Sunday, September 26, 2010

Baby Ian

Congratulations to Katherine and Neeraj on the birth of their son Ian!  After getting to photograph their beautiful wedding just over a year ago, they invited me back to photograph their first child.

These shoots are always a little difficult because the grown ups never ask the babies about their schedule.  Ian did quite well as long as he was being held, so we worked with it!





Their home had a good amount of light coming through the windows which worked well with the shades down as nice diffuse key light. I added one off camera light on the opposite side of the subjects to help serve as a key when shooting towards the windows, or to help shape out the 3D space from the back of the subjects when shooting sway from the windows.

In the next picture you can see my off camera light bounced into the ceiling (away from Ian) serving as the key light on the right side of Ian's face (camera left), where the window light is lighting the left side of his forehead.



All of that yawning was a good sign we could start to let him calm down and attempt some solo missions. We got him down on his back on the play mat (probably called something else, fisher-price don't be offended) and grabbed some good shots using the great color in all of these children's toys.



Although we could never get him alone in the bed, we were able to seize it as a perfect opportunity to grab some other shots. I used two very good parent models I just happen to have lying around that house that day and we got some great shots of Ian sleeping.



And not to ruin the tranquility of this last shot, but the rings were definitely thrown across the room once or twice. The kid's got an arm!



Tuesday, September 7, 2010

A performer in the making

Just a quick grab that was happening in the moment. This group was playing an impromptu concert outside a market/eatery in BaƱos, Ecuador and a small girl approached to drop some centavos in a guitar case at camera left.

No mater the culture, the similarities in young children are astounding. Here you can see a small amount of  the embarrassment felt by the young girl as she approached the group, but still her joy out of being a little in the spotlight just like the musicians.

Shot on aperture priority mode -1/3 EV with a 24-70mm