To Capture Their Smiles, Start Here

Click the picture or click here for Marisa and RJ’s slide show.

I love the picture above of Marisa and her daughter. That’s not a classic mother/child portrait. But it sure is a classic mother/child moment. Their smiles are so genuine!

Continue reading the blog post to find a fun hidden contest question!

I probably shouldn’t admit this, but on the long drive home up the Garden State Parkway from this family session, I was pretty sure I didn’t have very many pictures that I’d truly love. (Although I pretty much knew I was going to love the hat pictures!)

It was a very bright sunny day, and I was having a hard time keeping my little subjects in some shade so we could see their faces. Plus, I felt a little challenged by the children. They were both really sweet to me, and seemed to love playing with their parents, but it took a lot of effort to capture them smiling in the direction of my camera.

Well, that’s what I was thinking as I was driving home that day. Wow! Look at this awesome picture of RJ and his son! Such beautiful and natural smiles!

As I went through the pictures later that night on my computer, there were more and more truly beautiful images of this family! Yay!

So I started to wonder: what is it about family lifestyle photography that practically guarantees beautiful images of smiling children and parents?

For starters, parents love watching their children having fun.

Children love it when their parents are watching them do all the stuff they love doing! He loves driving that car round and round on the deck.

She loves chasing her brother!

I have yet to meet a child that doesn’t enjoy going to a park with his parents…

…or playing in the backyard sprinkler. Is that a great smile, or what?! The image above and the one below are very similar.

Here’s the second shot. To win Marisa and RJ an 8×10 print, leave a comment naming the camera setting I changed! Have fun! Ooooh, bonus question. Leave a comment correctly identifying the f-stop on the two shots above, and YOU’LL win a $15 iTunes gift card!

In no time at all, these two will be too big for car seats. Time goes by so fast.

I think it’s just as important to capture the everyday stuff as it is to take a bazillion shots of your family trip to Disney.

As a mom myself, I have precious few photographs of me with my children when they were little.

FAVORITE ALERT! I love this one!

One of the things I love about family lifestyle sessions is getting a tour of so many beautifully decorated homes!

Love those angled ceilings! And ooooh! I see a perfect space above the master bed for some family art!

(Ha ha! Cropped myself out of the mirror.) I love the light in this picture, and I love the room colors — baby blue and brown. Black and white prints are going to look awesome in here!

FAVORITE ALERT! There’s another one of those mother/child classic moments.

Children love running down the halls from room to room. So fun to capture that.

I chimped this one. (That’s photographer-speak for “I loved this picture so much when I took it that I showed my client the image on the back of the camera.” That’s called “chimping.”)

How many times in a summer do you suppose that boy goes in and out that door?

This is Marisa and RJ and their neighbors, Eileen and AJ, also clients of mine. Since the two families have such a great time hanging out together, Marisa and RJ invited them over for the last part of their shoot so they could have pictures of both families together. Man, what a great idea THAT was! I would give anything for a picture like this of my first neighbor-friends from when I was a little girl.

So I started to wonder (I do that a lot): If I really get into my child’s head, what specific activities, people or things is he going to want to remember when he’s all grown up?

I’ll have to get back to you on that one!

Marisa and RJ, I hope you love your slide show as much as I do!
Peace and hugs,
jules

This entry was posted on Sunday, October 26th, 2008 at 8:22 pm and is filed under child, family and tagged with baby, contest, mrc, photo tips. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.

9 Responses to “To Capture Their Smiles, Start Here”

1. Lee Ann Yahle says:

   January 23, 2009 at 9:43 am

   Oh, I can’t believe this question haunts me…
   Is the answer as simple as: you changed the focus from the boy to the ball? It’s hard to see the details on my monitor! Love your work!

