Family Walk on a Rainy Day

I love the editorial style of photography — pictures that tell a story.

This is the type of picture a daughter can look back on that speaks to where and how she was raised. What did mom look like when I was less than a year old? Check. What did our neighborhood like? Check. What’s that thing mom carried me in — moms should carry kids? Check. I was barefoot all the time — being barefoot is important? Check. We walked as a family — walking is important? Check.

And this is one of the sole reasons for starting this blog. I want it to be a record for all of us, but mostly Noelle.

We all have the potential to change our family tree. Katharine and I have a goal of improving the psychological and emotional stability of childhood as well as the physical health (link to my new project — The Rebooted Body) of our immediate family. We’ve done a lot of research and made a lot of decisions based on that research with Noelle’s benefit being our main motivation; so that one day she can carry on the changes we’ve made if she chooses.

Every day that passes I love them both more and more. Because all three of us are on the same team, even — it seems — in the most complex situations where 99% of the world would come to different conclusions.

I’m so thankful for the skills I’ve built in photography, because it gives me the ability to tell a story in subtle, but powerful and beautiful ways. Especially pictures like this that don’t include complex lighting schemes or a lot of technical details — it’s just storytelling and documenting, plain and simple. This is what photography was meant to be, right?

{ The Picture }

This is a complete natural light shot on an overcast day — no reflectors. Canon 5d MK II and Sigma 35mm f1.4. If you’re keen on lighting, you’re probably wondering where the contrast on Kat’s face is coming from…that would be from a large tree off to camera left. This shot wouldn’t be as three dimensional without that contrast.

A quick tip on photographing in overcast light: it almost always causes dark circles under the eyes. This can be solved by finding a natural overhang and positioning the subject underneath it. Or, do like pros do, and create your own overhang by holding a black card over the subjects head (out of the shot of course). It took me a hot while to figure that trick out. I didn’t do that for this shot because the last thing I want to do on a relaxing walk is haul extra equipment, but if you want your images to have that extra “something”, that’s what it takes.

This shot could have been improved with a flag overhead, though Lightroom helped me out in the “make some shadows less noticeable” department. The tree did a lot to help me too though — I have other images away from the tree and the dark circles plague them.

If you’re trying to get into photography and you look at these pictures and wonder my thought process behind them I try to offer tips and suggestions in this section of every post. One thing you need to know is that it’s damn near impossible to just pick up a camera and walk outside and take great pictures of people. If there’s a human being in your image, the quality of the shot is almost always dictated by how you manipulate the light in the scene.

And that’s the key: if you’re not actively manipulating the light, you’re going to get amateur results. The camera is the least important factor. I know almost immediately when I see a photographer with just a camera that they’re not getting the best shot possible — at minimum a reflector, scrim, or subtractor is needed (or in this case a large tree). At more advanced stages you make your own light with strobes or other tools.

Just some food for thought 🙂