PBPhoto

This was my first official Senior Portrait session.  I thought they came out great!  What a great subject.  She is a tough one to get to smile but as we got more comfortable the smiles came.  The shot above should be an advertisement for something. 


The family was interested in a walking bridge near their home so we got in the vehicles and headed over.  The bridge made for a great backdrop.  It was a challenge to time shots so that there wasn't traffic in the background.  People were slowing down to see what we were doing.

We took some natural light shots like this one here.  Sun is coming from behind so when we expose for the face some of the highlights get blown out.  I like the effect.

Then we broke out the umbrella and took some using just that balanced with the ambient light.


This should be a magazine cover.

I wanted to have everything from closeups to full length shots so that they would have plenty of choices.

Here's a closeup using the umbrella to capture the eyes.

We had Mom become a photo assistant and hold a second flash.  I used the second source for accent like the hair light on camera left here.  I love the sitting poses.  I also dig the far away look here.  Mom was concerned that she wasn't smiling enough.  I am thankful that she was giving the "say cheese" look all the time (like my kids).  I prefer having to dig for a smile.

You can see the accent coming from camera right in this one.  Still using the umbrella as key light.

When Your Camera Comes Between You and Your Family

This is an interesting article.  I'm curious what you think about it.  I certainly enjoy taking photographs.  And photographing my family is really what drives my desire to photograph at all.  But there are times when it gets in the way. 

Like a theme park.  Sometimes I just want to be a kid with my kids.  I don't want my 40D with battery grip weighing me down.  At the beach, I want to be in the water with them.  I can hand off the camera at times to my wife.  But she probably wants to wear this thing less than I do.

Sometimes I sense that the kiddos (and maybe my wife) are tired of me shooting pictures all the time.  Those are times I try to put the camera down and slowly step away.

The most difficult times are when I really feel inspired to capture something and the family really isn't inspired in the same way.  Man that is tough.  But the family needs to win that battle.  I like the quote in this article

"I've learned that it's okay to miss a few moments because the memories I make with my family are far more important."

That is truth.

So what do you think?  Has this ever been an issue for you?

What a nice evening.  Perfect weather, a nice family, and my wife as my lovely assistant.  This is the first time that my wife has helped me on a shoot.  It was great.  She was a great voice-activated light stand but more than that she has a great eye for good photography and provided some great ideas during the shoot.  This was our first shoot (other than for ourselves) in Cocoa Village.  This particular building is the Porcher House.  Built in 1916 by a citrus grower.  They rent it out now for weddings and other events.  The front is kind of a colonial style look with big columns.  Interesting on the back is white siding which looks great too.

It's difficult to take a bad shot of cute subjects.  The girls are adorable.


Above are some natural light shots.  I like to do a combination.  Take advantage of whatever the situation provides.

Using the front porch and the bench (thanks Honey for the ideas) we did some flash stuff as well.

Went out tonight to scout for a family photo session that I have planned for this weekend.  We got out late and had already lost direct sunlight so I got off a few natural light shots and then broke out the strobe and umbrella.  Downtown Melbourne, we have spent more time walking down there lately and it is actually a cool little downtown. 

Above is one of my favorite shots.  Got some personality from the kiddos and the wall is great.

This isn't so much of a photography post as it is about a fun morning and being thankful for all of our warfighters.  We went to the Navy Seal Museum in Ft. Pierce this morning for Muster, a yearly event apparently.  We have never been and didn't know what to expect.  We thought there wouldn't be many people and we would be in and out.  Well, not so much.  It was a Veterans Day celebration.  I'm not good at estimating crowds but we figured between 1 and 2 thousand people there. 

I was sitting on the floor watching TV this morning before the kiddos came out of their bedrooms.  The sun was starting to rise above the trees of our neighbor to the east.  It was coming through the slider and hitting me in the eyes.  I thought the light was kind of cool coming in the window at that low angle and if I could just find something nice to put in front of that light it would make a good backlit photo.  So Maggie comes out with her blue baby and I new that she would make the perfect subject.

One of my favorite candies of all time.  Why?  Because I love honey.  Hi my name is Page and I love honey!  And candy corns are made from honey.  All of that has almost nothing to do with this post because these aren't candy corns.  They only look like them.  Gretchen made these very tasty cookies tonight and I got the call to take some blog shots for her.

I included the setup shot for your enjoyment (if you're into that kind of thing).  You can see the cute little umbrella I recently got.  I've been using it exclusively since.  It's very agile for moving around the house.  My other umbrella is like 43" or so. 

I had to move the flash away because I wanted to shoot at f2.8 for shallow depth of field.  With it up close I was getting like f5.6 or so.  We tried using a white tablecloth but it needed to be ironed.  You could see every crease.  So I shot some just on the table.  But we settled on these shot on white foamcore.  Also used a piece of foamcore for fill on the left.

I wish I could transmit the smell and flavor through the photos.

Be blessed.

Here are a few shots I took on my recent trip to Atlanta.

I didn't get to shoot as much as I wanted because real work got in the way.  But I was able to take a few shots on my morning walk to get coffee.  My favorite is the above street shot.  Good representation of the business of the city. 


I'm sure that locals can tell tourists because they walk around looking up.  Admiring the buildings.  At least that's what I did.  This building was 2 blocks away from our hotel.

The Space Center Visitors Complex is free once a year for Brevard County residents.  So cool.  It's been many years since I've been there.  Always loved space as a kid and as an adult.  We had a such a great time.  Here are a few shots that I really liked.  The T-38 above was extremely backlit by the sun just over the vertical stabilizer.  Using the fill light slider on Lightroom2 makes quick work of this.

I love this shot with the clouds reflecting in the memorial.  The astronauts listed in the foreground are from the Challenger disaster.

Here's one of Hezekiah trying to land the lunar lander.  Thankfully they didn't have a 6 year old trying to do that.  It wasn't pretty.

And here are a few more that I liked.