Costume Birthday Party

Fighting Evil Doers At Every Turn

We went to a costume birthday party this past weekend. The kids got a trial run on their Halloween costumes.

Above is Lily and a schoolmate, who’s house we were at. We had a good laugh that they both were dressed as SuperGirl, but neither of them seemed to mind.

Stella as a dog

I find this picture hilarious. Stella with her screwed up face. Perhaps it’s ’cause I’m dad.

Norah

Technorati Tags: photography, kids, children, costume, party

Portrait Mood

Sarah and Norah

I’ve definitely been in a portrait mood lately. Sarah and Norah were kind enough to pose for several frames. This is probably my favorite, but there are a couple of “out-takes” that I find funny as well.

 

Norah whacking Mom                         Lucy wanders into view

The portraiture work has been both rewarding and difficult. I think my viewfinder awareness is getting better. I’m becoming more adept at posing too. I think the practice is helping. Also, using the light meter has been fantastic. Maybe several facets are simply “clicking” at the same time, but it seems that using the light meter has really enabled me to think about what each element will look like, and more importantly, what I want each element to look like.

In fact, I wanted to revisit using the pink background. The first time I used it (for Lucy’s birthday pictures) the colors seem to have an almost orange tint. So, I decided to add some light to the background and make the pink “pink-er” whilst photographing Norah.

Norah looking cute.

I’m very pleased with the background color. Just what I wanted. I think that had I moved the flags in closer I’d have at least mitigated the shadow line, if not mostly eliminated it.

Making progress.

Technorati Tags: photography, portrait, portraiture, lights, studio, lighting, children, kids, pink, black

Why do we pay for toys?

Playing with toilet paper

Honestly, why do we spend the money? This is a picture of my 3 oldest girls playing with toilet paper (clean, mind you) in the living room. They were using it like streamers and just having a blast.

Queen Lily

And Lily has it wrapped in her hair pretending to be a queen.

Who knew that toilet paper could be so fun?

Technorati Tags: photography, kids, children, playing, fun, toys, film, black, white, efke

Random Film Shots

Stella by the Pool

Honestly, how is she standing? Stella’s straight, but nothing else is….

Norah in Sunlight

Lily making letters using her body

Norah finally sleeping

Technorati Tags: photography, film, efke, b&w, black, and, white, kids, children

Pink Seamless Test

From Pink seamless test shots

Lucy, the soon to be birthday girl.

Saturday is Lucy’s birthday party. This is going to be a very “girl” focused party. Tea, finger sandwiches, princesses, crafts, pink everywhere, etc. One of the crafts is decorating a picture frame. My wife (bless her heart) thought it would be nice to get pictures of each of the girls and print them for their picture frame. Additionally, we’ll be having a princess stop by and want to get pictures of each girl with the princess.

From Pink seamless test shots

Stella wanted to show me her “mad” face.

In preparation of all this, I ordered a pink (actually “Carnation”) roll of seamless paper from Calumet. Last night the girls were kind enough to help me out as models. I got to try a few different lighting styles, they got to change costumes several times, and at the end they got a huge piece of paper to color on once I cut off the used piece of background paper.

From Pink seamless test shots

In my defense, Lily picked her own wardrobe.

This was my first time using a paper seamless background. I got the 53″ wide background as opposed to the 107″ roll. While it’s not a huge issue, I think I’d choose the 107″ roll next time. It’s a bit more freedom and I would then be able to get a group shot as well. The 53″ is fine for a single person and a shot of the princess and 1 child. But more than that and I’m pushing it.

Now we just have to work out the logistics of when to take the pictures. I need a decent amount of space. So does the craft table. So, there will have to be some shuffling.

All in all, I’m quite looking forward to this Saturday. It’ll be a fun challenge to shot a bunch of other people’s kids, process the pictures and print for the frames.

A few more selects….

From Pink seamless test shots

Technorati Tags: photography, lights, seamless, pink, kids, party, birthday, champaign, illinois, IL

Stella and the Bogeyman

Stella

Technorati Tags: photography, stella, lighting, kids

5×5xMonday

In recent discussions with a friend, we challenged each other. I had to take at least 5 pictures every day by Monday and self-edit down to my choice of the best 5. Hence 5 by 5 by Monday or 5×5xMonday. His challenge was to draw 5 sketches per day and cull to the 5 best for Monday. There was also a loose theme of fun (maybe it was funny; I don’t remember though).

Here are my 5. They’re all centered around kids, as that’s a major part of my life right now. Plus, who best do define “fun?”

Here I come!

Not Happy!

Spinning

Fighting Gravity

Spinning with Ceila

Technorati Tags: photography, kids, children, fun, challenge, digital, canon, 40D, champaign, il

Flowers In Your Hair

From Lily 6 year shoot

It all started with braids.

Lily asked her Mom for some “Heidi” braids. Once you’ve got braids, why not put some flowers in your hair, right? Of course, once the flowers are in your braids you’ll want a picture.

And once you start taking a picture of one kid, why not get the whole bunch in the mix?

From Lily 6 year shoot

You can look sweet, clown around, whatever….

From Lily 6 year shoot

Just have fun.

From Lily 6 year shoot

Technorati Tags: photography, kids, lights, fun

Playing with Lights

From Playing with lights

Such good models….Watching TV in the background

Well, I finally did it. I got some “professional” strobes. Well, at least that’s what Alien Bees says. I got two lights, light stands, a reflector, a boom arm, and wireless triggers all around.

I don’t think that it will be possible to really describe just how awesome these lights are compared to using my two small strobes with crappy intermittent wireless triggers. It totally rocks.

From Playing with lights

Barbie thinks they rock too

Once the kids are in bed, I’m out of models. So, Barbie had to do.

From Playing with lights

You want me to what?

The lights have way more power than I think that I’ll need in the near future. For these pictures I was shooting at 1/8 power out, and f/8, 1/250. I’m pretty pleased with that. If I need to light up a few kids, I’ll have the juice and if I need to spray and pray with a young one, the lights should be able to keep up.

Now I need to practice. When our new one arrives, I want to get pictures with all of the grandparents. I don’t know if they’ll like it, but I’m sure that I will.

Technorati Tags: photography, alien, bees, portrait, kids

Preparing for Spring

From Carving Pumpkins and Preparing for Spring

We were planting bulbs this weekend, getting ready for spring.

From Carving Pumpkins and Preparing for Spring

It was a beautiful day. A bit windy, but not too cold.

From Carving Pumpkins and Preparing for Spring

The kids were having a great time helping out. For the most part everyone kept out of the mud, which was a minor miracle.

From Carving Pumpkins and Preparing for Spring

Technorati Tags: photography, kids, planting, spring, bulbs