The truth about a photography session - {Albuquerque child photography}

So I have been thinking a lot about photography. About having a photography business. About what I like & what I don't.  I do like blogs - I like other photographer's blogs and I like having one myself.  (Except when I go a month without updating it.)  One thing I've noticed about photography blogs is that - I'll just speak for myself here - I think I tend to post some of my favorite images from a session, try to come up with a little text that's slightly different from the last post (it's not my strength!), and try to "let the images speak for themselves". 

And I think we (photographers) want to make it look easy.  We don't want it to look like we make mistakes that drive us crazy, so we don't talk about that kind of stuff on our blog posts.  (I'm sure some photographers do, but I haven't seen much of it.)  I want to change that this year and show more of what really happens.

I'll start with some images I took of my daughter today.  It's a good object lesson because taking good pictures of our own children is notoriously hard for photographers.  Nevertheless she is just about to turn 5 years old and it's time to do some serious photography before she grows up too much. :)  I had something really specific in mind (which I didn't get).  I also had some really specific lighting I wanted to use, and I wanted to use my kitchen because I love the new color and curtains.  I set up a bunch of lights and tinkered around with them for quite awhile.  This next image is the best one I got with first the lighting setup I used.  It's actually a nice smile but the lighting is not what I'd had in mind (although I do think it's kind of pretty and soft).



She is such a reader (or rather "reader" - she "reads" books and figures out what is happening from the pictures) that I wanted to include that.  It's really hard to get a 5 year old to look natural reading to themselves when they know you're trying to take a picture.  This was my favorite.  (The rest looked a bit awkward.)


I got plenty of strange looks like this one.  Plenty of images didn't make the final cut. :)


And some really sweet ones, like this one, that I love.  I turned the flashes off and went to all window light and a reflector, which was more what I wanted.


She is such a happy girl - I love it when I can get her laughing in front of the camera.  (Instead of a stiff smile with her head turned at a funny angle like usual.)




And this - I love.  Window light is perfect here, with a reflector to fill in the shadows.


She thinks it's really pretty to lie down for pictures.  Sometimes I agree. :)


And I wanted to use some fun props - she had a blast with the tea party toys.  I get these out for little girls a lot - sometimes it really works.  (Keeping it real - sometimes not.)


This picture is the closest I came to the original idea I was hoping for.  It's not what I had in mind.  It's really tricky to coach little people on how to look natural while kind of posing the way I want them to!  But I realized that she was at the end of her cooperation attention span, so we finished up and I treated her to a bunch of marshmallows.  There are tons of pictures that I love, and there's always another day to try again.