3 posts tagged “family portraits”

Yesterday was my first session in over a month, and it was kind of nice to shoot again.

I did a family portrait session/promo session for Brian Molin and his family.  He's the guitarist for Sweetwater Junction.  They played at a wedding I photographed back in May, and we still keep in touch via Facebook.  So when I got his note last week asking about a photo session I was excited to work with him again.

He and his family were a lot of fun.  His son is about the same age as mine, so we hit it off immediately.  Brian's very laid back and easy going, and he had me laughing the entire time.  He also made my day by asking if I lived in Decatur.  He was shocked when I told him I was right down the road from the studio because it's in one of Atlanta's suburbs.  He assumed I lived in the artsy part of town, and I'm sure my fellow Atlantans can appreciate the compliment.  :)

I'm still processing photos, but I picked out a few of my favorites to share:

I don't think I realized how much I missed being in the studio.  It's usually my home away from home, but I've felt a little estranged from it lately.  It was good to be back.

I also had another maternity portrait request today.  I guess you just can't fight some things, so I'll try to book the session if possible.  I feel bad now for canceling the baby's first year client, but I honestly wasn't sure where I'd be in a month let alone a year.  I didn't want to commit if I couldn't follow through.  I think she would have been a great client, though.

I've been sticking with my 365 project over on Flickr, but it has turned into a set of self portraits.  I really don't want it to be, but they're easy.  I'm not attempting to do anything creative at all right now.  I just want to make myself shoot daily, and this seems to be working.  I hope I'll attempt to be more creative and shoot a few concepts I have floating around in my mind, but I don't want to put a lot of pressure on myself and ruin the project.  If that makes any sense at all.  lol

Kieran and I are headed to the dermatologist on Tuesday.  He has a plantar's wart on his foot that isn't responding to OTC treatments, and I have another cyst that's flaring up again.  I'm prone to them and have already had two removed.  This one's on the back of my left arm and it's really bothering me right now.  Yay for more stitches and scars.  :S

On another random note I think I'm going to join a local photography Meetup group so I can meet new people.  I think they meet on Saturdays, and Mike has already mentioned a couple people he wants me to meet.  It'll be good to get out of the house more, and I miss talking shop with other photographers.

I hope you all are enjoying your weekend.  :)

Of course I had to tinker with the design, and now I kind of wish I hadn't.  :S  But the cards are ordered, so live and learn!

Here's the new front:

And the back:

It's a 5x7 flat card from WHCC.  I wish I had used the smaller, non-obnoxious snowflake pattern from the back on the front as well.  Not sure what I was thinking.  But it was late last night, I was overly tired, and I was on my second glass of wine.  So that might explain it.  LOL  I did the front first, and the back was kind of an afterthought.  Isn't that usually the way it works?

I can't wait to see how they turn out, though.  I also ordered cards for my sister.  She really liked this peppermint twist template I had, so we tweaked it a bit for her family cards.

I'm not crazy about the font on the back because I think it's hard to read, but she wanted a script font.  I hope it's not too difficult to read on the actual cards.

So it was a productive weekend!  I finished proofing my last wedding, did family holiday portraits, and designed and ordered two sets of Christmas cards.  I need a vacation now.  :D

I love my 50mm lens.

I sort of moved away from using it because I really prefer to shoot with a zoom lens if I can.  Especially since I spend so much of my time photographing children (usually my own).  I've gotten lazy about using my foot as a zoom, so I sacrificed quality for convenience.

I noticed my shots from my last couple of shoots weren't as sharp as I would have liked them to be.  I used my 28-135, and while I love the range on this lens I do not love the soft focus.  It's been my walking around lens, though, so I had to retrain myself to use a prime.  So I put it on my camera last week and started shooting with it again.  And I'm oh so glad I did because the shots from yesterday's shoot are tack sharp.

I had a family portrait shoot yesterday that went really well.  Mom, Dad, toddler, and three month old baby.  They're 

such a cute family so I was excited to work with them again.  And the toddler warmed up to me this time so I got some really adorable shots of her.  :)

I had to bring Kaelin with me to the shoot, though, so she was a little distracting to the toddler.  Only because she wanted to take care of "the baby" every time Kaelin made a noise.  It was really kind of cute.  :)

The mom didn't really want a lot of props in the photos, so I just brought a white wicker chair, some bubbles, and I accidentally brought my butterflies.  Thank goodness for the clone tool is all I'm saying.  :-D

I really wanted high key, but unfortunately the family didn't really bring light clothing.  I still tried, though.  I'm getting better about getting the background blown out properly, but I'm still having some trouble with the foreground.  Especially since the kiddos were down on the ground.  The front of the sheet is still a little gray, so I need to work on that.  I need to see if Mike can show me how to properly light the floor in the foreground so it's nice and white, too.  We have plenty of lights to use at the studio, but I just need to learn how to use more than four at once.  LOL

The girls were remarkably cooperative considering how cold it was in the studio.  The shooting area is so huge it 

doesn't have heat or air.  So it can get a tad bit chilly there.  No angel wing baby pictures for me.  :(  But the bubbles were a big hit with the big sister.  She had a great time trying to pop them all, and it was really cute.  :)  In the original version you can actually see the detail in the bubbles.  :)

I tried not to have too many expectations for this shoot.  I wanted to get the shots the family wanted, of course, but I have a bad habit of wanting to get a lot of shots for me...and that never seems to work out.  I really wanted to get a great close up of the older sister sitting in the chair, but she wouldn't stay put.  LOL  Which is really too bad since it would have been an adorable shot.  Maybe next time, right?  ;-)

The mom really wanted to get a nice shot of her with the new baby.  She's going to print it out at either 11x14 framed to 16x20, or she actually wants a 16x20 print.  We're still a little unclear on the size.  LOL  I took a ton of the two of them together, but this shot is my favorite.  I might add some soft processing to it, so I'll play around with it a bit.  I just really loved their expressions in this shot.  Like I said, the family is just too cute for words.  :-)

The little one was a trooper given the fact I put her on her stomach, flashed the heck out 

of her, and made her suffer through chilly shooting conditions.  We had to take a snack break, but Kaelin needed a snack too so the timing worked out well.  At the end her mom put her in this cutie patootie teddy bear outfit that just looked so warm and snuggly.  So we tried a low key shot on black velvet.  Would you just look at that smile??  I think this was the last shot I took, too.  And she still had a smile left for the camera.  :-)

As much as I enjoyed shooting this family, I think this shot is probably my favorite from the entire day: