Lifestyle Photography Tips | New Castle Family Photographer

For Sunday Stills this week we were asked to share a Portrait Session and some tips to improve Portraits.  This is a Lifestyle Session done with my Sisterella and her beautiful children.

Tip 1... Location.  It's super to have the location either be the choice of your subject or relevant to their life in some way.  This location was chosen because the children's father is an Engineer on the railroad.

Tip 2 ... Photos from behind.  I love the above photo.  Colin setting off and Anna following.  A priceless narrative to where they are in their life right now.

Tip 3 ... Not all photo need a constrained crop.  Frame for the subject/story NOT for the 'picture frame'.

Tip 4 ... If your subject is low to the ground. Then get down on the ground and shoot from their perspective.  Alternately you can shoot from up high...I love my 3 step ladder (I always have it with me now).

Tip 5 ... Background.  Before you press the shutter make sure that your background is clean.

Tip 6 ... Wait.  Let your subjects breathe.  Let things happen.  I like this photo better then the one above it.  And in a few years when Colin is all grown up, Sisterella will like this one better too.  

Tip 7 ... Shoot the funny stuff.  Mum with the 'props' makes a fun Facebook profile photo.

Tip 8 ... Be on the look out for the sweet stuff.  It wasn't hard to see what was going to happen once Anna Sophia picked a couple of flowers and headed back towards Mum.  My camera is to my eye the majority of the shoot.

Tip 9 ... Let the treasures be in the shoot.  Colin had a Railroad spike and Anna had given Mum the flowers.  They were equally proud of these found 'treasures' from our morning out.  No use in asking to put them down and tempt a hissy-fit.

Tip 10 ... Move those Focus Points.  Moving the Focus Points on the camera is now second nature to me.  It wasn't always.  But once I got used to doing it ... it stepped up my composition game.  Yes you can focus and recompose, which I do frequently for my still subject.  But for moving subjects or my fast moving Polo photography moving those Focus Points gets me a shaper better composed picture every  time.  It's second nature to me now...like adjusting Aperture and Shutter Speed.

Tip 11 ...  Get a variety of lighting scenarios.  Front light, back light, side light.  Opportunities for flare or a silhouette shot add some drama to the Gallery that you present to your subject.  And allow your artistic side to come through.

And finally...

Tip 12 ... When you are looking for a location.  Scanning for the next place to move your subjects...your camera needs to be up to your eye.  You need to be looking through your lens so that you can see what will be in the shot.  See the environment from your lenses perspective.

Happy shooting!

Polo Cornell vs Darlington

Cornell vs Darlington | Darlington PA

Skywatch Friday at Darlington Polo Field

Sunset at a Polo Match in Darlington, PA

My entry for SkyWatch Friday.  As Friday in Western PA means POLO then I thought it only fitting to post an image of the Sun going down and warming up the crowd while they wait for the horses to take the field.

What A Difference A Year Makes

I can not believe that it has been over 10 months since I last blogged.  I feel like someone should send me to bed without dinner.  I have no excuse for myself other than I was busy...just like everyone else I know.  So no excuses.  I'm going to start making up for lost time....much writing and photograph posting to commence.  I hope to see you here in a couple of days.

Motion Blur Shot of Glenn Watterson Sr., Darlington Polo Club

The Darlington Polo Club schedule for this season is posted.  As always I'm so excited for the opportunity to catch up with friends and to spend some time behind the lens photographing these magnificently athletic horses.

Waitin' on Work

Bobcat 863 with a 28 Caretree Spade and Grouser Tracks Waiting For Work.

The spring digging season is super short this year. For some trees the window to dig closed last week. For most of the rest we will be lucky to make it though the week.

Not that's it's overly important this year. The tree market is totally in the tank. We have friends in the nursery industry that are bull dozing hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of trees. Unfortunately there is no way to stop production of trees. It takes years to grow them and the row spacing is set to sell them off in a certain number of years.

We have a few fields that will be seeing a chainsaw to every other tree in the row in order to save half of them. But for the most part our spacing is good. Hopefully the fall season will spell redemption.

Flyin' High

Westminster College Brittain Lake Hill ... A sledding tradition for the sleepy little town of New Wilmington PA

Companionship

Bruce's horses Samson and Meg...long time companions.

Winter Poo

Life in Pennsylvania sure is interesting.

Today for your viewing pleasure I'm presenting two photos. The first is a weeds. That's right folks....weeds.

And the second, well I'll let you see for yourself....

Poo! Or more correctly some type of animal scat. But we're gonna call it poo.

Now I'm sure that you want to know why in the world I took the time to take these pictures (and I'm sure more than a couple of you are wanting to know why I got so close to poo).

I'm test driving a new lens. How exciting, right! And I wanted to see what it could do and shoot stuff with the old and the new and compare. Especially sharpness which I thought was a problem on my old lens (and it is).

Fine your thinking....so go ahead and test drive (shoot)....but why poo (and for that matter...weeds)?

Well (and I can't believe that I'm going to admit this)......I'm genuinely interested in the poo. I didn't set out to be. But once I saw it I was curious as to whether it was Red Fox or Coyote scat. And it was as good a place as any to experiment how close I can get with the lens.

And the weeds. I was working on Depth of Field...and how sharp I could get the individual blades of grass to be. And seperating moving grass in the forground from the moving grass in the background. And yowser can the 70-200 2.8 focus fast. Like scary fast. Like I have to get a grip....fast! Needless to say....I can't wait for polo season to start. It's a whole need world with this lens.

The weeds....really it's some sort of grass....I'd like to know if it's native and what kind it is. Now that I took the picture and have been looking at it....it would be nice to have a name for it.

Oh and the poo.....I have no idea what kind of animal left it. I'm going to submit it to the poo picture place run by Cornell and find out. It's a free service. They keep the photo (they are more than welcome to it) and we dear bloggers get to find out what critter is living on the back 50!