2017 Spring/Summer issue of Inside Bauer Magazine
by Houston commercial photographer – Nicki Evans Photography

Since it’s the time of year when I begin photographing the people who make up the University of Houston’s Bauer College of Business for the next issue of Inside Bauer Magazine, I suppose it’s also time to share portraits from the last issue.

The spring/summer issue of Inside Bauer is packed with stories of leaders within the college and leaders in the community who have connections with the Bauer College. To read the incredible stories of those leaders, hear their interviews in the videos and to see a few portraits, visit the online version of the magazine here: Inside Bauer – Spring/Summer 2017

As with all publications, there are only a few photographs that make the final cut of the magazine because of space. To see more photographs and my favorites that were made in the spring, continue scrolling through the blog.

To lead things off, I’m going to introduce Preston Boyer. I could probably devote a whole blog to his photos, because they were so much fun to make. Preston has created his own clothing line and is making a name for himself in Houston and the fashion scene beyond. You can check out his site here: Preston Douglas

For Preston’s portraits, we wanted to match the look of photographs on his website (clean and full of white space) and his Instagram (think old Polaroid snapshots).

If you don’t watch any other video from this issue of the magazine, at least watch Preston’s story. It’s pretty inspiring…and I might make a cameo 😉

Next up is Aishah. Since I tend to have to photograph in the same places over and over at Bauer, we have to get creative sometime to make a set that looks like something other than a classroom. This is a great example of doing that. We photographed Aishah in an event center, but wanted to make it look more like a home office. Coincidentally, Aishah’s  dark salmon-colored pants went perfectly with our teal and earthy colored decor.
Bauer is obviously a college, so I rarely photograph anyone under the age of 18 when doing UH work. For Porfirio’s portraits, I got to use my natural light, family portrait skills to photograph him with his youngest son and daughter. We wanted to showcase how he leads not only on campus and in the military, but also at home too as a husband and father.
The Wolff Center for Entrepreneurship (WCE) is one of the top entrepreneurship programs in the country. This issue of the magazine feature stories on two of the WCE teams. For the first story, my art direction included portraits that were shot through a window. That was something new for me, but it turned out to be a fun challenge. 
The second WCE team to be featured had taken a trip to Japan to study international business, so the art direction was for stock-like images of young travelers. We asked the students to wear clothes they would typically travel in and to bring a few mementos from their trip. 
After this next session, I decided all portrait sessions going forward should include confetti. Because why? Why not? It makes everyone smile! To know more about Kiery, read her story.
If you live in Houston and need a new park to visit, check out Smither Park. It isn’t your typical park with lots of trees and nature. It’s more of a concrete park…full of tile mosaics. It’s really pretty unique, and most of it is very colorful. We chose this simpler white wall as the backdrops for Camille’s portraits.
I mentioned that Preston’s portrait session was my favorite for the issue. That was true. But this black and white image is my favorite single image of the issue and one of my favorites portraits I’ve ever made. If you visited my homepage first, you’ll notice it’s the main art.
In addition to the dramatic image of David Suttles, we also made a more straightforward image, so you could see his face a bit better. 
If you recognize Maria Rios, you may have seen her on Blue Collar Millionaire. I photographed Maria at Nation Waste, Inc. where she leads the first Latina-owned waste-removal company in the US, doing business with the likes of Super Bowl LI. The day of Maria’s portraits, it rained on and off. We started with a few portraits in the boardroom, just in case the rain ruined our outdoor plans, then headed outdoors to photograph her with her fleet in between rain showers. 
Penny Davis’s portraits were made on another rainy day. Some days you just have to roll with the punches and dance in the rain, so that’s precisely what we did…with a few safe, indoor shots first. 
The next photographs were taken in a Walmart Distribution Center in Sealy, where Mireo Latham leads quite a team. He gave me a tour of the massive facility to select the location for his portraits. It was quite impressive to see how those conveyor belts work, sending these boxes here and those boxes there. 
To round out this issue of Inside Bauer, I’ll share a couple of images from the cover story.  The first one is a strong black and white image. This is another example of trying to find a new way to photograph in the same buildings I always use. In three years of work with UH, I’d never made a portrait on this staircase, even though I have photographed many events surrounding it.
And last, a set of vibrant images to show off a vibrant life. Noha is one of my favorite Bauer grads. She and I had previously met at many Bauer events, but I since I never had the chance to make her portraits, I was excited to finally have that opportunity. Even though the portrait session didn’t take long, I enjoyed getting to hang out with Noha briefly. If you need a few words of wisdom, check out her Instagram feed. It’s always worth the read. 
That’s a wrap for the first half of photographing Bauer in 2017. Six months from now, you’ll probably have a new set of Bauer portraits to view. Thanks for taking the time to view my portraits!

For more photos from Inside Bauer, browse through these previous blogs:

UH Bauer in Action – Fall/Winter issue of Inside Bauer Magazine
Fabulous Faculty of Bauer – Spring/Summer Issue of Inside Bauer Magazine
(Mostly) Women of Bauer – Fall/Winter issue of Inside Bauer Magazine

Nicki Evans Photography – 2017
Have camera. Will travel. 

Nicki Evans Photography – Houston, TX – Commercial Photographer