This is a session from a couple of weeks ago, since I’ve been so busy with my website, I haven’t posted as much here. But I just HAVE to share this gorgeous baby girl. Just look at those lashes!
The session was at Millbrook Marsh, and it turned out quite well as a location!
This is my second part of a series of tips to have a successful session, so if you missed the first one, you could read it HERE.
Working with children, and having two of my own, there’s one thing I have learned: Mess with their nap times and you are doomed. While I try not to schedule my session in the middle of the day for various reasons, not scheduling them during the subject’s nap-time is even more important. So I advise my client’s to either book a session before or after a nap and snack/meal. There’s nothing like a little shut-eye and some stable blood sugar can do to a kid! If your child changes his/hers schedule after you have booked a time with me, please don’t hesitate to get back to me about changing your booked time.
Now that we have a fun and happy subject to work with, things will instantly run much better. Sooo…what could then possible be the next tip?
Clothes. I’m really not a fashionable person, so I can’t exactly tell you what your children or Senior should wear.
However, there’s a few things I would like to recommend against.
If you children aren’t twins, I don’t really see it necessary to dress the children in the exact same outfit.
Lets celebrate their differences, maybe even ask them what they want to wear? Bring a few different outfits as well. And I would love to see more opposites and contrast between family members and siblings than all wearing the same colored shirt…etc. Lets have some fun and spice it up a bit!
There’s a color I would love to see less of, especially in outdoor settings in Spring, is green. I like green. I’ve seen it a lot lately, is it in? I don’t know. What I do know is that grass and trees are green too, at least now in the summer. Once again, things gets a little tricky. Green everywhere makes the subject kind of disappear in the picture. It also makes it harder to obtain a good color from the camera, since it either will over-compensate by turning everything too magenta or just simply make the face of the subject green too, due to all the green stuff surrounding the subject. Bleh!
Almost every other color is fine, and white on patterns or stripes should be fine too. Speaking of patterns, let me just end by adding that some patterns aren’t looking as great on photographs than others, so if you are hesitant, just bring the clothing and I can take a look at it. Sometimes I can just tell by looking at it. Usually small prints aren’t doing that great in photos but large prints do.
Big brand logos and Disney characters, or big bows are something I also would like to advise against. My photos will hopefully last for a very long time and be seen hanging on a wall and be admired by generations to come, and we want to bring out the subject, not what they’re wearing.
I ordered a Canvas of my all favorite photograph – my kids sharing some sibling love (trust me, there’s plenty of fights too).
This is how it will look like! There’s also the option of stretching the Canvas over the edges, but that require more room and I didn’t have enough space around the kids faces. It will look so beautiful, I can’t wait to see it.
Canvases are available for my clients as well, please just ask.
A couple a weeks ago my friends Jim & Steph and I headed up to the Roth Rock Forest for their engagement pictures. A few minutes after we arrived there, nearly 7pm, dark clouds rolled in over the mountain.
I shot with my flash and was fumbling with the settings. Well, after the shoot, it turned out that even in the dark this camera delivers! And thank goodness for powerful flashes.
I’ve gotten a little lazy about posting photos, but I got a batch coming up soon enough.
Okay girls, lets face it. Bigger is better. I’m saying girls because for the most part, it’s the mom’s and grandmom’s that order prints.
My camera has 12.3 mega pixels. Hey, there’s a word: Mega. Anyway, this means that there’s a lot of digital dots in my files. This really means that you have a lot of tiny digital dots to work with, and if a file is left untouched, without too much cropping, you could easily get a niiiiice poster print or a wall print of 24×36″. Larger than that is also possible!
When I work with the files in Photoshop, I work with them in full size and look at the details. So I admit, I do get a little (ok much) disappointed when people order a ton of 3.5×5 and 5×7 sized prints. My files are printed on thick, professional paper at a place where people in white coats work at.
Aim to impress! A large print will show more detail and will look much better on a wall than a tiny 5×7!
