Coming soon.

Awesome, adorable, sweaty, fun photo-shoot with Matthew and Kyla and their gorgeous boys tonight. And yeah, I've got no choice but to admit that I was almost embarrassingly anxious about the whole thing, this being my first "real", "non-family member commissioned" photo shoot basically ever. Kyla and Matthew are almost family anyway but I was still way nervous.

I will post pictures soon as I p-shop them to my liking but in the meantime

Lessons learned:

1) Shooting kids = total unpredictability. I thought by being well prepared I would have a smoother shoot, but ended up completely improvising. And things went fine anyway. I walked away amazed that I hadn't even considered things like attention span and water breaks, (it was about 90 degrees outside...) among the things I prepared for. I guess this is one of those cases where flexibility will get you better results than planning.

2) Shooting groups = much harder than shooting solo portraits. Simple math here- four faces are harder to watch than one face. I swore I struck gold with my last two shots- everybody actually smiling and looking one direction. And then I realized I'd perfectly framed a detached camper shell as the background. Oh Arkansas. Oh details.

3) Directing a shoot = a definable skill. I stalk several professional photographers. Every time they post new pictures their clients inevitably comment in raving tones about how wonderful they were with the kids, or how comfortable they made everybody. I didn't realize until today that your attitude and interactions with your subjects can outweigh lighting and framing in taking good pictures. Being confident, reassuring, and communicating well are things I'm really going to have to work on as a part of my preparation for possibly creating my own business.