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!