This was 1 of my first "professional" sessions. I experimented with one strobe off camera for a bunch of the shots. Check out the slideshow. check out the slideshow

The lighting looks really good! Awesome for you to get the flash off the camera. I'm not experimenting anymore 'til the Austin OneLight

There are some great shots of the little boys together. I'm sure the family will love 'em!

Great job for your first time! The lighting is great and your b/w conversions are niiice. Wish you could've turned the family around to another angle in the beginning because the background is ugly with the buildings/town back there. It'd have been nice to see the group pictures at the beach because that had pretty surroundings.

:thumbsups:

Some very nice stuff! Post a few images in this thread, and you'll probably get more responses... I think people don't always take the time to view slideshows!

I love that dog

Please do post some here! Slideshows are hard because the images move (can't look at them for very long) and some people can't view them at work, etc (shhh, no one is really checking OSP at their dayjob... )

Nice job Tony. Just watch out for low angles on the mommies (like the lifeguard stand family shot). Double-chin-city!

Thanks everyone! I'm actual a my day job too (wink wink) so I don't have the images here, but next time I'll definitely post right here.

I agree with you LRH on the background. The grandparents requested the shot because that's their backyard. A different angle definitely would have worked better.

The dog was so fluffy it almost looked fake.

if you never mentioned this was your first 'professional' family shoot, i would never have known. the shots are crisp, full of color, have great poses and great natural movements all captured really well. solid, solid job man.

please post pics - some of us live on the other side of the world and don't care to waste our bandwidth dollars watching slideshows (yes NZ is the dark ages ....sigh)


That or post it in the 'slideshows' area ...... lol

You did a great job. I have my first on Monday, I gotta think of stuff:)

Here are 3 images, so you don't have to watch the whole slideshow. Thanks for all the comments. Brent, I love your images and they really make me want to learn as much as possibly about off camera lighting.

K.C. - Thanks and good luck on Monday! Post some pics after the shoot.

I LOVE their facial expressions in that first one...and I can see the allure of the dog...the construction in the background on the second and third is a bit distracting, but I think you already saw that. In the future, you might do some BOTH directions, and then they might see that the "prettier" background is nicer Just gently steer them toward it...

you got some great shots there. Love the one of the boys on the pier.

These are really great. I've got to learn about this one light deal The photos look really great and I love the ones near the water.

oh cool - I'm glad I popped back in - Thanks for the shots!!

I'm a bit in critique mode here so I'm going to tell you what I think and what I might have also tried on these 3.

I'll start with number 3 because I think it's the strongest of the 3 - and remember this is just what I see, in an effort to help you understand what a 'random viewer sees'

Number 3 - the technicalities are all strong, exposure and tone/colour on the subjects are spot on, background also - but there's a problem with that viewing platform (?) at left and the logs or rocks there too, also you have the horizon running through their heads, with distracts in my opinion.
What you could have done is lay right down on the ground - further than you were already, and shot with their heads into the sky a touch more and you probably would have lost the platform too. One other thing I would have definitely done was take them into the marvelous field down yonder.... that looks like the spot to me!

Number 2 - again pretty good, but missing on a few things - the white of the shirts is lost in the white of the sky - meter the light blue sky and in this instance, set your max synch speed for your flash and then drop the exposure on it by a half a stop by adjusting (closing) your aperture (you'll find yourself around f16 or 22 at 1/200th I would guess). I would think then your flash settings would be about right.


Now the first one has the most potential due to the nature of the shot - it appeals to me, and will appeal to the client too, but again the white side of the frame makes it feel unbalanced - also I think the words at the bottom are too tightly cropped in this instance. So what would I have tried? I think this one is dying to be high keyed - forget the flash on this one, wait - did I say that?? expose the kids properly, and blow he background right out, also I'd probably try with them sitting on one end of the wording, looking away or mischievous or something - just to take away the centre heavy framing..... - you may need the flash to expose the wording actually......



That's just my take on the three I see, I don't mean it as a put down at all, just trying to help from an objective point of view.

Oh, there's also something on the top left of the frame on number 2 (and I just realised that 'field' may well be marshes and swamp