POST

Intergalactic

Wednesday November 16th, 2011

Ken and April of Kinzie+Riehm have been working together as a team since photo school. After pairing up for a couple of projects in school, they knew they wanted to continue working together. They knew that their collaborations created something intriguing and unique. Once out of school, their first clients were kid oriented companies—clothing, catalogs, textbooks, etc—and they found they simply loved working with young subjects. According to them,”kids are great to work with. They’re open and up front with their emotions and they’re full of great ideas.” So from there, their fate was sealed and they began working almost exclusively as kids photographers.

Now, with many years, shoots, and a couple kids of their own under their belts, Kinzie+Riehm has extensive list of clients and distinctive style. It was their style that caught the eye of La Petite Magazine, an imaginative online publication known for it’s whimsical photo essays and for curating great photography. La Petite strives to develop unique experiences with each issue and to create inspiration for all things children.

La Petite, always searching for great kids photographers, found Kinzie+Riehm and quickly began working with them. One of their recent collaborations was a photo essay entitled Intergalactic. The magazine contacted Ken and April and told them they wanted a futuristic photo shoot with children in all black clothing. Ken and April were then able to take the project and run with it, which they happily did,

We had a lot of freedom. The editor showed us a lot of trust. She gave us the starting point and we took it from there. We added a little bit of color and brought in some elements to give a nod to space travel without it being too literal.

Ken and April also handled the entire production themselves—from casting to post—spending a lot of time with hair, make up (teaming up with make up artist Kristy Alonzno) lighting and post-production treatments. They also spent a good deal of time before the shoot concepting their ideas,

What was first on our minds when we heard ‘futuristic’ was space travel. We live a short distance from Kennedy Space Center. NASA was launching the very last space shuttle while we were brainstorming for the shoot. We knew we wanted to pay tribute in some way to an era that was ending. This was our chance to see that through the eyes of a child again.

Once they were all set with their concepts and the kids were styled and ready, April and Ken asked the children to talk about space shuttles and what they thought was next for space travel,

You could see their minds wander. Every child dreams about space travel, right? Capturing that moment when they were seemed to be deep in thought was the trickiest part.

Tricky as it may have been, Ken and April came away with some amazing and truly unique photos. La Petite loved the images and their editor even said it was, “quite possibly her favorite shoot.”

View the behind the scenes video here: