Playing Second Fiddle

A friend of mine, a wonderful photographer, invited me to tag along during an engagement shoot a few Saturdays ago.  She even let me use one of her cameras.  This wasn't just any camera, it was the Nikon d7100.  It has a lot of the same specs of the camera I'm looking to purchase and so it was fun to play with settings and get the hang of it.  Anyway, back to the shoot or session or whatever you want to call it.  Brandi taught me quite a bit about posing and lighting, how she uses her own camera and great locations.  I can't thank her enough for letting me invade her work and practice.  She does amazing work and so getting a chance to learn from her was a real treat.  Most of the pics I took were experiments.  I spent a lot of the shoot fiddling with the camera and playing around with it.  The couple kept their eyes trained on Brandi, especially after I informed them that I was just playing second fiddle and not to pay attention to me.  I did get a few where they were looking at me though.  It was nice that I wasn't the principal photographer during this session.  It took the pressure off and I was free to "play around" and learn without threat of screwing up this couple's engagement pictures.  Take a peek at Brandi's blog. 

Anyway, here are four of the probably hundreds that I took.  Between me and Brandi, we probably took like 300 pictures of this cute couple. 

Casual Photography

In all of my experimenting, I've got quite the stack of what I call "casual photography."  So here is a litany of shots from that folder.

Couple Session

This was really impromptu for this couple, my parents, but it gave me a few good shots of them.  I was actually taking their picture for a secret Christmas present that I was putting together for them.  I mostly wanted to get a few good pictures of them without them asking too many questions.  I think I was in and out in 15 minutes.

 
Had I had given myself more time, I might have gotten cooler poses out of them.  Cute couple though.

First Family Portrait Session

My brother's family asked me to take some pictures for them in the beginning of Fall last year.  It was way fun and I learned a ton from this session.  So thankful that I have family who will let me practice on them.  They have a new addition arriving in June and I'll be doing a newborn session for them.  I'll post those when I do.

I learned a lot about lighting from this session and more about posing people.  I learned, after editing them, that always having the subject facing the camera didn't always make the best shot.  The last one of my brother talking with his little boy in my favorite. It's so "in the moment."  They are a gorgeous family so it's would have been hard to NOT get a good shot of them, but I still learned a lot about composition and lighting.  Hopefully I can do some more for them in the future.  

I've got cute kids...

These are from the summer.  My sister-in-law took the majority of our family shots this year, but these ones of my kids were me.  The was my very first attempt at trying to be a photographer. 

I've 

I've learned quite a lot since the day I took these shots.  And I'm always practicing, but I think my kids are getting sick of being my models.

My Recent Obession

Natural light and black and white!

I've been experimenting with natural light for a while but decided to actually set up a small photo shoot in my home and I'm stoked with the results.

Those cute faces belong to my family.  I also did some portraits for a friend and a few of my nephew.

I really like the striking simplicity of these shots.  You capture the person with no distractions.  I like getting genuine expressions that show the subjects personality.  I hope to be able to do more like these and do some of couples.

I'm working hard to build my portfolio at the moment.  So come back soon to see what else I've done and leave me comments on how you think I'm doing.