A Spring Family Photo Shoot with my DSLR

I absolutely love photography. I love looking at photos, I love taking photos, I love being in photos – I’ve always been this way.

I guess if I think back, it has probably got something to do with the fact that my dad always had a 35m camera and would bring it on holiday with us, or to the school plays or sports days. He’d always snap us having fun and being a family and we’d excitedly pop down to the local photo-shop to have them developed. The wait would be agonising, sometimes a couple of days before we could see the photos. But that moment when you flicked through the pack, remembering the shots you took, the good times that were had and laughing at the shots that didn’t come out quite right.

Then you’d pop the best ones into albums and place them on the bookshelf for a rainy day, when you’d enjoy reminiscing over the photographs again…loved those days!

We don’t really get that anticipation anymore with the way technology has progressed and there’s good and bad points to that (something I’ll keep for another post methinks)…but, I digress…

Our Family Photo Shoot

My DSLR

Now where were we…oh yes…I was saying how much I love photography. I was always the one in the friendship group that’d have the camera on a night-out and I love shooting away on my iphone 7 too.  But I love shooting on my DSLR even more.

I have a Canon eos 60d and love it! It’s not too chunky, but feels solid like a pro camera and over the years I’ve treated myself to a couple of decent lenses, including my now favourite Canon EF 35mm f/2 IS USM Lens which I used for this shoot, entirely.

This lens gives me the lovely focused foreground and blurry background…the perfect depth of field that I love.

A New Subject

Since having a baby, I’ve become even more conscious of capturing memories and I have the new perfect subject for my own photography…my daughter! Luckily, she’s a willing subject too and at 19 months old, is already a little poser…ha!

At a recent WeBlogMCR workshop that I ran, we had a practical photography session, where a pro was on hand to guide us and give us tips to using our DSLR cameras properly. I admit, I’ve rarely strayed off the auto setting, which always frustrated me as I didn’t think I was getting the shots I wanted and could see in my head!

But after this session, it finally clicked and I’ve been shooting on manual and aperture-priority mode ever since. Woohoo!

Then a month or so ago, I attended The Roost family photography workshop by Anna Hardy (who photographed our family and who’s style I adore) and her fantastic workshop really opened my eyes with regards to how to get the best and most natural shots and maybe even embark on a family photo shoot of my own).

Spring Days in the Park

So recently, with the sun shining, the family and I headed-off for an afternoon in the local park and I made sure I was armed with my DSLR camera. When I saw the field of daffodils, the same height as my daughter, spread out in front of us,  I couldn’t resist and an impromptu family photo shoot was in progress.

It was so much fun and I used both my new practical skills from Anna Hardy and my new technical skills from the WeBlogMCR workshop when taking these photos. And I loved it!

Here’s the results…

What do you think?

I’m really pleased that I think I captured natural shots, some movement shots and some where she’s clearly engaging with the camera.

I’m not very good at editing in Photoshop or Lightroom etc. yet so I’m lucky that the light was perfect on this day.  I’ve also not cropped any of these, as I tried hard to frame the photos just how I wanted them on the day (although there were a lot of “misses” that got deleted from the bunch).

This is only half of the family photo shoot from that day – I think I’ll post the rest in a separate post next week. #MummyFriday

Does anyone have any simple editing tricks or advice? I’d like to master this next!