Its been a while since I updated the blog. The seasonal family photo rush finally came to a close and I put the camera down for a month. It was a nice break, but I was excited to get back into it with a family photo shoot this weekend.  I love it when someone comes to me with an idea for a photo and I have to figure out how to materialize it. Katy contacted me about a month ago with the idea of getting a shot of her son in front of her husband’s Marine Cover. We were both visualizing the shoot with her son in the foreground and directional light on both him and the cover, which would be in the background.  This lighting setup required the use of a light modifier that I did not own, so I had to postpone the shoot so I could order it. It’s called an egg crate, and I guess the only way to explain it is that it’s a honeycomb looking piece of material that fits over your strobe. The purpose of it is to keep the spread of light contained in a specific area. This allowed me to put the light from my strobe on him, and then the light from a second strobe on the cover. I had Katy’s daughter stand in for a couple of “test’ shots while I was working with the lighting. I actually really like one of the photos of her! She crouched down and gave me this perfect little smile. I guess you never know when you take a test shot that you end up liking…

My brother and his wife were in town last weekend to meet Avery. We went out on Monday morning to take some photos of their daughter, Olivia. I can’t believe how big she is. She was born just after I moved to Oregon, 7 years ago. I cant imaging what my daughter will look like in 7 years. Everyone always says that it happens too quickly and I think I’m finally starting to understand what they mean.

 I was battling the sun while we where shooting out by the old gas pump. I would set my exposure for a cloudy sky and then the sun would pop out overexpose my shot. I would then reset and it would cloud up and underexpose the shot. I finally got tired of it and we moved to a shaded area behind the gas pump. The backdrop is a black garage door that had a cool reflective look, so I underexposed the shot and used my flash to light up Olivia. We took several of her jumping into different poses, but I think this was my favorite.

Do you remember Sam from one of my shoots last summer? Well, he’s a lot bigger now, and he’s got quite the artistic streak running through him. I love shooting with the paint set up for a couple of reasons. First, you are almost assured a ton of smiles. Secondly, it keeps your subject still long enough to capture some images. Studio shoots are notoriously hard to do with two year olds, because all they want to do run around. Really, the only way to combat this is to have a large studio and powerful strobes that allow for some wiggle room in terms of a lighting sweet spot. (Both of which I have neither of) When we first got the paint out Sam was a little hesitant to make a mess. I get why; it goes against everything he has been told for the last 12 months. But it really didn’t take much coaxing to get him to overlook the rules and go for it. In fact, he got a little too into it, and slung paint across the kitchen onto the blinds. It was washable paint, but I don’t know if it was coming out of the blinds any time soon. (My apologies to Mom and Dad) I guess I would classify this as Post Modern/Abstract Expressionism…. Oh who am I kidding, I got a D in Art History. What ever it is, nice work Sam!  

This little cutie is just as much fun to be around as she was a year ago. I’m soon going to be in the business of watching kids grow up, so I was excited to see her again. Just like last year, all she did was look at the camera and smile. I was finding chocolate frosting on myself several hours after the shoot, so I’m sure her mother is still finding it on her!

This little ball of energy is Sam. I’m not going to lie, this was one of the more difficult shoots I have done. I would get on one side of him and he would run the other direction. I would then run around so I could shoot him running towards me, and he would then turn a 180 and go back the other way. If I had to guess, I would say he ran about a half mile during our shoot. I ran at least 4 miles. Unfortunately I didn’t have my nikeplus running gear on or I would have logged it! All this being said, Sam was just a kid being a kid, and that is ultimately what I love to take pictures of.

I had the joy of  being able to photograph this little cutie this weekend. Her name is Lauren, and she will be turning one year old this week. Her mother and I got onto the discussion of kids photography a couple of weeks ago while I was visiting her office for a work function. Anyway, this naturally allowed me to shamelessly plug my website.  The weather cooperated on Saturday and allowed us to go outside for a few shots too. I must say, one of the things I love the most about children photography is capturing moments of kids being kids. Clearly it wast too tough with Lauren!