Family Photoshoot

My friend booked me to take some pictures of herself and her children on Monday 25 October. She wanted pictures taken at her home, but I told her beforehand that I would like to also use her garden depending on the weather. As it turned out, the weather was perfect - bright but overcast for most of the time though the sun did make an appearance once or twice.

This is a very small selection of the images:

I wanted to make use of the strong backlight coming through the living room window. I used a silver reflector as the subjects are all young and ISO 400. The image was a little underexposed but this was rectified in Lightroom.

This was lit by combining natural light and ISO 1000. I added a little bit of fill light in post-processing as the girl was in shadow. I like the effect of the lens distortion on the boy's legs. His mother commented that she liked this too.

I bounced the flash off the ceiling to my left (ISO 1000) and applied a cream tone in Lightroom. I think the shadow adds form to the image, but I diffused the light because I didn't want the shadow to have hard edges.

I used the bounced flash technique again (ISO 400) and applied a black and white vignette in post-processing. This is my favourite shot of the day as it conveys the relationship between mother and daughter.

What have I learned? 

I'm very pleased with the quality and impact of light in all of the images. For the first time, I felt confident about placing the subjects and making decisions about using my reflector and/or speedlight.

I am also happy that the pictures look natural and not posed. I was fortunate to have subjects happy to have their pictures taken and quite relaxed in front of the camera.