   LEE ANN!!!! — THAT’S RIGHT! I changed focal point! It was an illustration of how an almost instantaneous movement of my thumb can change a picture from an ad about how much fun a pink ball is to a wonderful photograph of a little boy having a great time. You win! Congratulations! –jws

   Reply
2. Lee Ann Yahle says:

   November 6, 2008 at 8:37 am

   Okay, so did everyone give up on your question?

   He Lee Ann — Julie here — I think it died out — but KEEP GUESSING! See above for what’s been answered correctly and you can still win! — jws

   Reply
3. Jill Higgins says:

   October 29, 2008 at 1:58 pm

   Precious! Could they be any cuter? LOVE the water shots – so much fun!

   Reply
4. Krissi says:

   October 28, 2008 at 8:58 pm

   I haven’t had the opportunity to see Aiden and Lila in person, so Marisa was kind enough to direct me to these. WOW! I smiled the entire time I viewed the slide show. Although pictures can’t ever replace being there, I could almost hear their laughs. What a gift for Marisa, RJ, their family and friends.

   Reply
5. kris says:

   October 28, 2008 at 1:08 pm

   Beautiful photos of a Beautiful FAMILY!!!! I love way you capture such joy and cuteness!!!! Your subject lighting and color saturation is really gorgeous — did you use a flash or any reflectors?

   My guess would be you changed your shutter speed? Was your aperture f.2.0?

   Hi Kris — julie here — Wow, you’re very close. No, I didn’t change my shutter speed. But you’re exactly right about the aperture! So, what did I change? — jws

   Reply
6. Marisa says:

   October 27, 2008 at 8:24 pm

   Thanks Jules! We love all the photos! We had a great time with you! Both Aiden & Lila love to watch the slide show and I can’t watch it enough. You did an incredible job! Thank you!

   Hey Marisa — jules here — You’re most welcome! Hugs to the kids from me! — jws

   Reply
7. Steve G. says:

   October 27, 2008 at 7:23 pm

   You changed the aperture.

   And my guess for f-stop is f3.5 and f3.0. (I mean, since you changed it, right?)

   This is a beautiful collection of photographs.

   hi steve — jules here — first of all, THANKS! But no, I didn’t change the aperture, though I would have guessed that too, and no, the aperture wasn’t f3.5 or f3.0, but those are good guesses! — jws

   Reply
8. Michelle S. says:

   October 27, 2008 at 12:01 pm

   Hi. Did you change the shutter speed? Was it f/11?

   Beautiful shots. I never tire of looking at them!

   Hi Michelle — jules here — no, didn’t change the shutter speed, and no, the aperture wasn’t f/11. But thanks for commenting, and thanks for the kind words about the pictures! Such a cute family! Anybody else want to guess what I changed for those shots, and the aperture setting? — peace, jws

   Reply
9. CeeJay says:

   October 26, 2008 at 11:23 pm

   Wow! Your photos are amazing. You truly have a gift for capturing life. You’d make a good newspaper photojournalist (especially for feature stories). How did you learn to do this so well? Also, how did you learn to nail the exposure every time? With so much action involved in this type of photography, do you shoot everything with one lens? Can you offer any advice, workshops, books, websites, etc. for a newbie?

   Wow, CeeJay — jules here — nice comment! How did I learn? Hmmm, lots and lots of practice! First on my trees, and then on my kids, and then on my church family, and then, AMAZING — families started to hire me! It’s a miracle!

   My best advice for a newbie — learn to shoot on all manual settings and nail exposure every time. It has to be second nature, like driving a car, to immediately change settings for ISO, aperture, shutter speed, and any lights you might be using, and you have to do it FAST. This takes a LOT of practice to get right. Once you get that down, it helps if you help people set up situations that will make for good pictures, such as the backyard sprinkler, a family game of field hockey, a game of tag with special rules. (There’s no tagging in our game. It’s more like hug-tag, and mom and dad are almost always either “it” or “base.”)

   I don’t currently do workshops, but wow, thanks for asking! Have a great day! — jws

   Reply