Mitchell Family - redux

I had a session with the dad's side of the family earlier this year, and this is the mom's side of the family. I met this family at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, which I cannot stress enough is so well suited for photographing large families in a great setting. I tried to center the shoot around the one year old, who is the first grandchild and was trying desperately hard to walk around during the shoot instead of pose for me. It was a fun family to shoot because they were pretty amicable to positioning themselves in fun silly poses for me.

The family


Mom, dad, and baby


Grandparents


dad and son


The men


siblings


happy kid!

The Skiver Clan

I met the Skiver Clan at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens, which seems to be my default meeting place for Seattle and the Eastside lately. They were my first big family photo session, complete with three separate little families combining to one giant clan. Two grandparents, two grown siblings, two spouses, four little kids/cousins/grandkids. Whew! The two little school aged boy cousins were extremely adorable and really fun to capture on camera. I also had a lot of fun posing the families in different ways to represent all the different relationships that existed.

The Skiver Clan


My theory that the chance of getting everyone to look at the camera grows exponentially more difficult with a) more people and b) younger people is again proven. thank goodness for lollipop bribes!


Grandparents and grandkids


cute cousins


Siblings and cousins


Family units!

The Blumenthal Family

This mom and I have been in the same playgroup since our oldest sons were wee little tykes so I was pretty excited to do their family portraits. I met them at my favorite eastside outdoor location, the Bellevue Botanical Gardens where her two boys gave me a glimpse of my future life! Rambunctious but full of brotherly love, I tried hard to capture their personalities in the pictures. The older one was at the age where he was so willing to ham it up to the camera and pose for me, but the younger one had more reservations. Together though they made some very sweet moments I was able to capture and hope their parents will treasure.

Meet the Blumenthals!


this was taken towards the end of the session, I think you can tell the boys are getting a little tired


Do you know how hard it is to try to get TWO toddlers to look at your camera? :)


older brother


I always try to get the mom in a picture alone with a kid, because mom is usually the picture-taker and never in the pictures herself!


brotherly love

The Parish Family

I've been friends with this mom and her family ever since my oldest son was a wee babe. I did their family pictures last year when I was just starting out and learning, and I was thrilled they asked me to take their family pictures again this year. We headed to my newest favorite location, Bellevue Botanical Gardens and walked around the grounds. I'm still working on my color balance issues, and worked pretty hard on getting shots of getting two small kids to stare at me in the same direction at the same time. It wasn't always successful, but made for some fun pictures. I hope they enjoy the pictures as much as I do.

Incidentally, Bellevue Botanical Gardens was preparing for its yearly Garden d'Lights. If you live around the Seattle area, definately check it out! They put up tons of strands of lights to make a virtual dazzling light flower display.

Meet the Parish Family. Notice how the oldest daughter isn't *quite* looking my way. the youngest makes up for it with her very determined stare in my direction.


hey! everyone is at least facing forward in this shot! :)


the oldest daughter


My stunning failure at trying to get this family shot. The youngest wanted nothing more than to eat the dirt and gravel of the trail than look at me.


mom and baby


taking a walk with dad


high flier


sweet daddy and baby moment

The Wagner Family

I have known the Wagner family since I was in junior high and they've always been very supportive and kind towards me and my adventures. :) The daughter is one of my best friends and we've stayed in touch over all these years. I was pleased to shoot their family photos this year at the Bellevue Botanical Gardens on a gorgeous fall day here in the Pacific Northwest last weekend.

The two hardest things about this shoot were a) getting everyone in focus, in a decent amount of light, and making sure limbs and heads weren't cut off too awkwardly; and b) getting the toddler to look at the camera. The two year old was being two and my regular tricks were not getting any sort of responses from her at all. Combined with the large group setting, it was hard getting a shot where everyone was looking and smiling without closing their eyes at me. I had much better results shooting her one on one with a family member being entertaining behind me. Maybe next time at a large family shoot I'll wear a funny hat and have rabbits pop out of it to garner the kids' attention. :)

Onto the sneak peek!

Meet the Wagners


one of the better shots where everyone was looking at the camera


I love the look in her face here


three generations


and oh look! a real smile!


this is my favorite thing about the Botanical Gardens. It comes with its very own hobbit door! Perfect for toddlers!

Hannah - a photowalk photoshoot

Hannah is our neighbors' daughter and was gracious enough to come out with me this last weekend and let me pose her in different areas of Seattle. It's very different shooting a teen than a baby or an adult. It's really nice to have someone stand still, make funny poses, and do things like climb trees to get the pose you want. :) I had a lot of fun and hope she did too.

Originally I wanted to go on an art walk around Seattle, find graffiti and fun things to shoot her in front of. Unfortunately, even at 10am we were dealing with full sun, and I don't have reflectors or another person to provide some shade or relief from the harsh shadowing the sun was throwing up on her face. We ended up at the Sodo Art Corridor, which I highly recommend to anyone in the area. It's about three blocks long and full of artwork on old buildings that run along the old BN train tracks. After about an hour there, we headed over to the Botannical Gardens in Bellevue to find some shade and relief from the sun. We settled in the Japanese Yao Garden and took some fun posed pics. I had to deal with the green cast from all the foliage, and maybe next time I'll try calibrating with the grey card first to see if it helps with the color casting!

The Sodo Art Corridor


a closeup of the moon so you can see how gigantic it was. Hannah's head barely made it into the picture


Hannah


look, a smile!


At the Botannical Gardens. I'm still playing with my BW conversions, and I think these turned out pretty good

I love the bokeh in these shots






BW conversions




and my favorite shot from the photoshoot