I take thousands of pictures of my kids but rarely do I attempt to do an actual photo session with the little one – one where I considered wardrobe, location, light variation and mood.   As a kid’s photographer in Sydney, I love all the various locations we have for photo sessions. One of my favourites is Darling Harbour so a couple of Fridays ago, as the final project for a class I was taking, I decided to set off for the wharfs hoping to create a set of photos that reflected cohesion through color and light. It was an overcast day which brings beautiful, but often flat light. While you usually don’t end up with unflattering shadows, it is also difficult to create images that have dimension or gorgeous catchlights in my subjects eyes.  With no visible sun, I often find it challenging to figure out what surfaces are going to reflect the best light onto my subjects face creating creamy skintones and give that impression that your subject is full of life – or glowing as we often say.

We started out at the ferry end of Darling Harbour near the our favourite museum, the Maritime Museum, and slowly made our way down to the playground in Darling Quarter.  While I wouldn’t say there was much posing going along, my son was persuaded to let me keep the camera snapping away as he ran in and out of corners, did a roly-poly down the wharf and slid down the slippery dip a million times.  A Kinder Surprise egg and a crocodile finger puppet was a small price to pay for a model for my final assignment.  But best of all we had a fun day of just playing without errands, housework or screen time eating up time we should be spending together.   So here is my 4 on 4 for the month of February – with a little bonus collage at the end.   I can’t believe that pretty soon I will need to be doing a special birthday session for this little one. Time goes by too fast.

 

And be sure to continue along the circle to see what Jeanne has been up to this month.