CarlyMynearPhotography
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Same photographer See allBehind The Lens
Behind The Lens
Location
This photo was taken in the back of a California park in Riverbank that many people tend to ignore. When I saw all the beautiful colors, there was no ignoring it! While describing this place to clients, the adjective that comes to mind is magical, they may not be able to see it when they first walk up to it, but after seeing the images from their session they get to see what I initially saw, beautiful magical colors.Time
Taken early December of 2015 a couple hours before sunset with trees and their leaves all around us. The perfect time of year at the perfect time of day with this picture perfect family.Lighting
I really wanted to have great natural lighting for this shot, with the focal point on the girls but also enough light to make you check what was in the background which are their parents. I felt the light coming through the trees with their darker clothing really helped with that, as well having a white reflector in front of the girls bouncing light to their faces, truly showing that these are the happiest of times.Equipment
This image was shot handheld with my Nikon D800 with an 85mm lens.Inspiration
I am fairly technical with photography, I love trying to take the posing techniques, for example, this one being a foreground/background shot and making it greater than just that. So I knew I wanted the girls up front and the parents in the background, I thought it would be great to showcase the parents love for each other while also showing the viewer how much love the entire family has even while being separated.Editing
Post processing for this image started in ACR, I worked with white balance, shadows/highlights, and noise. After ACR I opened the image in Photoshop CS6 where I did multiple layers consisting of levels, curves, and hue/saturation.In my camera bag
I am a family and maternity portrait photographer, the gear I normally keep in my bag is a Nikon D800, Nikkor 85mm 1.4G, Nikkor 35mm 1.4G, and the Nikkor VR2 70-200mm 2.8G.Feedback
I believe what really helped me capture this shot, as one of the girls was very shy was getting to know them. Being silly with the girls really helped to open their personalities up to me and the big camera I was holding. I have about 5 other shots of the same pose of them just opening up and being silly before I got the shot I wanted. What I also think really helped me during this specific shoot which sounds crazy but it works, was bribing the girls with candy with the parents permission. I had a Pez dispenser attached to the top of my camera, My Little Pony to be exact. I would ask the youngest daughter who was 2.5 years old, "where is the pony?" and she would light up with a big smile and look at the pony, knowing she was about to get a candy. It was the first time I had used this method and since it was such a win that the same day I went out and bought a Star Wars dispenser for any little guys I photograph in the future.