Just a Walk in the Park

I am sure that many of my clients are jealous that I can take pictures of my kids at any time.  Strange thing is, they hate the camera, and to get them to smile for it many times is a hassle filled with promises of cake, ice cream, and McDonalds.  As everyone else has gotten their fall pictures taken, we finally found some time to take ours.  I think its more difficult shooting the pictures and trying to convince our kids that what we are doing is truely fun.  In the short amount of time we were able to coral them, I managed to grab a few shots that might make their way onto some holiday cards this year.

5 Alive!

As fall slowly dies out, and the trees loose all their leaves, myself and 5 younglings head out in search of smiles, laughter, and fun.  There was no shortage of entertainment working with this group of children.  Everyone was so willing to express themselves, and I’m sure by looking at the pictures below, you can figure out what personality each one truly has bottled up.

Summer Joy

Had the great pleasure to meet a young family and share a sunny afternoon together taking pictures.  What a joy it was to see smiling young faces as we walked through the grounds at St. Francis Monestary.

The Burlington Beat

As the fall arrives here is Wisconsin, there is no doubt leaves on the ground.  Instead of a traditional fall look, we walked through downtown Burlington, WI to get a little different perspective on fall pictures.  Little Eli, who just turned 3, rocked the lens all day.  The guy knows how to work it!

Back Home

With daddy being home on leave from the service, we were able to get everyone together for some candids.  It is so rewarding seeing this young son and his father!  Using the back drop of the St Francis monastery in Burlington, we were able to capture this young boy, his smile, and his wild side.

A Solider and His Girl

I had the pleasure of shooting a co-workers daughter and her soon to be husband.  He had just recently come back from Iraq, and we had a small window to shoot.  Using the St Francis Monastery for a backdrop made for a romantic sanctuary for these two love birds.

The Train Yard

I recently found a fantastic venue to shoot at while taking a few shots of my 1986 Nissan 300zx. This place is great, our little subject could not stop talking and pointing to all the surrounding train related items. We found everything from rustic stock yard buildings, to rail spikes. A great place for a young train enthusiast.

“Falling” for Families

I recently had the opportunity to take pictures for a close friend of mine.  The St. Francis Monastery in Burlington has a beautiful area on the property.  It is covered by many old trees creating an oasis from the sun.  Coming in the fall time was not ideal as many of the plants were withered, but there were still some great places to grab a few shots.  There are some great areas with old stone work that made great back drops.  I had recently purchased a EF 17-40 f/4 L and wanted to use it on this occasion as getting the two little boys in the picture was going to call for a really short lens.

One thing that I am learning with my own kids is that you must have patience, and have an itchy trigger finger because you never know when kids will look up at the camera.  Working with children at my full time job, I have learned a lot about how they behave in situations like this.  They have a time limit, and once that has been reached, it can be very difficult to find any usable pictures.  Naturally, bribery can work its magic, but generally its just an extention of the overall time they would have concentrated on the session anyway.  Sometimes I’ve found that the pictures of the kids goofing around after they have reached their frustration limit can be some of the best ones.  Many times the goofy, squirmish, and otherwise out of place shots have the most meaning to who that child really is.  The parents really seem to like some of these.

Lighting in some of the pictures taken is less than desired.  It was late in the day, and generally I like to take pictures then, but I was having a hard time with the fill light from my flash.  Sometimes the sun overpowered it, other times there wasn’t enough depending on the location of the shot and the sun.  A little bit of tweaking in Lightroom allowed to correct some of the inconsistencies with them, and over all I was happy with the shoot.  In other situations, the strange lighting through the trees created a really nice look to them.  I look forward to taking pictures at this location during the winter with snow, and in the spring with new flower growth.