My first family even shoot - C&C would be greatly appreciated

bigtwinky · Jun 1, 2009

After seeing once of my projects that I was handing in for school that night, a co-worker asked me if I would be free to shoot her son's confirmation this past weekend.

I thought it was a great opportunity, so I jumped at the chance. I sat with her ahead of time to get an idea of what she was looking for and in her words, seeing as she is italian, her family was looking for more formal, standard family pictures of the various families with her son. Nothing too complicated.

It was raining Saturday morning, the sky cleared up to give me a bright sun and nasty shadows for the outside church pictures. I also followed them to the hotel / restaurant they had their meal at and snapped some pictures there as well, but the light was horrible. Man, how you pros do it is beyond me.

It was my first time trying to place and pose groups of people, dealing with people who say they know what they are doing, crowd control, worrying about backgrounds and the whole thing.

I shot about 80 pictures, of which I'm giving her 30 that are pretty nice. Here are a few that I think are noteworthy. Even thought she wanted simple straight up portraits, I tried to do a little more interesting things.

Love to hear what you all think, good or bad. Thanks!

1. The family

2. The aunt, uncle and cousins. A bit low of a crop, and the guy in the back right is a bit hidden

3. The boy and his sister, gust of wind hitting her hair. Is her top of head to cut off?

4. The boy with his cousins/sister in the back. A bit busy background

5. Boy, sister and father. Different perspective

6. All the kids hanging out at the piano

Thanks for looking!!

musicaleCA · Jun 1, 2009

Oh my, great shots. I wouldn't worry too much about losing some of her hair in #3; a more common mistake is to be too far away from your subject when doing close-up portraits. Sometimes a good idea is to just take two or three steps toward the person, and take the shot when you feel like something is missing. But I ramble; this doesn't really apply. The most important thing is that you caught a wonderful moment in time with the hair blowing.

I love #4; it's an interesting perspective, and placing the young boy in front makes him look on par with the rest of them, which is lost in #6. Definitely something I'll remember for my own photography. His face is a little overexposed to my eye in #4, but I really only mean a little. In that case I think I'd much rather see a little overexposure than having his face be even with the rest. Sure that BG is a little busy; that might be solved by picking a different angle.

bigtwinky · Jun 1, 2009

Thanks for the comments.

In deed, I remembered from a tip I read here to shoot in portrait and landscape and different ranges and angles. So I tried to get different shots and this one worked the best.

The boy was on his way to get with the others (#6) and I asked him to stop. Thought it would be interesting seeing as its his day.

Was hard battleing the crap lights. I had a diffuser on my 430ex, which is why I guess his face is overexposed. I'll try and keep subject to flash distance in mind

Alexphoto · Jun 1, 2009

I like b/w the best, nice reflection

btw, try also when not everyone looks at you, but also at each other, then there will be such invisible lines for our eyes to follow.

bigtwinky · Jun 1, 2009

You mean a mix of people looking at me and some not? I did take one where I had the boys look at the girls and the girls at the boys, but no one looking at the camera.

Andrew Sun · Jun 2, 2009

Great shots you have here. Only thing I would actually try to fix is post-processing the male with the long hair who's face has a little bit of 'splatter red'.

However sometimes clients want themselves to stay 'as is'. Maybe consult them about it first? But as said already, great shots.

bigtwinky · Jun 2, 2009

Andrew Sun said:
Great shots you have here. Only thing I would actually try to fix is post-processing the male with the long hair who's face has a little bit of 'splatter red'.

However sometimes clients want themselves to stay 'as is'. Maybe consult them about it first? But as said already, great shots.

I'll probably just leave it as is unless requested to change it. I don't mind doing PP to enhance an image, but not to change the look of someone, unless as you said, I am asked to.

Thanks!