With the days winding down til our second son arrives, I had two final baby shoots to prepare. Guess it's good practice for when my son arrives and I get to take TONS of pics :)
The Wilhelm family was so great and fun to work with. Their daughter was only 18 days old, which can be challenging when they're awake, but we took some shots that I'm really excited about. Here's a couple from our morning shoot at their house.
For Christmas I got my brother a lensbaby lens for his Canon 40D. I'm a Nikon guy, so we of course had to play with it right out of the box so that I could have some fun too! The lens is totally affordable and once you get used to it, can help you to come up with some really cool images. These are just a few samplings of pictures that he and I took. All in all, I'd recommend this to anyone but might suggest spending the extra money for the version that can be locked into place.
PT took this one
Mine
Mine
PT took this one
PT took this one
I've had a number of portrait sessions over the last few weeks, most of which have been with families & kids. What I've learned is that kids are really hard to shoot from the age of around 2 - 4. And if there is more than one, then you're probably not going to get to many "look at the camera" pictures with both kids. It's a huge challenge, but have found some good results with a couple ideas and a little luck.
Location/Location - find places where kids can run around and be themselves. A big grassy field not only looks beautiful when you push your aperture all the way open (50mm 1.8!!!), but it also is a safe open space where you don't have to constantly stop them from having fun.
Let them play - fun = happy faces = real emotion in your camera. The hardest thing to do with a kid is to tell them to smile. They know how to smile, but they don't "really know how to smile". I always try this with kids to see if I get lucky, but most (who don't have a photographer for a Dad) haven't spent enough time in front of the camera to not do the classic hard smile, showing every tooth in their cute grills. Just doesn't look natural.
Run with them - this was a new one I learned with the girls in this picture. As I ran with them and my non-zoom lens, I was able to stop them, but still capture movement, emotion, etc.
Be FAST - if you're lucky enough to get kids to stand still and look at the camera you've probably only got a few seconds to get the right picture. Get your settings right before you say "hey, look at me" and then grab their attention, snap as many frames as you can and you should end up with at least one keeper that the parents will love.
Encourage them - tell kids how great they're doing.
Include the kids - I like to show kids what's in my camera so that they get excited and become a part of the process. sometimes this will make them more cooperative because they want to see the "neat pictures".
I'm sure there are many more tips/ideas/thoughts on how to shoot kids. These are just the latest ideas I've had, so let me know your thoughts so that we can all keep making great pictures.
Obviously the answer is pretty much a "NO"...but after I was blessed to shoot Chrystina Fincher and the Buckhead Church worship band 2 Sundays ago, I was convinced it was possible. Chrystina and the band are some of the most professional, talented, and engaging musicians I've seen...period...I'm not just talking about Christian musicians. They just flat out rock, and the funny thing, after looking at these pictures on my camera was that even without sound, the band looks like they're really good. Maybe it's just the lights, maybe it's the fact that I was listening to them while snapping away, or maybe its the fact that as professional musicians, they've spent years and years not only getting better at their instruments, but also getting better at looking at ease on stage. Either way, they rock...thanks Carlos for having me back out to shoot!!!
The other thing that's been cool about shooting at Buckhead Church is that I've realized that my taking pictures can be an act of worship to God. Especially when taking pictures of worship, but also when taking pictures of God's creation whether it's a mountain, a person, or a reflection that a puddle creates. How cool is that?! I just came away from Sunday thinking about how I, through the entire 3 song practice I ran around the empty auditorium trying to get shot after shot, furiously snapping away, but in my head I was singing and worshiping God with Chrystina and the band. It was a cool moment for me and an amazing reminder that God delights in us enjoying the things he gives us.
Here are a couple of my favorites from the day:
The latest shoot I was fortunate enough to work was with Haley, a sophmore in high school up in Alpharetta, GA. She's a cousin of an old work buddy from my days at BBDO Atlanta. It was really fun because she's an aspiring actress and will be using the headshots to try and get an agent. Hopefully, the pics will also lead to some more biz with other thespians lookin for some different types of headshots. It was a super bright day, but we were able to find some shade and a couple new locations that I'll definitely use again. Here are my current favs from the day.
Had the opportunity to shoot a great family the other weekend. Things have been so busy, but I guess that's a great thing. I'm loving the chance to be creative with editing and exploring new ways to take portraits. These are just a couple of my favorites from the shoot...you can see more work at my flickr site.http://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gif
So, the blog world is officially bringing business to S Hunton Photography. It's really amazing to see how God will orchestrate things through the internet. From my first friends at the University of Arkansas in 1998, to getting booked to shoot at Buckhead Church last Sunday. One of the cool parts about the job was that I was finally able to meet Carlos Whittaker, whose blog is linked to the right. I'd randomly gotten connected to his blog through my best friend and realtor extraordinaire John Fountain. I'd read his blog and even traded emails, but had never met him in person although he works at Buckhead Church where Kristine and I go.
Anyway, long story short, Carlos is connected to some crazy talented photographers (many of whom I'd found on the internet long before) who all (fortunately for me) live in CA. He posted a blog about needing a photog for some Buckhead promo pictures and luckily for me, another good friend from the Arkansas days Jason Miller threw my name out as a recommendation. Carlos shot me an email and here are a couple of my favorites from the day:
One of my goals for my photography in 2008 is going to be to see more color, design, beauty, etc in every day life. For the past year I've been working on my skills as a portrait photographer, also doing the wedding over the holidays, but as I've explored more and more photographers' work on flickr.com I've discovered a desire to be more aware of things with my camera. There are so many great photographers, that are not shooting faces half the time and their images are drawing me in because they take you somewhere.
A couple recommended sites to check out:
Trever Hoehne
Mark Fleming
Joshua Longbrake
Keiko
Cristina Corduneanu
Paul Octavious
So, the resolution for 2008 will be to have my camera with me more often, as well as having my eyes open along the way. It's so easy to just drive to work, head down, listening to talk radio that's worthless INSTEAD of driving to music that brings me closer to God while looking around at creation and hopefully capturing some "beauty" along the way.
Anyway, here are a couple of the first images I've snapped due to just having my camera in the car. It snowed buckets here in Atlanta yesterday, and luckily I had my camera in the car and was able to snap a few pictures before it got too dark. Had I left it at home, there's no way that I'd have gotten to the house and been out quick enough to capture any pictures. Let the resolution accountability begin:
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