Portraits in Mass

I recently shot the school portraits for a preschool and private kindergarten.  That, my friends, is a whole different experience.  If a portrait session is a long jog through the park, then school photos are a run-for-your-life sprint.  :-)  It's fun to run fast.  It also knocks me out.  Running analogies too cheesy?  I'll blame it on my husband's influence.

Every shoot has it's challenge.  With school portraits it's time.  Er, lack of time.  You have less than a minute per child to nail the photo (budget your time for the class photo...you're gonna need it).  Child won't smile?  Then you best get creative and make a fool of yourself to get the child to laugh.  I don't know too many parents who want school portraits of an unhappy face, closed eyes, or the Lost in Space look.  I know I don't.

It was fun to exercise different muscles.  It was a lot of fun to edit through so many different, precious faces.  Even in a simple school portrait, there's a lot of the child's personality that comes through to the viewer.  It never ceases to amaze me how honest and open the face is a child gives to the camera.

Park Playtime

One of my more recent photo shoots was at one of the city's newest, fanciest parks: North Domingo Baca.  Albuquerque truly has a lot to be proud of with its parks, and this park is especially awesome.  I was excited to take pictures there.  Excited about the beautiful Sandia backdrop, the manicured grass (this is the desert, folks), the view of the city....  I was less excited when I saw how BUSY it was: busy as in lots of people and dogs, and lots of background noise that would have to be edited out during proofing.  But these things are all easily worked around, and we all quickly settled into the shoot.

This client is a fun-loving, active family of five, and my job this day was to photograph the three children.  These kids are pros.  They've had portraits done before.  They're relaxed in front of the camera, they're goofing off with each other, smiling, having fun.  They're AWESOME.

I always want to come away with great "solo" shots of each person at the shoot.  I'll usually take individuals, but I'll also take shots with the group in the image but have the focus centered on a specific person.  For this shoot, I did both, and while the images of the kids on their own were great, the images of them hanging out with their siblings were really special.  They are a Threesome.  Here are two of my favorite images.

And since they are a threesome, I worked on getting shots of them all together, and specifically shots that speak to their sibling bond.  I try to provide several diverse viewpoints of the group portrait, and my clients like images that are different from the expected. 

These guys are a creative bunch.  The last 30 minutes or so of the shoot, they were firing ideas at me: "Let's try this! Ooh, look at this!  How about this??"  Some of their poses (like pony rides).... not so hot.  But some were simply great, like this one, which turned out to be both the mom's, and my, favorite of the day.

Sessions like this one reaffirm several things for me.  First, it helps me when the client collaborates on the shoot.  They are vested in the session, they are the show, they are not props.  Second, kids are creative to their core, and that creativity can be a huge asset to the photog.  And third, photographing kids is FUN!

A Summer Evening on Campus

For the location photographer, the UNM campus is an Albuquerque treasure.  There are rolling green hills, areas of full shade, a pond complete with small footbridge and waterfall, and gorgeous, lush foliage everywhere.  In the summer, it's a very accessible spot for taking family portraits.  And kids love it!

One evening this summer I took family portraits for a client there.  I love shooting in places where there's very diverse scenery and plenty of space for us to spread out and let the kids run around.  UNM has that.  For this shoot, the kids bee-lined for the duck pond upon arrival.  We let them run around, and got some great shots of them chasing each other.  I love this one of the little brother chasing his older sister.  Such is the life of little brothers!  I shot this two ways: one where the focus is on him, one with the focus on her.   The client ordered both.

On shoots, I like to let the kids lead the way, because then they'll focus on the place, and not on the photographer.  And I usually come away with great shots that I hadn't planned.  Here, they found a turtle pond, and started naming the turtles.  I think they were enjoying the shoot :-)

One of my favorite shots of the afternoon was of the little boy wandering off to explore on his own.  With my own children, I'll often see them doing something that makes me close my eyes and mentally chant "remember this. remember this."  This image felt like one of those memories to me, and so I chose post-processing that matched that feeling: hazy, with lost details, but the essence of the image still intact.

Eventually, kids start to wear out, and it's time to wrap it up.  That's when I like to grab the candid family photos.  The kids are usually ready to rest and have a snuggle with their parents.  And as a parent, I believe the most precious portraits you have are those of your babies interacting with you.  Those are the images you willingly pay a photographer to take.  They're special, they're true to life, and they're impossible to capture without a 3rd party taking the shot.  So here are my two favorites from the end of the session. I hope you enjoyed this beautiful family!

A Monster Find

I've been spending a lot of time shopping around for templates to use for marketing literature, album design, press-printed cards, you name it.  And sometimes I get a little sidetracked.  As in, I start shopping for ME, not for CatchLight. 

My most recent find under this category is a Party Monster clip art set by Babystar Design.  My son will be turning 1 all too soon, and his Birthday is right around Halloween.  So, the party theme this year is monsters, and they're not all that easy to find in the stores.  But I found a set of 8 monsters on Etsy, and for $5... Sold.  They are the perfect addition to the 5x7 cards I designed to send out to family and friends.

Welcome

Welcome to the CatchLight Photography blog!  CatchLight Photography is an on-location portrait studio based in Albuquerque, NM, specializing in natural light family portraiture.  This site will feature:

- Recent portrait shoots: the backstory of the client, my three favorite pictures from the shoot and why I love them so, and information about the shooting location and set-up.
- Personal musings on my experiences as a photographer and business owner.
- Information on upcoming events and promotions!