For the last week or so Lisa has been asking me to take some pictures of the kids for a family Christmas card. In fairness I tried last week when we went out to get our tree, it was perfect, blue sky, pretty trees near by etc. So what was the problem I hear you ask? How is it possible you didn’t get a great picture of the kids? Well I’m in a good mood now and don’t want to unnecessarily go over my frustration, but lets just say that James didn’t want his picture taken!
OK, so here we are a week later and we are 9 days into December and still don’t have a card. Lisa had already found somewhere online where she was going to order the cards, she just needed pictures. So today had to be the day. There was a problem though (obviously – there’s always a problem). I wanted to take the pictures outside (they tend to look a little boring indoors, always in front of a white or black background) but it was raining again (shocker!)
So we got the kids to get dressed with clean faces and brushed hair etc., I got the camera gear out and we went on weather watch. At around 3pm, the rain slowed down, it didn’t stop completely but became more of a light drizzle. I called the kids and grabbed some lights and ran outside. Lisa wanted three pictures on the Christmas card, one of each of the kids and one of them both together. So I got some of Abi on her own, then some of James and finally a very rare couple of pictures of them both together and OH MY GOD they were both smiling! (You have no idea just how rare this is).
Both Abi and James were great, quite happy to do this, Lisa was happy as she got her pictures for the card (which incidentally she has already ordered), and I got a picture for the day. This one isn’t on the card but it’s one I liked.
I kind’a like taking pictures outside, we have a lot of trees behind our house and they provide a nice backdrop when they are just out of focus. I really wanted the kids to be brighter than the trees so I used a single speedlight flash in a 24″ softbox. I dialed down the exposure until I caught some of the background in the image (it’s a little dark but you can kind of see it’s trees) and used the light to make the kids faces pop. The end result was pretty good and even James liked them and he’s hard to please. In fact he’s asked me to take some pictures of him and his girlfriend Alex, so all in all a major success.
We are now 9 days into December so you shouldn’t really be surprised that the Halo guys found some Christmas decorations. I’m betting you see a few more pictures like this. Ho Ho Ho!