Being an on-location, lifestyle and candid photographer means that I intend to let the kids be who they are and I simply work my way around them. That is why I also don’t use a tripod, so I can quickly change my position. I can do that because I have years of experience of moving my way around with a heavy camera and lens.
I do not expect that you as a parent, to pose or make the children “smile” (grin) at the camera. In fact, most kids will not cooperate and become rather grumpy if they’re messed around with too much or yelled at.
I’m sorry but if you don’t let me do my job then you wouldn’t be happy with the images and it’s my responsibility to tell you that but really please trust me, you will love them if you let me work my magic!
Many of my clients state that they love my photos, and let me tell you, lots of the best ones I’ve gotten are from the those sessions that has the least interference. When I photograph my own 1 year old and 2.5 year old, which are two quite difficult age groups to photograph, I’m all by myself and I just follow them around.
For this reason alone, is why I also shoot so many pictures at a relative long period at our sessions. I don’t keep them all, the keeper rate from a session, no matter how good of a photographer you are, is rather low!
So please, relax and let me do the work. Your only work is to keep the children from running away or from hurting themselves 
(This works best with toddlers and older kids, babies will require some interaction and coaching from parents)
I love comedy and I crack up about the smallest things, but this was utterly hilarious and I have to share it with my readers.
The Smiths were unable to conceive children and decided to use a surrogate father to start their family.
On the day the proxy father was to arrive, Mr Smith kissed his wife goodbye and said, ‘Well, I’m off now. The man should be here soon.’
Half an hour later, just by chance, a door-to-door baby photographer happened to ring the doorbell, hoping to make a sale.
‘Good morning, Ma’am’, he said, ‘I’ve come to…’
‘Oh, no need to explain,’ Mrs. Smith cut in, embarrassed, ‘I’ve been expecting you.’
‘Have you really?’ said the photographer. ‘Well, that’s good. Did you know babies are my specialty?’
‘Well that’s what my husband and I had hoped. Please come in and have a seat’.
After a moment she asked, blushing, ‘Well, where do we start?’
‘Leave everything to me. I usually try two in the bathtub, one on the couch, and perhaps a couple on the bed. And sometimes the living room floor is fun. You can really spread out there.’
‘Bathtub, living room floor? No wonder it didn’t work out for Harry and me!’
‘Well, Ma’am, none of us can guarantee a good one every time. But if we try several different positions and I shoot from six or seven angles, I’m sure you’ll be pleased with the results.’
‘My, that’s a lot!’, gasped Mrs. Smith.
‘Ma’am, in my line of work a man has to take his time. I’d love to be In and out in five minutes, but I’m sure you’d be disappointed with that.’
‘Don’t I know it,’ said Mrs. Smith quietly
The photographer opened his briefcase and pulled out a portfolio of his baby pictures. ‘This was done on the top of a bus,’ he said .
‘Oh, my word!’ Mrs. Smith exclaimed, grasping at her throat.
‘And these twins turned out exceptionally well – when you consider their mother was so difficult to work with.’
‘She was difficult?’ asked Mrs. Smith.
‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I finally had to take her to the park to get the job done right. People were crowding around four and five deep to get a good look’
‘Four and five deep?’ said Mrs. Smith, her eyes wide with amazement.
‘Yes’, the photographer replied. ‘And for more than three hours, too. The mother was constantly squealing and yelling – I could hardly concentrate, and when darkness approached I had to rush my shots. Finally, when the squirrels began nibbling on my equipment, I just had to pack it all in.’
Mrs. Smith leaned forward. ‘Do you mean they actually chewed on your, uh…equipment?’
‘It’s true, Ma’am, yes.. Well, if you’re ready, I’ll set-up my tripod and we can get to work right away.’
‘Tripod?’
‘Oh yes, Ma’am. I need to use a tripod to rest my Canon on. It’s much too big to be held in the hand very long.’
Mrs. Smith fainted
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