The “5” photo shoot was way overdue, so I decided that from now on I would just take photos around back-to-school time. Makes sense, right? I’m going with it.
Before any project I start with some Pinerest inspiration so I created a “big kid photos” board. Most of these photos don’t look much like the ones I took (except one), it just helps me brainstorm and not feel like I’m staring at a blank canvas.
Then I made a list of his interests and props we needed, and we threw it all in a wagon. This little guy was pretty excited about the shoot – I think he enjoyed getting some one-on-one time with Mommy.
As far as location, I debated this for awhile because there are so many great parks and spots, and for his “4” shoot we were at my grandparents’ beautiful farm in PA. I’m all for pretty backgrounds and styling photos, but I wanted to keep it real so we did them around our neighborhood. I want to look back at these pics and remember this stage so taking them in his stomping grounds seemed like the best way.
I had the same thing in mind when I gathered all his toys, books and sports props. I was really trying to capture all of his interests right now. Using his favorite things also helped bring out some of his personality while I was taking the photos.
I’m pretty much a photojournalist at heart (I hope my parents are pleased I’m still using some of my degree).
Before you take a peak at the photos, please know that I’m not a professional photographer. My only formal training is in film/photo composition so I’m learning my way around digital and editing. I just got Lightroom, and I’ve been enjoyed messing around with that. I’m going to subscribe to Lynda at some point to take a few editing training tutorials. But for now, at least I took the photos and have them saved. I can work on fine-tuning later.
We stopped by a tree while walking the path behind our house.
It was a little too sunny even in the shade.
We bike this path all the time.
He’s a big climber and this was one of the first walls he climbed at the nearby park.
He and his brother have big fun on this slide.
I caught this one after he came down. “Stop! Smile!”
Skylanders are big right now and he loves to line them up all over the house. They are like his little babies, haha.
We were talking about Skylanders and laughing about something when I caught this one.
This was on the way home and I thought this fence would work well as a background. “Stop here! Smile!”
His gear this year: swim, soccer and Tae Kwon Do. This one wasn’t the best because it didn’t show his belt (I went with another one below), but I still liked it.
Here is the Pinterest idea, and I think it was from this photographer. This was his “I’m eating a snack while pretending to be a monster” face while I was doing a quick lighting test.
Later I realized that he really needed to be wearing his sports gear in this photo so we did a retake. Lighting wasn’t as great later in the day.
Then I realized, hey, the ball can be the “i” dot!
“Hey, Mommy, watch this.”
Of course we had to include some superheroes. Ironman face (left) and superhero face (right).
And some “Pete the Cat.” He’s just starting to read so I took a few shots during story time.
And the biggest thing right now is legos so we worked on this together with the scraps from one of his plane sets. Does anyone else have extra legos after a build?
I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t tell you that we did have a few meltdowns. It was during part 2 of our shoot after the sun caused us some problems so we had to finish after school. It’s tough being a model. So my lesson was to make sure it’s a good time of day and knock it out all at once.
I still have some other photos I want to take: puzzle building, bike riding, etc. but this is a good start.
One down, two to go. A “3” shoot with another little boy is next.
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