Family Engagement Pictures

Last weekend I had the chance to take family engagement photos at a beautiful Lakehouse in Texas.  I really loved the idea of including the children in the engagement photos.  Such a wonderful and loving idea!


The location was perfect and provided lots of room for the kids to run and play.  The outdoor park like setting really helped the kids to feel at ease and provide a really good opportunity to mix up semi-posed and photo-journalistic style pictures.  The kids could run and let off a little steam in between their pictures.   


As a photographer it is always good to be prepared for anything, especially when shooting children!  About five minutes before I arrived for the photo shoot Reece, one of the twin two year olds, managed to fall in a puddle of water and was went head to toe.  Allowing the extra time for the shoot allowed us to delay a bit while his clothes were dried.


Here are a few of my favorites from the day.  They were so photogenic it was hard to pick!

We decided to switch it up and take the pictures of them walking towards the lake as well.  We took quite a few, but loved the one of Reece peeking back to see what was happening back there.  It was so sweet and definitely captures the nature of a two year old.  Very curious.

The sky was overcast and gray that day, but really provided nice diffused light for the pictures.  I still used a speedlight with -2 to -3 flash compensation and a diffuser.

To get the boys to smile we were dancing around and acting silly.  It is so sweet to see when their true natural smiles come out in a picture.  Definitely worth working for.

We didn't need to jump around to make Jim and Amanda smile, the happy couple was all smiles already.

I absolutely love the drama the dripping tree moss adds to the picture.  I can see why they chose the photo location.

Such a beautiful day and a beautiful family to be.

Today's take-aways:

                                                                                                                             

1) You can never have too many flash batteries.  Glad to always have extra.


2) If singing/dancing/jumping around gets the kids to laugh then go for it, it will be a better and more natural picture


3) When photographing children never be surprised when someone falls in a puddle of mud, water, or (insert other substance here).  That's just part of the fun.
                                                                                                                             

Happy Photographing!