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My family over the last 6 months….

Does anyone else feel like me, that the first half of this year has flown past? I can’t believe July is upon us and we are just about to break up for the school summer holidays. Throughout July & August, I try to work a little less and spend more time with my family. This summer is my last before my daughter starts school, so we have lots of plans to enjoy ourselves. We have trips to the theatre and holidays to Weymouth and Holland planned (which incidentally is amazing to photograph as it’s so flat you get gorgeous evening light wherever you are).

These are some of my favourite images from the last 6 months. Some are posed, some totally off the cuff, with a little bit of information around how and why I took them. I will start with my son – he’s coming up to 8 years old now and he is *just* about OK with me taking his photo…

photographing boys

What I have learnt, is not to make a big deal about taking photos, but to take one or two when we are already outdoors. We spent a lot of time at the local woods and he will happily stop for a photo if I am quick to take it 🙂

This was taken with my new Sigma 35mm 1.4. I shoot a Canon 5diii, but had heard such good things about this lens, so I thought I would give it a try. I must say it a tac sharp, even at 1.4, and it has a very distinctive bokeh which I love.

moody boy

Now this is one of my all-time favourites of my son because he so DID NOT want his photo taken. He was playing quite happily, and I asked would he mind stepping into the garage so I could see what the light was like.  He did, but as you can tell, was so not happy it! Every time I see this it makes me smile 🙂

As mentioned, I also have a daughter who is about to start school full time in September. I am really lucky my son loves her more than anything in the world. This is my two on the beach at Skegness just playing. This is totally un-posed and I love the connection between the two of them #proudmummy.

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After I took the darker image of my son in the garage, I wanted to try and image with both of my kids. I often get asked how I took this photo, as it looks as if it may have been taken in a studio. It was actually in my bedroom which has cream walls and white carpet. I deliberately closed down the curtains and applied the inverse square law which you can read more about here. By doing this anything far from the light source falls to darkness very quickly so the floor and walls are no longer visible.

Inverse square law

As I mentioned I also have a daughter who is just about to start school full time in September. I’m happy as she is really wanting to start “big” school, but also a little sad as it means out girly afternoons are over :-(.

Luckily my little girl loves have her photo taken (and has recently been a model on a couple of workshops including Kate Hopewell Smith and Tamara Lackey) so we often go out just the two of us.  This first shot was taken in a bank of flowers close to our house and we were playing Simon says. This was her “jumping like a rabbit”

girl in flowers

This second image was also taken just around the corner from where we live, on a beautiful Summers evening. I’ve considered the light, her clothes and the background but I try not to pose her too much, just let her play. I had hired the 135 2.0L for a couple of days and I did kind of fall in love so I have just bought one 🙂

girls and flowers

Every few months I also take my camera and follow my kids for a day taking photos of the everyday things we do. This is our local park and her exact words were “Mummy, take a photo of me in Jail”!!

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I’m looking forward to a summer of fun with the kids and I will put up another blog post with all our adventures in August. Have a great summer everyone 🙂