Roger, Melissa and Elias

Had a fun family shoot on Saturday with an ultra energetic 2 year old. Hats off to all you child photographers in trying to keep up with these kids. I was diving, jumping, stetching, rolling, running all day long.

Roger and Melissa are friends of mine. Actually, we used to be neighbors (they moved a few years ago). Great people, very down to earth, fun to just hang and chat with. They went to a big box style studio for some portraits not too long ago and while the results were ok, they didn't like the experience. So they asked me if I could do some family shots of them.

They decided on a nearby apple orchard. Reason 1 is that they can provide some fun backdrops to shoot with and the other is that Melissa makes awesome deserts with apples, so hey, why not get more out of your photoshoot, right? They were saying cloudy with some isolated showers, so I was hoping for some clouds. We got what most would call a gorgeous day, but is a photographer's bane...bright bright sun with no clouds.

Elias is a really fun kid. As with alot of kids, he is full of energy - the fact he had some candy before we left didn't help. We tried turning the photoshoot into a game so that he would stop and look at me once and a while. It worked pretty well! At least until he raced off in another direction or chased another bug. Ah, to be a kid again.

I was thinking that the biggest challenge was to get him to look at the camera. But actually, kids will look at the camera. The thing I learned is that they won't look at the camera when you want them to. So forget about posing and taking your time. You need to be ready for when they turn their head and the angle is just right. It's similar to shooting wildlife. You find a spot, a setting, an idea and you sit and wait for the kid to run by. Make a noise for him to look at you and SNAP! You got the image.

So here are some images from Saturday:

While not technically a perfect image, I love it as it really captures how much fun we were all having with the shoot










The back light on this one is just great.




I got some half decent Rembrandt lighting going on here. =)
He actually wanted to go IN the boxes (which were full of apples), but we settled on sitting on them


My favorite image of the day, definatly going into my portfolio