The Unreal Me

I had a great opportunity the other day to shoot two excellent subjects, Peter and Gesa. They are expecting their first child in around 8 weeks time and wanted me to take some photos of their pregnancy as well as some fun couple shots. We did this shoot entirely inside their home with a mix of environmental and “studio” style shots against a plain black background.

The variety of shots taken on the day was great for them to have a nice selection to chose from, but equally great for me to shoot a number of different styles. Here’s a selection of my favourites from the day.

This is one of a number of shots we did with Peter and Gesa mucking around on the bed. I think this capture’s Gesa’s sneakiness very well! Gesa is great to photograph because she’s not shy about having some fun, and Peter then joins in and they can just play and I can concentrate on capturing the moments.

Belly measuring was one photo they wanted to capture and I decided to shoot this with a wrap around light to focus on the tummy and let everything else drop into shadow. Yes, that 92 is in centimeters and while Gesa is 32 weeks pregnant, she still quite tiny – what luck!

The photograph above ended up being the couple’s favourite of the day. I love her smile and the colours and tones of the couch against the wood. Thankfully the couch didn’t catch fire being up against the fireplace like that!

This was one of the more intimate moments shared during the shoot and as a photographer it’s great to have subjects that are just so comfortable being in front of the camera. You can take time to explore a large number of poses and emotions.

This photography is an anomaly, because it wasn’t part of the regular shoot. Peter was sitting on the couch as I was setting up the lighting for the next set of photographs and I was using him for some tests. I liked the resulting shot with the contrasty lighting and the intense stare so I thought I’d add it to their collection.

This was one of the first shots with Peter without his shirt, and Gesa was making fun of him. You can’t quite tell here, but Peter was trying very hard not to laugh.

To finish off the photos for today I’ll post another fun one we shot just for a laugh. It was a great session and I thoroughly enjoyed myself – congratulations guys, with parents like you, your little girl is going to be awesome!

Uncategorized Photography, Shoots

I recently finished a newborn shoot with a lovely new Mum, Nichola and her gorgeous new son, Tyler. Tyler was about 10 days old when we did the first part of the shoot and we finished it off a few days later on day 14.

Day one he was a little grizzly but with lots of feeding and coaxing things came along. On day two however he was a star! He slept like a, well, baby and if he got a little fidgety, we could pop him into the white fur basket and he’d either promptly fall alseep, or decide he wanted to eat it. The former made for some nice peaceful photos.

 

Most of the shoot was inside, using various backdrops and props. While I’m not a huge fan of black backdrops, I did capture a lovely relaxed shot of Tyler resting on his Mum’s arm.

 

 

Even though baby shoots are about the baby, I think it’s also extremely important to photograph special moments between Mum/Dad and baby and to work with the parent to get them to relax and be at one with their child in front of the camera.

 

 

The photo above I gave a slightly old style look to it in order to match his cute little corduroy overalls and hat. I also wanted to keep this one coloured to add to the look, as opposed to making it black and white like so many baby shots are (Often for good reason, they have very ruddy skin at that early age).

The final shot from the shoot that I’d like to share is a more casual shot that I felt worked best with an extreme black and white development.

 

 

For some reason I feel compelled to explain this photograph. Probably because I often don’t use such extreme black and white. I originally had an idea that I might use the earth tones of the curtains and couch to produce a nice look, but once I got to the post production stage, a harsh black and white look just felt better. Thinking about it, the overexposed look pulls the focus to Mum’s face and her joyous smile and the colourless image and darker tones of the background, couch and hair frame the body and face.

Tyler was a joy to shoot, and so very cute. I hope I get to photograph him again when he’s older.

Uncategorized Photography, Shoots