Finding the Light

For a while now I have been recording my Instagram videos in my garage. Why my garage, you ask? Because my garage has the loveliest light! If you haven’t heard a photographer talk about beautiful light, then they can’t seriously call themselves a photographer.  You see, my house faces south, so I get a lot of southern light for most of the day. My garage seems to be in the perfect spot and the fact that it provides covered shade is awesome! If you’re not familiar with photographing in covered shade, I will cover that in a later blog post. Since I do get such beautiful light in my garage, I thought I would photograph a session in it just to confirm that it is good for more than just selfies. I must say the images turned out wonderfully. Below you can see how gorgeous and even the light is.

Whenever I have a session, I check the weather, especially if I will be photographing outside. When I checked earlier in the week, it was supposed to be sunny and warm. By Thursday, it was overcast and the high was in the mid-70s. Not a bad day, just not what I expected. No matter, because we had brilliant light. The light wasn’t as warm as I had wanted it but it worked just fine. Besides, I can always fix it in post. And if you’re wondering about warm light versus cool light, I will explain that in a later post as well. Hey, I can’t tell you everything now. I still need material to build my blog history back up. Oh, another reason for this blog, which was pointed out to me by a photographer friend of mine, is that you can see how an elaborate set is not needed to get beautiful portraits. When I photograph, I want people to focus on the subject not what’s behind or around them. Not to say that I don’t sometimes add little props here and there, but mostly I try to keep it as simple and organic as I can. There are plenty of photographers who use elaborate sets and the images are absolutely gorgeous, it’s just not my style.

Below are some before and after images I captured so that you can see what I shot and how I edited it for the final image. I decided to do two iterations of it because I felt it needed a little extra umph.

In addition to these images, I wanted to also share some video of this session. Rory always makes for an entertaining session. She’s full of energy and is a non-stop conversationalist. Now that she’s older, it does make it easier to photograph her. Earlier in April, she turned five and boy has that made a difference. The last time I photographed her I think the session lasted about 5-8 minutes because she just wouldn’t follow directions. That was probably due to the fact that she knows me which makes it a little more difficult because she was feeling a bit too comfortable with me. I don’t generally have that problem with other people’s children. Since they don’t know me, they are more inclined to follow directions. So, if you are having a problem with your children not doing what you want when you photograph them, more than likely it’s because they are too familiar with you. That too will be another blog post on how to photograph your children. What I will tell you is that you need to make sure that they continue to have fun if you want them to cooperate.

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I hope you enjoyed the videos and the images! Please make sure to stop back next week to see what I’ve got to share. Also, I do hope you’ll think of me when you need portraits of your children. It would be my pleasure to create art of your little people! Remember, sharing is caring! Make sure to share this blog with your friends. That way, they can never say you never gave them anything.