Kate’s back – and bigger than ever.

Lest she be tempted to pursue other endeavors, her last pattern the Highland Parkway Sweater, was a smashing success. You can check out the entire collection by clicking here.

This time around she recruited Elanor, a local high school student who rocked the sweater.  It’s easy to think modeling is just standing there, but I assure you it’s not!  She endured many clothing changes, sweater adjustments and unclear instructions. Thanks for your time, talent and patience Elanor!

I know absolutely nothing about knitting but I’ll make an educated guess that Kate’s success is found in the details of her patterns. They have an artist’s subtlety about them.

Kate didn’t really want a camera pointed at her, but here’s the woman behind the curtain. The yarn company she’s been working with requested a headshot. She was wearing shorts. I love photography.

Patricia also joined us again with her beautiful smile and thought provoking conversation. We thought this image looked like she was saying goodbye to a sailor.

Thanks so much for the lovely afternoon Kate. It’s always a joy to see you, and especially to see your work in motion. I look forward to your future projects!!!

When I first worked with Kate on Black Bird Knits, we had multiple models and locations and people in an excited kind of chaos. As time has gone on we’ve settled into a rhythm, and this time it was just Kate, Keiko and I rocking it out on East Ave in a quiet, low key, talk about life while you’re taking photos of textile art kind of situation.

Keiko says she doesn’t know what she’s doing but somehow manages to do it beautifully anyway.

The process of creating a knitting pattern is time intensive and expensive.  First Kate sketches the ideas, then writes out the pattern, then hires a professional knitter to knit the sweater in order to test the pattern, and then has a photo session to create images for the website.

Many people don’t understand that feeling uncomfortable while looking like you’ve never been happier in your life is a definite skill. One which many of us, myself included, don’t have. This doesn’t mean you won’t photograph well anyway, it just means you’re normal.  

Kate has many friends with cool houses and this house is a mansion on East Ave with espaliered apple trees and a slate swimming pool. Inside it’s been maintained like the Taj Mahal with its original wooden paneling, stained glass windows and wrought iron accents.

As always Kate and Keiko it was a pleasure to spend the morning with you. Thank you sharing this amazing project with me!

As Kate developed her knitting patterns company, Black Bird Knits, it was important to her that the models be “real.”  She didn’t want the images to be photoshopped past the point of believability and she wanted her knitters to see themselves in the images.

Patricia first supported Black Bird Knits as a host when she offered her house for the first photo shoot, then she was a model for another session.  This time she reappeared as a model so that Kate could have images both of someone young and beautiful as well as someone equally beautiful but who has clocked a little more mileage.

Patricia is clearly a friend that Kate is lucky to have in her back pocket because being a model does not top her list of favorite activities, yet here she was.

During this session we were aiming for simpler backgrounds to bring attention to Kate’s beautiful textile work. She’s looking forward to having this piece featured soon on Shibui Knits where she has been previously featured.

Patricia is a globetrotter and a very proud grandma.

To purchase these and other patterns, click here.

Wow.

I’m a huge fan of hers as well.  I almost want to take up knitting.  But then I remember how many kids I have.

I met Megan a few years ago through a remarkable woman who transcends a title like friend or client, and had the privilege of photographing her senior portraits. She agreed to model for us, making us all wish we were 18 again.  She was also a great sport about wearing other people’s shoes and shirts and sporting wool on a 90 degree day (without looking overheated).  Modeling is not easy!

Kate is adding this shawl and cowl to her Black Bird Knits collection. The patterns are available for purchase by clicking here.

It turns out that shawls are kind of challenging to photograph because of the way that they hang. It was easy to lose hands and a sense of shape.

The cowl was much, much easier.

Thank you so much Megan for being such a joy to work with, and a huge shout out to Kate, as always, for her artistic vision and for being an all around fantastic person. I’m already looking forward to the next time we get to hang out!

For the first session we went to Patricia’s house where she quipped about pepto bismol walls in one room. She loves to travel and her house was decorated with artwork from all over the world. For this session, she was a model herself at a mansion on East Ave.

Keiko was also a model at Patricia’s house, and made another appearance for this session.

What you can’t see in this image is that Keiko’s younger daughter was most unhappy that her mom was not giving her undivided attention. A lollipop reversed that trend a few minutes later.

You can see these images and purchase the patterns at Black Bird Knits.

Kate also wanted to redo her portrait.

If you’d like to learn more about Kate and read one of the most creative bios I’ve ever read in my life, click here.

Thanks so much Kate – it’s always a joy to work with you!

You can imagine that choosing a location is a huge part of location photography.  Kate happens to be friends with every artist in the Greater Rochester Area and asked her friend Lynne Feldman if we could use her apartment.  Lynne is an accomplished artist whose apartment was an art gallery – both of her own work and of various artwork from her travels all over the world.  I was captivated by the colors and vibrancy of her work.

Vera is modeling Black Bird Knit’s Girton Place Baby/Toddler Sweater.

In this image, she’s modeling the Vick Park Baby/Toddler Vest.

I have a bit of a negative association with hand knitted clothing, but Kate’s clothing was truly artwork.  I’m not sure I’ve seen work like this out of a national store.  While she doesn’t plan to sell the finished product, she can connect you with people who will knit items for you.  Just contact her to learn more!

If you’d like to see more child portrait photography, you can subscribe to the blog via the link in the bottom right hand corner.

Kate hired the high powered women at Flight 9 Creative to build an elegant website which has one of the best bios I have ever read in my life.   Even if you don’t knit, it’s worth the visit.

As for the behind the scenes planning, one of the first mountains to climb is choosing a location.  This is a road less traveled, but if your house isn’t exactly what you want, then arranging to use a friend’s house is an excellent option.  Kate has her life chock full of artist friends who bind their own books, paint canvases bigger than me, and collect African art from their travels all over the world.  If you ever have a chance to get to know Kate a little, I’d highly recommend it.

Kate arranged to use three different friend’s houses over three separate sessions, then we went to her home and added a few images from there as well.  We had a wide variety of models who smiled through their scarf wearing despite the summer heat as we tried to keep the images looking at a least a little wintry.

Over the course of this week I’ll be rolling out some of the models’ favorite images for you to enjoy, stay tuned!  In the mean time, click over to Black Bird Knits to purchase knitting patterns.