Family Photography at the Botanical Garden

Spring and Summer are the perfect times of year to take family pictures outdoors; the blooming plants and flowers provide beautiful backdrops.

Many neighborhood parks and gardens have picturesque ponds, benches, and trees that photograph wonderfully.  Outdoor botanical gardens usually have the best of all of the above.

In a botanical garden, you can capture some beautiful family portraits with minimal camera gear.  A flash, diffuser, and a reflector are easy to carry and operate.  These accessories will help to fill in any harsh shadows due to the bright daylight outdoors. 

As with any photography session, if you are able to scout out the location ahead of time, do so.  Knowing the spots that will photograph the best will save you and your client time.  Depending on the age and attention span of the children, you will want to take the posed photographs while you have cooperation (so time is not on your side).

If able, have the family coordinate similar outfit choices.  Complimentary colors as well as levels of dress are important.  For example, if the family decides to photograph in jeans, the picture will turn out much more pleasing if everyone wears jeans.  On the contrary, one person wearing jeans while the rest of the family is wearing formal attire will not result in a well coordinated picture.  It is never recommended that the family where t-shirts with print, as these tend to be distracting and do not add to the picture.

Take-aways:

1) After taking the posed photographs of the family, let the children run around the park.  Some of the best child portraits will be taken when they don't think anyone is watching.

2) If you are photographing at a botanical garden or park, verify the regulations prior to the session.  Some places will not allow professional photographs or may require permits to photograph.

3) Remember to change your perspective.  For photographs of children, you will almost always need to kneel down on the ground to take the picture from their level.

4) Remember to stop, enjoy the day in the park, and smell the flowers.

Happy Photographing!

A few favorites:

 

Holiday Card Photos at Mt. Vernon

When looking for locations to take family photographs for Holiday cards it is a great idea to pick somewhere that is unique to your area.  If you are in the Washington DC area, Mt. Vernon provides a great location.  Mt. Vernon does have an entry fee but they are open everyday of the year and allow you to bring your dogs.  When it comes to holiday announcements, a pet-friendly environment is key for families that want their entire family (dogs, too!) represented.  


If you find a location that decorates for each season like Mt. Vernon, you won't need to worry about providing your own decorations.  With a great location as your backdrop, something as simple as a scarf or hat could be the perfect accessory for your festive holiday greeting.


Working with toddlers and dogs together can pose a challenge.  Photographing at a public place on a busy day offers many distractions for the toddlers and dogs to look at.  To get Aiden and the pugs to look at the camera I used a variety of methods.  It is definitely best to know a word of phrase that will help capture attention.  For the pugs saying "treats" got their attention.  To get Aiden's attention we used everything from shaking toys to singing parts of children's songs.

Today's take-aways:

                                                                                

1) If you can help it don't schedule the photoshoot for the time the sun is directly overhead.  This is when the light is least flattering.

2) Look for shaded areas to help minimize harsh shadows on peoples faces. 

3) Use a fill flash with a diffuser in bright sun to help reduce harsh shadows.   

4) If using dogs for the holiday photo it doesn't hurt to bring treats to reward good behavior.

5) Much like tip 4, bring treats or other fun toys to reward kids good behavior as well.   

                                                                                                                

Happy Photographing!

 

Here are a few of my favorites from the day:

Juice Break

Caught

Smile

In motion

Hanging Out with Washington's barrels

George Washington's view from Mt. Vernon is carefully preserved to provide this beautiful backdrop

Love their faces.  They remind me of the American Gothic Painting.

Family Photography ~ A Day in the Park

~When you look at your life, the greatest happinesses are family happinesses.  ~Joyce Brothers

I really enjoy photographing families.  Many of the best captured moments of families occur without posing but just enjoying time together.  I had the opportunity last weekend to photograph a beautiful family in a downtown Houston park.  What a perfect day!

This outting did not start out as a photoshoot, but a nice day in the park. The park that we visited offered beautiful green space for the photograph backdrop.


Here are a few of my favorites from the day:

He ran under his Dad's legs as he leapt in the air. 

 

Happy to be outside 

Does not want to miss a moment

Anticipating the train's arrival

Too cute

Happy to be sitting on the train with Mom

He was so happy to hold the hand rails like the adults

Laughing at the paddle-boats and ducks bellow

This was beautiful downtown Houston.  I really like the use of water features in between the train tracks.

Today's take-away:

                                                                                               

1)  Encourage the family to choose a location where everyone will be comfortable.  Places like parks, zoos, and playgrounds are a treat for the kids.


2) Keep your camera at the ready.  You never know what kids will do in the park.


3) Photograph on continuous shooting mode.


4) If it is a bright sunny day, look for some shade to help avoid harsh shadows on people's faces.


5) Wear some comfortable walking shoes.  You definitely don't want to worry about your feet.


