Morning Sessions and Cute Toddler Smiles

Sometimes I find it strange how much I enjoy sunrise shoots, considering how much I hate mornings.

Maybe its because I feel super "carpe-diemy" after getting up so early -- or maybe its because morning shoots usually mean fun time with young families, which reminds me of my older sister's family -- but either way, its something I really love doing as part of my freelance work.

Earlier this summer I had to wonderful opportunity to shoot a mini session for a professor of mine from my undergraduate studies at the George Washington University. I was pretty pumped when she asked me to take some family photos of her, her wife and their adorable little boy Brinton.

It was actually the first time I got to meet Brinton, although I had seen plenty of photos of him growing up on his Instagram :)

I mean, isn't he just the cutest little man you ever did see?

During the shoot Brinton kept wanting to wave at the garbage truck drivers -- it was so so adorable.

Oh morning shoots, how I love you so :)

The Learning Curve: Taking Pictures of Babies Is Hard!

If there's one thing I've learned from my recent slew of family and portrait sessions is that taking posed pictures of babies (not candid, candid is easy!) is a lot harder than it looks.

While adults understand when to look at the camera, when to smile and how to take directions, little babies -- as adorable as they are -- require a bit more attention.

Plus, sometimes, matter what you do, you just might not have what it takes to make the little one smile, which is hard to accept as a perfectionist-type photographer.

Maybe it's because I don't have kids of my own yet, or maybe it's because I just don't photograph babies enough, but at times I find taking photos of babies age two and under harder than covering even the busiest of events!

All that being said, I did have a really awesome experience capturing photos of the Maki family, who has a little one, at the Rosedale Conservancy in Washington, DC a few weeks ago.

Not only was their family so wonderful to work with, but their little one was absolutely adorable!

While I definately think that these photos aren't award winning family pictures, you know, they aren't bad by any means and there are some cute ones in the mix.

Maybe I'm too hard on myself... or not hard enough.

All I can say is that I'm still getting better, and I'm lucky to have had the opportunity to practice taking pictures of little cuties!

The Art of the Headshot

Growing up, I always thought photographers were people who spent all day shooting beautiful, glamor-shot like headshots of people in big, airy photography studios.

The way TV represented the industry, photographers looked like they had the coolest, easiest funnest job in the world (oh, and every single one of them knew how to make any person look amazing) and I loved everything about that.

Fast forward to today, and I'll be the first person to tell you that my warped view of the photography industry and the ease of taking a basic, good headshot was 100% completely and totally warped.

See, as an event-journalism style photographer, I find posed photography challenging. Taking headshots, shooting family photos, etc. isn't exactly hard -- but it requires a different type of thinking and approach than event-based shooting.

That being said, I'm currently trying to amp up my portraiture and posed photography skills, and have recently had a couple headshot shoots to kick off my campaign to improve my portraiture skills.

A few weeks ago, I had the pleasure of shooting a mini headshot session with the lovely Susan Gasper who lives and works in Washington, D.C. We headed to the Rosedale Conservancy in Cleveland Park for her photoshoot and captured a few really nice shots on a bright and sunny April morning.

Later that same week, I did an evening mini headshot session for a dear friend of mine, Moira Dhaliwal, at the gardens near the Smithsonian Castle. She really wanted to capture the blooming magnolias in her headshots, as well as some of the interesting surroundings.

All and all, I'm happy with the work of these two shoots, although I'm constantly trying to improve.

Photographer friends out there, what tips do you have to make my natural light posed photography even better?