Music to my camera

I had the pleasure of practicing some more photography yesterday with the music minister from Grace and his family. I was really nervous that I wouldn't get a single shot I liked with FOUR children! Yikes! Turns out, we had a really good time. Granted, I took over 500 shots. But, I think there are about a dozen that are usable. :) OK, Wilcoxin's. Now I'm ready for you! I found the perfect spot at our local YMCA. You will likely see many of these exact scenes for a while. I loved the location.

Here's something fun that I also "invented" I don't have a huge diffuser and I've discovered by failure many times that patches of light are not flattering. with this big of a family, a huge diffuser would be pretty pricey. I've heard of making them 'home made' out of shower curtains and PVC pipe. You know I love PVC pipe. But, to keep it even simpler, I thought I'd experiment with hanging a shower curtain from my backdrop stand. It worked great! Looked a little weird, but worked great! Can you see all the splotches on the curtain itself? Yes, those would have looked horrible on my sweet subjects. You can call me whatever you want. But, it worked!

And see, everyone looks great! No splotches on faces. (I totally planted the bible on them. What good is a minister family shoot if he's not reading them the bible - wink?) Loved how it turned out. The idea actually originated from photos during Christmas of Uncle Daryl reading about Christ's birth to the kids.
This was supposed to be a cool picture by the barn. I love that I was able to learn so many things during this two hours. First off, they are wearing brown next to the brown barn.... not sure if I like it. Second, you can't even tell it's a barn! I was so worried about losing someone and making them look tiny, I wanted to fill the frame with their family. It occurred to me in the post processing that I could have had them stand closer to me and the barn would have simply looked smaller since it was in the distance. And, it would have been a cooler backdrop. Lesson learned. Look for this barn in future posts....
Love this shot of them up in the rocks. It's easy to take great pictures when you have great models.
How cute is this little guy?
Since they are wearing brown, I gave this shot a "chocolate" filter. I really like how it turned out. I'm excited that I was able to get movement in the waterfall and yet keep the family pretty much in focus. I told them, "Stand VERY still. Mom and Dad, smile continually. I'm only looking at the children. You are on your own!"
I totally stole this idea from Jasmine Star (J*). But, they were game and I think it turned out really cute.
I posed this shot because I thought it would be a cool way to display how this awesome family his heading down the curvy path of God's journey for them. Coming from a family of nine, I know it will be a very curvy road! ;) They are doing it hand in hand, united.
I love how it looks like he is totally in love with her right here. How could he not be? She's absolutely beautiful! I don't know her really well myself. But from the two hours I spent with her, she seems just as beautiful inside as well.
Rob suggested I make it a chocolate black and white for drama. I like it!
I have no idea what was going on here, but don't you just love it? It's like a little story. I don't know this families dynamics. But if it were my family, I could think of a few captions! ;)
Thank you so much, sweet family, for letting me practice with you.