Go to the studio. Pack up gear. Load gear into my Ford Escape. Drive across town. Stop by Tim Hortons and grab a coffee. Drink coffee. Drive. Park. Exchange pleasantries with client. Client is also a friend, so it’s easy. Scout out house. Be nosy. Look for light. Look for cool spots. Look for warmth and comfort. Haul gear inside. Set up gear. Test my light. Refine my settings. Test some more. Okay, show time. Need a “model”. Oh, there’s a great model. Talk to model. Smile. Laugh. Be a goof. That’s easy. Look, the model’s eyes are smiling. She’s beautiful. Time for her little sister to make an appearance. Model #2, ready. Wow, she’s a giggler. She’s into posing. No coaching here. Click. Click. Click. Mommy, get in there. Great. Perfect. Now time for a set change. Repeat. Click. Click. Repeat. Wow, I’m laughing. Hard to be an under-caffeinated grump around kids. Especially happy kids. Okay, let’s change locations again. This is cool. Hold it, just need to change a setting on my light. Now, fly for me. Awesome! You all did great. Perfect. Just perfect.

Just before this shoot I had received my much-wanted new “baby” lens in the mail, a Canon L-Series 24-70MM F/2.8, which I knew from reading reviews was a great lens. Super sharp. But the sharpness still blew me away. When you’re photographing children, a lot of photographers (myself included) tend to focus on the eyes. A child’s eyes can be an amazing playground. The more you can see their eyes, I think, sometimes the greater the emotional connection to the photo.

When I loaded this batch of images on my computer after the shoot, I was really taken aback at just how sharp the lens is. I included a 300% zoom on one of baby Lauren’s eyes in the gallery above. That is a 100% “un-Photoshopped” eye, with no trickery (sharpening or lightening) other than a close crop. You can not only see me in it, but three pictures on the wall above. Crazy.

This was a fun session, and I always enjoy it when clients have me come into their homes, their “real” lifes, to create images. They have a realness to them that you just can’t get with studio photography – as much as a dearly love studio photography.

Tags: babies, baby, Family, girl, girls, home, images, lifestyle, location, Northwest Territories, photos, Portraits, portraiture, six-months, Yellowknife

This entry was posted on Tuesday, March 9th, 2010 at 4:21 pm and is filed under Portraiture. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.