Hey there! This week the topic for the live show is “candid family photos” which is right up my alley. So, this isn’t really a formal genre, but it certainly follows the rules of some other more established topics like street photography. It’s all about capturing the mood and expression of your subjects, giving the viewer a “slice of life” view.
You’ll notice most of my photos in this post are black and white. That’s because I’m photographing children, who tend to wear bright colors, and I’m shooting in my house and outside which have distracting elements. Converting photos to black and white helps to focus the viewers attention and eliminates distractions.
While most of my family moments would realistically include the TV or cell phones, I managed to capture my daughter goofing around on the couch, and her and my stepson outside playing with my neighbor’s grandkids. It’s hard for me to objectively know which of these images are successful. This topic is more sentimental than many, and I can’t help but judge these images on my feeling towards them and the emotions they elicit more than the technical aspects. These certainly don’t have the sharpest focus, but I tried to capture movement and expression above all else. I used low f/stops (which aren’t actually that low since I’m using a micro 4/3 camera) and auto ISO and shutter speeds.
My regular weekend view.
This is pretty much the essence of Eloise; pretending to be a cat.
I love this one. The expressions, the movement. The car and post make an unfortunate background though.
Gleefully collecting leaves to throw in the air
Rule negotiation.
So how’d I do? What could I have done better? I wish I’d gotten some sharper images of the kids throwing leaves (I didn’t post any here because they weren’t great) but I still have trouble balancing my shutter speed and exposure. Time to revisit the basics!
Can’t wait to see what you all come up with this week!
