Alex the Photo Blog

Spencer and I were buddies in college at Vanderbilt.  As luck would have it, he married a beautiful Columbian woman, moved to Atlanta, and had two adorable little boys.  We’ve kept in touch over the years and Catalina also works with me at the Wells, so it all just fell in place that I’d be photographing their kids.   We had a great Sunday afternoon taking photos at Berkeley Lake park and later topped it off at the Merrell household sharing lawn maintenance tips over a beer in their backyard.  All in all a really fun shoot.

Baby Lucas was so excited to play with his big brother. 

The weather last weekend was amazing here in Atlanta.  Though fall is my official favorite season, Spring is a close second…

And starting off this spring was Natalie Perry’s baptism on Sunday.  You may remember this beautiful baby from this post last fall.  These photos were taken from the second row at the Clairmont Presbyterian Church as we were considered “VIPs” for the occasion.  Though we didn’t get backstage passes, Natalie was definitely a rock star (if you can say that about someone in church). 

Apparently Natalie loves bath time and was intruigued by the holy water. 

Later in the day Keri and I went to her niece’s birthday party.   I think it would be an awesome goal in life to have someone name their baby after me- and my girlfriend already has that.  Keri’s niece is Keri (“baby Keri” as she is referred to, though I can’t imagine she’ll like that nickname in her teenage years).  She turned 6 on Sunday and had a massive cake that looked like it was straight out of Fern Gully:

mmmmm cupcakes….

Sidewalk chalk is always a messy, dirty, pant ruining  fun bday present.

The birthday girl:

Bianca:

We were able to get this shoot done in an hour on my lunch break last week.   She was such a beautiful model!     Here is baby Natalie.  Enjoy!

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These photos are from Labor Day weekend at the lake house up in Blairsville.   My sister brought her new brother and sister-in-law, who brought the latest addition to the Bassett family.  Or maybe I should say Addy-tion.  Or maybe that’s too cheesy.  Let’s not say that. 

Addy was a treat to play with and photograph.  She was so laid back and only cried once the whole day.  We took these photos with my trusty 50mm f/1.8 by natural window light, on the back porch, and in the hammock with daddy.  All in all cute pics of a cute baby.

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Continuing to backdate my 2009 photos to when they were actually taken…

Here are some from a newbie shoot I did in February.  This little dumpling is Abbey Carter- my friend Leslie’s niece.  As much as I wanted to sit by the fire on this snowy Sunday afternoon, I trekked up to Roswell, GA for an on-location shoot and had a great time.

It was my first try with off-camera flash.  I take that back.  I did a faux photo shoot two days before of a couch pillow on a chair.  She was a wonderful model, though a little overstuffed.

(Nerdy Set-up Info:)  The set-up was a black backdrop hung from backdrop stands in the parents’ living room.  I used my 580Ex flash on a stand with a shoot through umbrella triggered wirelessly with a Cactus V2 (later traded the V2 in for the V4…. not much of a difference though).  Added a reflector to a few shots to take away some of the shadow contrast.  I messed around with all the different settings and came up with some pretty cool shots that also translated very well into black and white. 

Abbey’s parents wanted some nude shots to start off with.  We both had some fun ideas, so once I was set up we got started.  I soon came to relaize babies don’t like to have their picture taken naked.  I don’t either, but  that’s a whole different story.  As we got into it, we found that Abbey had some of her own ideas for pictures and apparently had a little too much to drink earlier…. and may have peed a little on the backdrop.  Don’t tell Jeffrey Franks though (he loaned me the backdrop).  Jeff- if you’re reading this, I promise we cleaned it up very well.  

After waterproofing the backdrop with some magical changing pads or something (I have no idea what they were, but they were like a Sham Wow for pee), we got this shot:

Here are a few other favs.  In my family, the ”roll tide” picture would be better supported on a stinky used diaper, but needless to say makes fun baby shots:

Overall a very fun shoot even through the fussy baby moments.  Usually when I drive home from a  shoot, I can’t stop thinking of the mistakes I made and things I could have done differently, but this one I thought “these actually look like a pro shot them.”  I very rarely think this of my photos, so it was a nice change of pace.  Plus seeing the snow on the ground helped.  It’s too bad school (work) wasn’t cancelled the next day.