Evening light photography

I get asked all the time when the best light is for pictures.  Unfortunately, in Albuquerque where we live, the sun is really bright and strong, and we have like 4 cloudy days a year.  (Maybe the weather channel website could be more specific - I may be inventing my statistics here...)   Full sun is tough for pictures!  It's hot, it's unflattering light, and it obscures details.  That said, I do pictures in full sun all the time - but it's not my preference.  The best light is when the sun is low in the sky, either very early in the morning (who is up for 6:30am family portraits?) or in the evening about 15 minutes before sunset.  If you have children who are old enough to be in a good mood at the end of the day, that's the easiest and nicest light to work with.

If you know me very well, you may know that one of my favorite Mother's Day gifts is that we get to do family pictures and everyone happily cooperates. :)  It's lots of fun.  (For me.)  This year it was cold and stormy on Mother's day, so we did it a couple of weeks later instead.  We went to a new location that I just found and I was really excited about.  I've been working a ton, it's been really busy here, and finally just got around to working on my own family pictures. I wanted to post them to show an example of that beautiful evening light.  We did these shortly before sunset, and it was actually a little overcast too, which helped us not to be squinty.

 



Sometimes photographers call it "golden light".  We did some family pictures (I use a tripod and a remote, if you are wondering how I take my own family pictures) and then a bunch of stuff with the kids. 


We throw marshmallows at them to make them laugh.  I have a bunch of pictures where the marshmallows are actually pelting them, but I will refrain from posting everything.




I just realized that you can see the marshmallows on the sand in this picture.  I guess you can't catch them all in your mouth.


My kids love to show all the emotions when we do pictures.  I think this is their favorite part.










And now I have an example of one of my favorite light, backlighting!  This is extreme backlighting, where all the detail is lost and you can only see our silhouettes.  I was so excited for family silhouettes, and then the night we did the first pictures we ran out of light before we got to it.  My long-suffering wonderful husband agreed to haul us all out another night, and we had so much fun doing these.






We did the family pictures in about 10 minutes, including time to run back to the car to get the letters that we'd forgotten.  Then everyone *my husband included* posed for various silhouette pictures.  Many of them included jumps.






Notice the robot hands run. :)  I love how silhouettes remove all the distractions and you can really capture a fun view of their personalities.


So - if you love the idea of evening light family portraits, or senior portraits (I've been trying to schedule all my seniors in the evening), or really anything except babies and toddlers :), I'd love to talk with you about a session! My website has lots of info that you could look through, or you can call or email me if you have questions or would just like to chat about it.

I love doing sessions at parks like these, but for lots of other session locations, see this blog page here. 

Vintage baby portraits

I loved this session - this little boy was absolutely darling.  He came for some antique portraits, to match antique portraits that his older sister and brother also got when they were his age.  He was a tiny bit shy at the beginning, but not for long!  Before long it was some of the best smiles I think I've seen in a long time.



His family loves baseball.  I LOVE this picture!



And I love the hat too.  I have some cute antique looking cars that I'm always happy to have a reason to use - fun!






We did a few outside too, with my "rustic" fence (some might call it more of a falling-down fence).  It was hot out!  But it worked too.  I ended up with so many sweet smiles that it was just silly - it was hard to narrow it down to what to show his mom!  I hope she loves them - I know I do.


I wanted to make sure I used the same antique sepia tones, so I found the pictures I did for his sister a couple of years ago.  She is a gorgeous girl now & these 1 year old portraits were just beautiful.




If you like the vintage look and are interested in doing this with your children or family, give me a call! I'd love to set up a session. These pictures were (mostly) inside, but I think we could also set up a really neat theme outdoors as well.

I have a bunch more baby photography, along with some info on my baby plan options, on this blog page - check it out!

I offer four different options for baby photography collections. If you are interested for yourself, or if you have a friend or family member you might like to gift a collection to, I have an online magazine with more information that you might like to see. You can send me your email address below and I will email you a link right away.

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I love doing baby studio sessions, but for lots of other session locations, see this blog page here.

S'mores Ice Cream Cake - Great Stuff for Kids!

It's summertime! The kids are done with school (thank goodness - the last couple of weeks are exhausting for moms!) and we are in full summer mode around here.  My oldest daughter is now finished with elementary school (I will be crying about this come August when school starts) and we decided to celebrate with a party for her & her friends, celebrating the end of 5th grade. 

The girls baked individual pizzas, crafted some fun fabric-wrapped flip-flops, did some beading, and watched a movie in our new camping trailer (for some reason the trailer made it much more fun than our family room).  To top off the evening, we needed a good summer cake.  When I got my latest copy of "Cook's Country" (which is my favorite cooking magazine) and saw the cake inside the back cover, we knew we had to make it.

Some of my family likes cakes and some do not.  (Me - I am not so picky about treats.  But I humor them.)  Ice cream cakes are a great compromise.  Plus a cake like this, that looks complicated, makes me look - for a few minutes - like some kind of amazing mom.  Rest assured that it's really very easy - no amazing-ness is needed.  In fact that is one reason that we like ice cream cakes.  It's also cheap and fun.

Naturally I waited too long to start and had to take pictures late at night.  One of the quirks of making ice cream cakes is that you have to plan ahead a little.  You should really make them the day before.  I started at 9:00 pm, but that is better than not starting the day before at all.


The first step is the graham cracker crust.  Heat the oven to 325 degrees.  Spray a 9" springform pan with vegetable oil spray and line the sides with parchment paper.  Crush 8 whole graham crackers into crumbs (1 cup) and combine with 4 tablespoons melted butter and 1 tablespoon sugar.  Mix until it resembles wet sand.  Press into the prepared pan bottom.  Bake about 12 minutes, until it's fragrant and beginning to brown.


For the fudge layer (I love how that sounds): Combine 4 oz bittersweet chocolate, 1/2 cup heavy cream, and 1/4 cup light corn syrup in a medium bowl and microwave until melted and smooth, about 1 minute, stirring halfway through.  I recommend melting chocolate at 50% power only.  Cool to room temperature, about 30 minutes.  The fudge layer will be a delicious liquid, and hardens to the perfect consistency when frozen.  Pour the cooled chocolate mixture over the crust and smooth into an even layer; freeze until firm (at least 15 minutes).  Spread 1 cup marshmallow creme over the fudge in an even layer; again freeze until firm.


Now the fun part - spreading the ice cream.  You need to soften the ice cream for a few minutes before you start to try to spread it.  I had some help with this part.






When you do get the ice cream layer smooth, cover it with plastic wrap and freeze until very firm, at least 4 hours.



Adjust the oven rack to 6 inches from the broiler element and heat the broiler.  Place the cake on a baking sheet, take off the plastic wrap, and arrange 22-26 large marshmallows, cut in half, on top of the cake.  Broil until the marshmallows are lightly browned, 30 to 60 seconds, rotating the cake halfway through. 

May I add that you should watch this step very carefully.  I have been known to light marshmallows on fire under the broiler, burning them completely to charcoal.  (Fortunately you can cleanly peel the black mess off in the back yard and just start over - and yes, if you're wondering, I have done this.  It wasn't with s'mores cake though, it was with sweet potatoes one Thanksgiving.  Twice.  With flames.)

Refreeze the cake if it's too soft, and it's ready to serve.  The girls at our party enjoyed the s'mores cake very much!  The little bit left didn't last long in the freezer either.  



If you haven't tried making an ice cream cake, this is a really fun one to start with!