The Slade Family

[Iguanasan]

Last fall the office was holding a United Way Auction and they were looking for things to auction off. I thought I could do a decent portrait so I volunteered to provide a portrait session with two or three 8x10 prints and set the value at $150. A fellow in my office won the auction and then said that he wanted to do a family portrait. Uh oh, I thought. I didn't know if I could do a family. Anyway, that was the middle of winter and we finally got around to going out and doing the shoot. Weather and schedules here in Halifax finally collided this weekend. Here are some of the results from our day out.

Oh, and hats off to ANYONE who does this for a living... photographing adults is one thing but photographing kids, wow! What a freaking challenge.

I've already kicked myself for most of my mistakes in my first ever family portrait shoot but feel free to provide some suggestions - C&C very welcome as I would like to do more of these.

[Iguanasan]

And a few more...

[Lorey]

You did fine for your first ever. I've done 6 or 8 families and yes, children can cause you to make a firm decision at the end of the day that you'll never do another family...EVER! But time goes on the memory of the anguish wares away and in about 6 months I'm saying "sure, I'd be glad to do family pics for you and your pre-school little ones". I've found that a little vignette helps in PP. Maybe it's just a personal thing but I like it. I usually add it then toggle it on and off and I'm more pleased with the look with it. That's about all the input I can give. I'm sure some others can give some tips that would be helpful during the session.
The last shot in both posts are my favs.

[Hillbillygirl]

My hat's off to ya' Iggy, and all else who do this type, as don't know if I would ever feel comfortable with posed/directed shots.

[Iguanasan]

Thanks, Lorey and HBG. Cheers!

[Marko]

This is a lovely set iggy and I'm sure they will be very pleased! I agree with Lorey on the faves.
Since you seem to be inviting comments when you have multiple planes of eyes as in shot 1, stop down a bit more to get more eye dof.

[Iguanasan]

Thanks, Marko. Yes, they were very happy with the results. All in all it was a great experience.

Also, thanks for the advice. It's good to have confirmation of something I realized as I was editing. I was shooting F5.6 on my 70-300 but when I looked at the images the DOF was not nearly as much as I thought it was going to be. F8 or even F11 next time. I'll have to do a bit more testing with another group. This is something I think I knew in the back of my head but there's nothing like experience to teach.

This is a lovely set iggy and I'm sure they will be very pleased! I agree with Lorey on the faves.
Since you seem to be inviting comments when you have multiple planes of eyes as in shot 1, stop down a bit more to get more eye dof.

[QuietOne]

You did a good job, Iggy, better than I would. I get caught flat-footed pretty easily when I'm trying to deal with people.

[Iguanasan]

Thank you, QuietOne.

[Michaelaw]

Really nice stuff Iggy