My Weekend in Guilford

This was the coolest family shoot yet! I drove up to Guilford Saturday afternoon, stayed with Courtney and Kevin overnight, and went home Sunday morning. I took the picture above at about 6 a.m. I LOVE sunrise shots! CONTEST ALERT! There’s a contest question in this blog post. Find it, answer it, win a cool prize!

If you know this family and would like to see their slide show, shoot them an e-mail!

We started out the afternoon walking around downtown Guilford.

This is their second shoot with me. At the first one, I had to spend quite a lot of time convincing Kevin that the whole photo shoot thing was cool. It’s not unusual for dads to be a bit uncertain about having a photographer hanging around. But Kevin knew what to expect this time! He was totally into just enjoying his family and letting me do what I do! Thanks, Kevin! You were great!

They are such a sweet family.

This is such a classic shot of a child peeking in the window of the little charming grocery shop. I didn’t tell her to do that either. I love when that happens!

The weather was gorgeous!

It’s nice when there are some clouds to help change the mood around during the shoot. Above: cloud covers the sun, adding softness to the mood of my subject looking at the ocean.

A smile changes everything! Pictures like this work really well in coffeetable book designs. The ocean makes a great background for a full spread.

One of the cool things about this family is that they travel to Guilford for summer vacation, and they’ve become friends with other families that come there too. I love that I was able to capture the playfulness of the neighborhood children. The pictures will be a great keepsake for all of them!

I was using a long lens so as not to interfere in The Force.

Courtney and Kevin’s au pair is from South America. She impressed me with her poise, her love for the children, and her well-spoken English, having been immersed in English language training while staying with Courtney and Kevin’s family. She’s also a law school student!

Settle down, boys, she’s engaged!

The kids really seem to love her!

The great thing about starting the shoot on Saturday afternoon, was, obviously, getting GREAT sunset light!

This one is in black and white in the slide show. If you saw the slide show, which one do you like better? Color or black and white?

Ready? Set? JUMP! (This was about the 15th take.)

Grandparents popped in for a visit too. I was shooting with two cameras the whole time. This shot is from my 135 mm lens with the aperture set wide to blur the background. I love shots where an adult is blurred in the background watching the children.

I took this one with the other camera using my 28-70 lens for a wider shot. I love how these two pictures are taken in the same place, but yet look so different.

But I wasn’t crazy about the harsh sun I was getting in the shots above, so I asked them to wait about a half hour for the sun to go down below the treeline.

VOILA! Beautiful sky, beautiful light resulting in a canvas-worthy picture of the family and grandparents.

See what I mean about the light? Gorgeous!

We had a huge audience for our “couple walk.” Another large extended family had come down to the beach to watch the sunset, and was hanging out watching our little photo shoot. I love how Kevin didn’t let this bother him! Courtney and Kevin, you ROCK!

This is my signature “family unportrait” for this series. Love it!

“Day in the Life” sessions usually happen in one day, but for this one, I really wanted to take advantage of sunrise and sunset light at the beach, so the family put me up for the night on an air mattress. That was totally cool since I got to also capture their evening activities.

We went to an outdoor restaurant called The Place for dinner. If you’re a seafood purist, this is, apparently, “the place” to go for grilled anything. I had grilled corn-on-the-cob, which was very tasty, and grilled chicken. I’m not a seafood purist.

After dinner, we went to Ashley’s for ice cream. I could spend hours reading the walls. And my butter pecan ice cream was perfect!

The beach house had no furniture at the time, but it was fun “roughing it” on air mattresses and watching movies on the little portable dvd player.

The next morning, I was up with the gulls. The early morning light was even more beautiful than the sunset light.

While I was editing these pictures, I was watching several episodes of a TV show that I love. Here’s a quote from the show: “Tiny fish are swimming through the leaves of a plant but then one of the fish realizes it’s not a plant, it’s the tentacles of a predator, and the fish says, ‘With friends like this who needs anemones?’”

For a $15 iTunes gift card, the fourth person to post a comment with the correct name of the show WINS! Strategy, people, strategy!

The sun rises fast! After breakfast, we headed back out to the beach.

She is so cute! Hats are practically a necessity for full sun beach shoots. The overall shade really shows off her beautiful freckles.

This is a standard posed portrait, but there’s something about it that I love. The shovel, that hats, the angles, and the fact that I made it black and white — it’s the classic, all-American family!

In an ideal world, I’d sleep from 9 am until 4 pm, and take pictures the rest of the time.

Until next time,
Courtney and Kevin, I hope you enjoy the show!
Peace,
jules