The last couple of weeks I have been taking a lot of pictures. Two weeks ago I took some pictures of some of my wife’s new mommy friends and their kids (see right). This is the first of 3 get-togethers this group will have that we will attend before we move back to Burlington. The second set, from last Wednesday is already up and we are supposed to meet up with this group again tomorrow, which will hopefully also yield some good pictures.
All the get-togethers are supposed to happen outside at a park, but it was too cold for the first one and we headed over to Bayshore Mall. The temperature issue sorted itself out for last week’s get-together and so all of the pictures are outside. Each environment proved to have tricky lighting conditions. The mall had a mix of incandescent and fluorescent lighting that was sometimes too dim. I punched some of the pictures up with a flash bounced off the ceiling, but found the children did not cooperate with being in the good light.
The second shoot, was supposedly at the wrong time of day to be shooting. Best light is closest to dawn or dusk which provides a nice soft light, but we were shooting under the harsh mid day sun. I think the fact that everyone was sitting under a shady tree worked out well. There was plenty of light and the washed out sunny backgrounds look really good (above left).
In between those two photographic opportunities I went to my wife’s sister-in-law to be (Tara)’s bridal shower. Again the available light made things a bit challenging. The pictures were taken between 3:30 and 5:30 which does not mean harsh mid day sun, but is still not the subdued soft lighting of dusk. There was a lot of shots half in, half out of shade, as well as some with full on sun and a couple in door. Even so, I think there were quite a number of good shots. As kids tend to do, this little guy and his grandma (left) to the left provided the standout shots. I’ll have to corner Tara and Christian at their wedding and make sure they get to be in a picture with some kids :)
On Saturday Kate and I visited with Mike and Maria and their kids for a BBQ. I think I am getting the child photography thing down. It helps that Jaan (left) and Aisha (below right) are too cute for words. Between wanting to be photographed and being shy, they proved to be almost perfect photographic subjects.
Here again I was contending with what is supposed to not be ideal light, but I think the lighting really enhances the mood of these two photos. Some of my success here is happy accident, but I have been getting more and more keeper shots, so I think some degree of my success is that I really am getting better at figuring out where to point the camera, what to keep in frame, when to take the picture and what to do about bad (and good) lighting.
I don’t just take pictures of other people’s kids. If you have looked though the galleries linked above, you may have found one or two of Amara. She of course also has her own section in the gallery.
Sunday was father’s day so I got a bit of a day off, both from picture taking and looking after Amara. Kate took a couple of pictures with Amara and I in Strathcona Park to commemorate my first father’s day. I think they turned out pretty well. I didn’t totally stop taking pictures that day, I took this picture of Kate and Amara (left) at Strathcona Park also.
Some of the mothers from the get-togethers that did not know much about me, assumed from my comfort with the camera and the resulting pictures that I am a pro photographer. I have also been getting more and more comments that my pictures look like they were taken by a professional. Maybe I missed my calling. In any case, I am seriously thinking about selling my services, at least as a child photographer, to help supplement the camera equipment lust that has developed over the last couple of years. What do you think? Would you pay me to photograph your child. I am sure that I would be cheaper than Canadian Baby Photographers and I would’t make you buy your prints through me :)
My 30th birthday came and went on the 21st of June. I got a couple of toys including a new Canon G10 Camera. I have been carrying it with me everywhere and have a few pictures up already. Most are from trips to the park. But there are also a couple from Amara’s end of school year pageant (look for the pictures in the church). Unfortunately for the pageant shots there were a lot of pushy parents trying to get pictures, so there are no shots of Amara singing.
The camera is taking some getting used to. The controls are very different from my 300D (Digital Rebel) but I think I am starting to get the hang of them. My main problem is that I am not as fast with the G10 as I am with the SLR. The zoom reacts much slower that I can with the manual zoom on the SLR so composition takes longer with that. I also am still getting the hang of changing the auto focus location.
