The Newest Gerber Baby

This last Thursday I had the pleasure of photographing my new nephew for my brother and his wife.  It is wonderful to be able to provide this service for them.  I've been taking family pictures for them since their daughter was born almost two years ago now.  Before we get to the good stuff (the pictures) I'll explain a little about my strategy going into a sitting like this.

Whenever I'm contacted about photographing a family I try to get as much information about who is involved and what they are looking for.  Besides showing an interest in the family it provides me with vital information on how I plan the session.  Generally speaking we start with whatever the most important grouping is.  In this case it was the whole family together.  From there we start doing breakdowns with the shortest attention span first.

Since my niece is under two she has the shortest attention span for this type of event.  After taking the full family shot we moved on to some shots of my niece and her new baby brother.  This way if she needs a break or just doesn't want to take pictures anymore you will have something in the bag already.  Sammy was only a week old at the time of the sitting so I wasn't that concerned with his attention span.  Generally speaking if you keep infants fed and warm they can do really well even in a longer sitting.

When my niece didn't want to do any more pictures we sent her off to play and take a break.  This way you can hopefully bring her back in at some point and continue to capture images.  In all my family shoots I ask if they have something particular in mind.  Involving the family in the creative process is a great way to help them feel like they are getting what they envisioned.  I always come with a game plan of images that I would like to get as well as an open mind to situations that present themselves. 

Now on to the good stuff.

Back to My Side Project

A few posts earlier I shared about my Star Wars Lego fun side project.  While waiting for the storms to start rolling through the area I decided to add to that project.  This time I used Lightroom 4's tethered shooting mode.  On the plus side it was really nice to view images on my laptop immediately after shooting.  This makes checking focus much easier than the 3" LCD screen on the back of the camera.  On the down side I wasn't able to use the live view mode that I use when manually focusing macro shots.  There may be a way to do this but I haven't had the time to investigate that yet.

I always loved the speeder bikes in Star Wars.  The Lego kits do a pretty good job recreating these speeders.  Despite what some may think of this as a nerdy project, it does have real world application for photographers.  It gives me an opportunity to work on lighting.  Finding ways to creatively light objects like this is very helpful for when I want to do product photography.  The surfaces of Legos are surprisingly reflective.  Hit a surface with direct flash and boom, all of the detail is gone.  On the previous post of the Storm Trooper I moved the flash around then masked in the parts that I liked to create the final image.  In this example I had a diffuser on my flash and only shot from one position.  This gave the final image a little more contrast and harsher shadows.

I may play around with this a little more to accentuate a few areas but for now I like how it looks.  Almost forgot one of the practical applications.  Ever taken a picture of someone with glasses only to have a giant flash spot covering their eyes?  To eliminate the flash spot move the flash.  If you can't do that try slightly tipping the glasses or turning the face away from the flash slightly.