Focusing on Capturing Emotion and Not my Insecurities

I have photographed Connie, a dear friend and her family, for years. They have always been pleasant with me. Even better, they appreciate my style and approach. But Monday, was where the photo stars were in perfect alignment of what I value in technique, putting away my pride and focusing on the art of capturing emotion of a beautiful family.

Being from Southern Utah, I have only photographed at the Brigham Young Home in Downtown St. George, twice. Monday was the first time for Connie's family. My resistance to photograph here, was out of sheer pride. This is a popular location, and with our over-saturated market of portrait photographers, I am VERY eager to separate myself from feeling like another photographic drone.  Since I have retired I feel less inclined to have the same worries I used to.
I had a BLAST photographing at this location!
Shame on my insecurities and pride.

Any location can become unique, based on the photographers skill to make it original. That is the freedom of personal style.

TECHNICAL Craft
I photographed Connie and her family at 7pm in the evening, it was beautiful evening light. I shot at 400 ISO and the images ranged from 5.6 to 3.5 Fstop at about 125 to 60th of a second. I used my Cannon Speedlite with the Gary Fong light diffuser. I shot about 140 images, deleted about 15. I narrowed the slideshow down to about 44 images. And YES, I always shoot in RAW with my EOS 50D. I processed the images in Lightroom and did one or two touchups in Photoshop. I strive to have sound images so I limit my time on the computer, yet I still spend at least a couple hours processing, editing the sitting, making slideshows, putting logos on the web images and getting this blog prepared.

My Approach to Capture Emotion and Play
The children ran about and played. I stay away from the traditional "porch group shots" simply because I think they look LAME. I focused more on creating natural, relaxed poses, with point of focus compositions. I shot whatever seemed to come natural and worked to mold the family so they all look their best together. The kids seemed to immediately, feel comfortable with me. I seized the moment and brought them in, talking softly and giggling with them. I relished, that they were ultra relaxed with me. We played for a while and then immediately focused on a few family poses. Connie and her husband have quite a bit of trust in me, so they backed off and became silent observers as I played and photographed the children. Afterward, I let them play as a famly and would occasionally gather them in together. It proved to be a good experience for everyone.

The most important thing here, was that the family felt secluded, relaxed and themselves, this way, I could focus on emotion. I love being able to ANTICIPATE a moment. To allow my personality be a tool to help the family loosen up, and truly be themselves. To create a portfolio of happy, intimate images.

I am glad I put away my insecurities for this one. The images are beautiful.

The portrait slideshow will take a minute to load. I hope you enjoy! It is beautiful, with a song by Ben Folds, called The Luckiest. http://shareephoto.myshowit.com/huntfamilyphotographs2

I photographed the area after the sitting was over about 8:30 pm For this I bumped up the ISO so I could have more depth of field, since I had no tripod on hand. Scroll down to see those images.