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.