6 Months

Friday I did a mini session to create some images of this 6 month old little girl. Mom and big sister came along to talk with to her and make her smile. I used window light and a large silver reflector. Here are several (of the many) that we created. Such a sweet, interested little person, with a happy smile!

A moment in time

Wednesday afternoon my toddler walked up to me wearing her little wool knit shorts/diaper cover and her favorite hat, eating the apple I'd given her. I thought I should grab the camera. I have a red wall in one of the rooms of my house. It was there when we moved here, and lately I've been thinking I should make use of it.

My daughter is at a wonderful, full age - full of interest, business, energy, and strong feelings. She is delightful and yet very intense about everything! She found her big sister's clogs in the room so I went along with her desire and helped her put them on. So I captured this moment in time and added some processing the next day.

Little hands:

Life is beautiful (to be cliche), make a point to appreciate the little things, to notice the little actions, the excitement, the expressions...

Light and Expression

I typed that title and now I see I could say a lot with those two words. Well, here is just a little bit.

I grabbed a few moments to take some photos of my littlest daughter last night after the sun had set. I could only get enough light outside, but I liked the quality of the light. It was soft, and rather flat, but at a great angle. Lots of open sky makes a gigantic (soft) light source, and with our deck and wall and nearby trees, the light was slightly up, so there was still some shadow cast by her nose and chin. This you do want in the photo as it gives the face shape. (on-camera flash completely flattens a face and washes out shape) I liked it because I wanted to emphasize her eyes and mouth particularly. She will be 17 months tomorrow and often what strikes me so much about her is the way she looks at me and expresses herself. The images ingrained in my mind are her eyes and mouth - conveying her intensity and interest in life.

I intentionally overexposed my images by 2 fstops, while placing her against a white wall. I didn't want to show much texture in the wall and wanted her skin to be soft compared to her features.

Oh, and when I'd say "hi!" to her she would respond with an "-eye" every time.

And sometimes I like monochrome:

Do you see the flour on her dress? Yes, I left it :-). She had found the flour bag when i was cooking and proceeded to pull out handfuls and dump them on the flour. She keeps me hopping, continually trying out something new, exploring, studying....never daydreaming for a moment.

I also looked for other photos as she moved about the deck. The light was fading, and I only could get a couple before we were done. I love this photo. My aperture was f2 (very shallow) which barely kept the front of her and her dress ruffle in focus, as I was quite close to her and was using my 135mm lens. This captures her spirit as well.

I do not leave any photo alone as it comes from the camera. As an artist I do not only look for the image I want in the moment, constantly recomposing and reaching for what I want, I also evaluate every image afterwards, and work with composition and the processing that I feel conveys what is in my mind. And there is another meaning you could draw from the word "expression"!

Here is one last image of her from last week. She was looking out the window at her sisters who were at the neighbor's house, knocking on their door (good friends of ours). Here I was using my 85mm prime lens with an aperture of 2.8 and I only over exposed by 2/3 of a stop. The window gives the  lovely directional soft light.

Happy Mother's Day!

My Mother's Day gift was the willingness of my dear children to let me take each of them out to do a little photo shoot of them. They have all had birthdays in recent months, and I wanted to get some recent photos. We had fun, and my husband assisted with the reflector and sometimes chatting and goofing around with them. It can be stressful trying to get photos of your own kids, but I succeeded in not getting stressed and working with each individually. I took so many photos I love, but narrowed down to 16 to post here. My 6 year old daughter had the most unique ideas of her own, so she has a few more than the others here.

 

 

 

 

Meet Henry!

I met with this energetic loving family on Sunday, to create some images of them with their newest. Henry was a day shy of two weeks and so content! He seemed quite relaxed with all the noise and excitement around him. His big siblings all are in love with him, each one such a sweetheart and such an individual. This family loves and plays hockey! The three year old even plays. Actually, the five year old is the only one who has chosen not to. We had to include that in the photos!

Meet Grace! (Newborn)

This little girl arrived on Valentines Day, just over a week after we took "expecting" photos of her mom and dad! I went to her house on Saturday and met this beautiful girl. Here's a preview of some of the images we created.