I cannot even tell you how happy I am with these images, not because of the images themselves (although I am quite fond of them) but because of how my kids totally rallied and worked together as a team to make them come to life. The day I had set to do this shoot turned out to be a FREEZING day. I mean, temps of 36 degrees in the morning, and only warming up to 52 degrees when we were shooting. With a wind that cut through you too. I knew we were going to have to work FAST and efficiently. Gavin came along to be my reflector holder and ended up also being my "make your sister laugh hard" guy. He was AMAZING. Ellie was none too pleased when we first started the shoot (the girl hates being cold) but within minutes was laughing her head off at her brother's antics and playing off his exuberant energy and spirit. Before long the two of them were just making this shoot totally come to life. It was my shortest and quickest commercial shoot yet, especially considering we had FOUR variations of the outfit to cover due to a reversible jacket and matching pants AND skirt. Lots of material to cover and the three of us just whipped it out something fierce. A total family affair. I seriously was on cloud 9 after this shoot and the kids were beaming too. Very cool.
The outfit is a SUPERB combination of style, class, hipness and funk all in one delectable package by none other than miss Julie of ZOZOBUGBABY. Her work just continues to inspire me. Between her and Courtney, I don't have to look anywhere else for Ellie's wardrobe. I am SET. :)
Now, of course, every great outfit is made all that much better with the right accessory, n'est-ce pas? SO, in came Miss Melissa of NUXIEMADE. The crocheted hat, hair band and flower barrette were all done by her. Julie and Melissa collaborate on many outfits so you can always find a matching accessory for one of Julie's outfits in Melissa's Etsy store. Perfection.
These images were practically perfect SOOC (straight out of the camera) too and needed very little post processing, just color boosting to help them pop and that was it. I didn't even have to sharpen them at all and I always do at least a tad bit of sharpening! So much fun when you have perfect light and a wonderful subject and a great little helper!
Like I said, it was COLD. Here you can tell that Ellie is freezing and NOT in the mood.
I told her to curl up and think warm thoughts. LOVE this shot.
Gavin being silly = great Ellie smiles
I adore this series. At first Ellie is giving Gavin the: "Ok, show me what you got" look and then before long she is laughing her tail off.
This is about as real and natural a smile as I'll ever get from Ellie. I'm one very happy mom to have these images! THANK YOU Gavin. I know I gush about him a lot but, seriously, love that boy. :)
Now, as much as I'd like to say I was attacked by a pigeon or something prompting this response, alas, 'twas merely a bird flying close by. She's quite the animated little thing isn't she?
As you can see from this next series, by this point she was on fuego...
Now, everyone knows how strongly I feel about shooting in direct light with your subjects FACING the harsh light. Rare is the person who actually knows how to make that look GOOD (Kelly Moore Clark is one of the few who have mastered that skill) and I know I'm not there yet so I don't use it unless I know I can make it look good, so here I had the right conditions and mostly wanted to get a "from behind" shot that would have a deep blue sky in it so it totally worked. But, for the most part folks, don't have your subjects looking at the bright sun when you take their picture.
I actually like that you can't see her eyes in this one. Which is so not "pascale-ish" of me!
As a reward for all their hard work (and a means to warm up their frozen little bodies) I offered them to go get hot cocoas and a piping hot slice of pizza. But, no, my kids wanted an ice cream cone. Nutballs.
And to counter balance all this crazy COLOR, here's a couple B&W's of mister helper extraordinaire.
So, I've got a big family shoot with 3 little ones (and a beloved doggie) on Saturday that I am soooo looking forward to photographing. I love this mama to pieces and have been looking forward to this shoot all year long. Then, it looks like all my shoots for next week are going to have to be squeezed into the following week due to this big storm coming our way. TOTAL bummer. I hate that. But we need the rain so no complaining, just gonna have to roll with it during this crunchtime of holiday picture season! I will, however, be announcing my 2010 calendar of availability sometime next week during the storm so keep your eyes peeled for that. My established clients will received a newsletter a few days before I publicly announce it on the blog though so they can get first dibs on their favorite dates. :)
