Grandkids at church!

One of our sessions this month included 7 grandkids and a miniature church. This miniature church located in Groveland, Illinois is well-known in the area for a place to tie that knot. We have shot a wedding or two there in the past, but not the kiddies!

This session, or event as I would call it, took about 1.5 hours and was fairly enjoyable due to the kids having good attitudes. Lucky us huh? My wife and I each had a camera and a few lenses close by knowing that we would be all over the place. We started 30 minutes beforehand by cramming into the tiny chapel and choosing the best place to shoot. This also involved where the lights are going to go, do we even needs them, and where are we going to be shooting from. I don't have a great shot of the entire interior, but here is a 35mm shot that reveals about half of the interior and a few kids not paying any attention to me! :) Tech specs are at the end of this post.


I shot that first image above as they were running into the church. Immediately after that shot I ran towards the church doors. As I got closer I heard one of the family members yell to the kids "don't go in yet, they (us, the photog's) may not be ready!" PERFECT! I got inside as the kids ran back out which gave me the chance to capture the shot to the left. I decided to sepiatone some images because we were told before hand that the kids would be dressed in 60'ish vintage type of clothing.
What was a surprise is that the night before we found out that we were NOT shooting at their home, but instead at this miniature church. I figure, "hey, it's better than a living room!" I usually go with "don't pass up a unique setting!"

We figured that since we were not in a living room that we would go outside and see what there was to play with. We said nothing and watched where the kids naturally ran to. There was this awesome tree that screamed for kids to climb. This opened up many opportunities to capture the kids playing and not being coaxed into "smiling." I went with a sepia-like toned image, but with more color. I really wanted to push the vintage feel for them. I wanted the images to look like they were shot at that time period.

There was also a well that we played at for quite some time.



We ended our session with headshots of each child, but right before that I couldn't pass up shooting the guys (and girls) together while sitting on the church entrance steps. I mean, the place was built for kids right? Maybe not, but it sure fit their heights! I processed this image much different from the others. It reminds me of pictures of my father when he was young. It's like the images had some sort of color overlay on top of a black and white.

Tech Info:
Images inside the church: Alienbee800 softbox for a main and an unmodified light bouncing off the ceiling for fill.

Images on the church steps: Alienbee800 to camera left to fill in shadows.

All other images: no studio lights, Canon 10d and 20d with various lenses.

The iPod Generation

I had a family shoot last weekend which is the first shoot of the year for me. It isn't everyday, er, month that I have a kid to shoot. At a wedding there is usually more than one kid, in fact there are anywhere from 2-10! In those cases it's rather simple to get the kids to interact and play with each other since that is what they like doing anyway. It pays off with some adorable shots!

With this shoot Hunter (the child) was the only kid there. He was content half of the time, but overall 'good' I would say. The other half he wanted to listen to his iPod or play/tear magazines up. I made the best use of the situation and used Hunter's so called 'toys' as props.

I titled this post "The iPod Generation" for obvious reasons of Hunter being connected with his music. If the iPod was set down, he was unhappy. If it was handed to him, he would [happily] chew on it. Perfect! Since Hunter was already on daddy's shoulders all I had to do now was somehow interact the third subject. Easy, have her put the earphone into Hunters ear! *snap!*

I used a 3x4 softbox to the subjects right and a umbrella fill behind me and camera left. The room was about a 12x12 living room. Shot with a 10D at f/9.5 @ 180 ISO400. Why f/9.5? Well, I was moving lights often and simply changing my aperture as I went. Since my lens only opens up to 5.6 everything in the background would be in focus anyhow, so who cares if it went to f/9.5?