6) Two year old boys love all forms of transportation- trains, cars, buses- you name it, these things make them happy.


7) This lovely family was nice enough give me permission to use their photographs in this blog.  Always make sure you have permission to post photographs, especially when children are involved. 


8) Enjoy the day in the Park!
                                                                                               

Happy Photographing!

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!

Creating a studio at home

It is pretty easy to create an at-home studio for small objects using white/black poster boards, but this week we decided to try and create an at-home studio to photograph a toddler (Aiden).  The goal this week was to create this studio without spending any money.  Ideally we could use the photography stands, clamps, and paper rolls for the backdrop, but on the budget, that wasn't part of the plan.  The closest thing to the paper roll that was already in the house was a black and white sheet.  In order to attach this to the wall, we used small hooks.  The sheet could not be hung at the ceiling because we needed Aiden to be able to sit on the forward part of it.  The sheet was attached about half way up the wall so there was still some material to drape on the floor.  The problem with sheets is that they wrinkle and attract lint.  The other problem we were facing was studio space.  In the spare home space we used, it was not possible to get very far from the backdrop.  The farther from the backdrop you can photograph, the less destracting any wrinkles or lint will be.   I used a shallower depth of field but, because Aiden was so close to the backdrop, it was negligible.


My original intent was to bounce the flash, while attached to the camera,  off a white form board and angle the board to light Aiden.  This method would allow us to use the foam board as a light source without direct light.  This method would help to avoid shadows and give a diffused light feel.  A challenge we ran into is that toddlers, even well behaved toddlers like Aiden, don't like to sit still long enough to pin point the location the light needed to be bounced and directed.  I think that method would work really well for an adult portrait, but not an active toddler.  I quickly abandoned the indirect flash idea and moved onto direct flash.  I added a flash bracket to try and direct the shadows downward and help avoid red-eye.  The direct flash was too harsh.  I used a -2 to -3 flash compensation in addition to a diffuser, and was able to make the lighting less flash-like.  This method worked well enough to create usable light.


I am attaching some of my favorite photographs from the day.

Today's take-aways:

                                                                                                                              
1) The black sheet showed the wrinkles less, but was worse with the lint.


2) Toddlers need more than one sheet since they will one hundred percent run out of your backdrop.


3) If I had my choice, I would pick something other than a sheet to use as a backdrop.


4) I would pick a room with more depth so I can move the backdrop farther from the subject.


5) With kids, the more toys and props you have, the better.


6) It's probably important to learn more lyrics to wheels on the bus, I think Aiden could tell I was totally winging it.


7) With a little patience and ingenuity you can take studio style photographs without spending a lot of money on supplies.        
                                                                                                                               

Happy Photographing! 

Happy 1st Birthday Aiden

Some of my favorite subjects to photograph are people.  I absolutely love to capture emotion in a moment.  Photographing children is a great opportunity to do this.  If you are lucky, the children ignore the camera and you are able to photograph as the story unfolds.  Funny enough, it is harder to capture adults without them stopping the moment and posing.  This weekend I was lucky enough to be able to photography Aiden's first birthday. 

All of the photographs from the party were captured with a speedlight on camera and at -2 exposure compensation.  For the direct shots of people, the speedlight was diffused to produce a less harsh light.  I did try to bounce the flash off the ceiling in a few instances, but the surface was not reflective or close enough to produce the images I was looking for. 

I feel fortunate to be able to share a few of the shots of his party with you.  Here is a picture of the beautiful birthday cake pre-Aiden.   Such a talented mom he has.  Can you believe she made both of these?  I thought it was a really smart idea to have the smaller cake for him to destroy, I mean eat.  The silver under the birthday cakes worked great as a built in light reflector to help angle the light upward.

  
He was a little confused about what to do with this cake.  This was definitely a departure from his usual pears and bananas.  So cute.  With kids there expressions tend to change so quickly.  To capture those expressive moments I tend to photograph with the camera on continuous shooting.

Figuring this thing out...  Although I don't tend to like every shot looking at the camera, having this connection in a few frames works well. His beautiful eyes are very expressive.

Starting to do some damage.

Aiden finally decided that the fork was a waste of time and really just slowing him down.  So very efficient for a one year old!  I was glad to switch up my prospective, I think it added to this shot.  Had I not moved in for the side view I would have missed the destruction that was hiding behind the cake.

I am guessing that I am not the only one that thinks one of the best parts of a one year old birthday is watching them try and figure out how they can destroy the cake.  (Maybe its because this really doesn't happen at many other birthday's besides our first one).  Children's party's are a great place to capture those emotional moments.  I think the best bet to capture the moment is to keep our hands on the shutter release and our eyes behind the view finder.   

Thanks for sharing Aiden's captured moments with me...