Sarah, Charlie, and Olive - a family affair

This was on the tail end of the outside portraits from last year because it was getting a bit too cold. But the warm sunshine in the morning down in Old Town Alexandria got us through the cold.

What I loved about this session was the family had it in their minds that they wanted black and whites, but once they saw all of the colors their minds were changed!



I did bring a flash with me, just in case, but it turned out necessary and wasn't very practical trying to chase the little one around!







I did not, however include another one of my favorite pictures I grabbed while running backwards trying to keep up with Olive skipping down the pier......one of my lenses fell out of my lens bag and went bouncing down the concrete. Luckily it landed first on the lens hood and was caught before any rolling towards the water occurred, so no damage done - one great reason to use a lens hood.

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!

Baby Mara

Terrific time with Baby Mara a few weeks ago where she was kind enough to share her parents with with me and teach me a little bit about "tummy-time"

We started off in the family room on the first floor.



You can see from the diagram below I was dealing with two windows. I had one window with a good amount of light coming in behind them, and one on the other side of the room that wasn't helping much. One of the strategies I always work when dealing with this type of shoot, is set up more then you need for one particular picture, that way when you transition there will be another light ready for something you didn't think of. Because I'm using radiopopper JRXs, I can adjust the lights if need be throughout the shoot without ever stopping the action.

As you can see below, I went with one light up into the ceiling by one window, and a second light in the dining room creating a chunk of lighting (can lighting chunk?) coming in through the door-way. That way when we were on the floor the first light would be my main light, and the second would be fill/separation, and while we were on the couch the second light would be main and the first would be separation.  Don't forget that back-light window is still a light source!



You can see the dining room light in this "tummy-time" photo


Next up was a great room upstairs that was in a wonderful blue color and had this great trunk that added some good elements in the photo. Here's a rough diagram (note there's a curtain in there). Again I use the two windows plus one light to reduce the contrast just enough to ensure they're all not backlit:

Once we got everyone on the floor, everything was great! Mara went for noses, she went for glasses, and had a great time.

This one's my favorite!


One of the criteria for the shoot was to work in two hand-made blankets that were made for Mara as gifts. We grabbed a few of the family (just enough blanket in this one, but I happen to like it)


I decided to get her laying on the second one to work in the radiator in the back for an interesting element. I like how all of the colors of the blanket and the wall really pop.  The non-curtained window is coming in from camera left rimming out Mara, while the flash is providing the catch light in her eye.  In the above photo you can see both the window and the flash in her right eye (camera left).


Last but not least we spent some time in the backyard on the swing and in the grass (but in the shade the entire time because it was 95F that day. I won't post any more, but here's one family shot that I enjoyed using their fence and backdrop.

Baby Abigail

Thank you to Abigail for giving up her parents and part of a lazy weekend amidst all of the eating and sleeping to pose for me for an afternoon. And although baby pictures can never be completely planned, she did great...and her parents held up quite well too :)

Most of these are a mix of natural window light and flash. The flash was on a stand and usually pointed up into the ceiling to provide a large fill source.


(Part of her name has been blurred for privacy)

We had to lure the dog in with some treats...but he was quite protective of her, and wouldn't eat anything close to baby....I guess that's a good thing!

(follow-up) Sharin' the Upsherin

Last fall, I showed you some photos from an upsherin invitation. We thought it would also be nice to get an immediate before and after photo of the guest of honor, so I set up a make shift studio in the back corner of the rec room.

I had about 5 feet of depth to work with and a beam of direct sunlight pouring across my frame, but all of that pales in comparison to getting a 3 year old to sit still in a room full of other 3 year olds and a table full of sugar designed especially for you.

Well, we couldn't get him to face the opposite direction for the second shot, but we could get him looking the same way, so I flipped one of the images.....unless you can read hebrew, you can't notice. Not ideal, but when a 3 year old is your boss......you do what you're told!

Simple studio was a roll of black seamless paper. A Nikon SB-28 in an umbrella high center as key. Another SB-28 in an umbrella low (as in on the ground) center, and an electrically modded Vivitar 285HV back right as a small rim. All controlled remotely with my radiopopper JRx's and fired from a Canon! (I love technology)

Shot at ISO 50, F/5, 1/200 sec, @70mm



But what really takes the cake is the cake his mom made from scratch. And yes, those are cake cars racing around an icing track with a giant cake Yarmulke in the middle (amazing)! And in case you're wondering, she also hand paints Yarmulkes and Tzitzit, that you can find on her Etsy site.

Happy Birthday Sesame Street

Unless you live under a rock you've probably noticed that Sesame Street turned 40 this week.  I figured I would jump on the bandwagon and post something of my own.

This is from Child Fest 2009, hosted by The Children's Cancer Foundation.  They brought down the actual Elmo (Kevin Clash) and Rosita (Carmen Osbahr) from New York to do a performance and pose for pictures to raise money for research. Approx. 85 cents of every dollar contributed to the Foundation goes directly to support cancer research and the building of cancer facilities which is virtually unheard of now a days.

The surreal part of the day was that it was hosted at Reservoir High School in Howard County, MD.  Which is essentially the same design as the my old High School, Long Reach, just accross the wa.  Same Set up, same building, different place, and with several thousand children.
Happy Birthday Sesame Street!