, and getting to work with her. She was great with our kiddos especially because our youngest wasn’t to thrilled about the ocean. Kansas did a lot of candid photos as well as a few posed.
Kansas was SO quick about editing our session that she invited us to her amazing studio to view our gallery. As you can imagine I was SO excited to go check out her fabulous studio space and see what it looked like in person. Her studio was filled with giant metal prints (my favorite product that I also offer to my clients!), and so many fun props and outfits for her clients. I was like a kid in a candy shop. Of course my husband and kids didn’t share in the excitement that I did, but that’s okay! They weren’t going to ruin my fun haha.
After checking out our gallery we narrowed down the gorgeous sunset images. It was a really hard decision for us, but Kansas was so helpful with our choices. Being excited was an understatement, and her kindness of the entire experience seriously made my day and vacation! I couldn’t thank her enough for all the memories she captured of our trip. I hope to work with her in the future. Not only by having our family photos taken, but possibly even attending one of her amazing photography workshops. Below are just a few of our images from our session with her! For more of her amazing work here are the links to her website, and facebook pages!
