As They Are...

Here's the thing. Quite often, I'll think of a photo shoot to do with one of my children. I'll find a spot, a certain light. Then I'll think of the child that would fit the "moment" and I'll race home only to find that particular child with pizza sauce all over his or her face. A bruise on a leg. Messed up clothes. And no real desire to clean up for a photoshoot (who would?).

At that point I begin to feel a little melancholy because we don't have enough pictures of our children...

Not anymore...

Why have I been making things so hard and complicated? There is nothing wrong with nice, clean, posed pictures. But I am gravitating toward "lifestyle photography". People might have a different definition of lifestyle portrature than I do, but I want more pictures of my children as they are. My children are not usually dressed up in their best all day, with clean faces, no bruises, perfectly combed hair...they are in the middle of having some type of adventure at almost any given time of the day. That is what I want memories of.

So, in that spirit...







From here on out, I'm grabbing the camera, whatever lens I feel like grabbing, and one of the children. Now combing, brushing, straightening, changing...We're just going out in the middle of the road and shooting.

I used the Nikon d80, the 20mm 2.8 prime lens, shot in manual mode (images were taken in the RAW format) with the white balance set to "cloudy". The ISO was at 250. No flash (ever). And I shot a total of 7 images. 2 of the images were almost duplicates of what I posted here. It took all of about 3 minutes for the entire shoot. I then came inside and ran the RAW images through Adobe's Camera Raw image editor. Lightened the exposure a bit and warmed each image. I pumped the contrast ever so slightly (don't overdue this one) and sent the images to Photoshop. In photoshop I switched the mode to 8-bit, made the images black and whites, added a bit more contrast to the B/W's, and then sharpened using my own little action.

It sounds like a lot of steps, but it only took me about 10 more minutes at the computer until now....

Now...I will make them "pose" periodically for a few more formal shots throughout the year. But by and large, we're "amping" down on the "Smile!" moments for awhile.