My Boys

Enjoying a day outside.

Nathaniel

Aaron

Nate walking towards us

And Curious Aaron

Jay Reilly Workshop

I was fortunate to attend the Jay Reilly "Shoot Your Kids" workshop this weekend down in Oceanside. I carpooled with fellow mom Melissa and when we arrived, we realized we were in over our heads. The description of the workshop said, "Perfect for the Mom or Dad who wants to learn to shoot their kids". Um... everyone there was a professional or wanting to be a professional. Oops. I felt so ridiculous pulling out my Rebel XT when everyone else had the 5D Mark II. Yah.

Anyways, the workshop was pretty fun and I did learn a lot. I think the best part was watching Jay in action. His work is amazing - I wish to be like him someday. I like his philosophy about capturing the moment and not processing the images too much. He wants to shoot a pure photo and try not to do anything to them. Seriously, out of his 400+ images, almost all of them were perfect. Amazing. And he doesn't speak the lingo. So I understood him. But a lot of it was still over my head. I hope to keep practicing so I can get the ability to pose, direct, get the perfect lighting for each frame.

We had 3 shoots: one with professional kid models (seriously, they were so gorgeous and were so awesome at posing), one with a skater family, and one with cousins. Lots of fun!

So sorry, I forgot most of these kid's names. I'm horrible at names unless I see them written down. Horrible. But out of 400+ photos, these are the only ones that came out somewhat decent (mainly b/c I could not get a good angle in with 13 other people trying to get the same one).

First shoot with the model agency kids.
Lucy

I hate that I forgot this little girl's name b/c she was such an awesome model. I know it started with an "A" and was a pretty unique name. Unfortch, I only got these 2 images of her that were decent. She had quite a few wardrobe changes too.
Now these boys were just adorable. The one on the left is the above girl's brother (forgot his name too). The middle one and the one on the right are brothers. Somehow I remember their names. Older bro is Brannon (or Brandon? or Brennen?)and younger longer hair bro is Blake I think. I remember B & B.


Next up were the skater kids family. They were so cute, esp. the little girl who was so into skate boarding. Crap, having a hard time remember names. Little girl is Klara, older girl is Annika, can't remember the boys' names. Older boy started with a K.
Here is Jay hogging the best spot for this shot. Haha. But I like this b/c it shows Jay in action and the cute photograph he got doing this.
And I like this one even though it was not part of a shoot. We were just walking to a location and I took this shot. I like that it is a small skater girl in the middle of a paparazzi pack.

Last shoot was with a group of cousins. The older boys was so pretty to look at. I don't have any of the younger one b/c he was too quick. But he is more realistic as to what I'm usually shooting. I don't remember the older girl's name. :( But they were: Blake (older boys), Zane (young boy), and Carson (younger girl).

That's it! Any critique is welcome!!

The B Fam

We went to the OC Zoo with my friend Janet and her Family. I was just playing around with the camera and captured a few images of them in the zoo. Little Ruby is growing so fast! It was fun to take some photos of a non-moving baby. :)

Beautiful girl

And some of the fam

Out with the Boys

My new lens broke, so I took it to Canon who basically said to return it to Amazon. I did, and a new one came in like 1 day! So I took it out to practice some more shooting with the boys as models. I thought I'd dress them alike to look cute. These are also straight out of the camera.

Aaron






Nathaniel










Both boys

And my fave. I did edit this one.

First Workshop with Erin Tukua

This weekend, I attended my first photography workshop with the fabulous Erin Tukua. She is a great friend, awesome photographer, and fellow mom of twins. She was so kind to take time and teach us moms how to use our camera and even had some models for us. I learned so much from her b/c she broke it down to simple terms and told us basically 'this is what you need to do'. I had such a fun time shooting although my knee was still pretty bad. I couldn't bend down too much, but I think I got in a few shots. I used my new 50mm f/1.8 that I got the day before. Such an awesome lens.

Here are a few of my favorite shots of the day. These are straight out of the camera.

Miss Layla

My fave of Layla:

Miss Maya
I love the way Maya is looking at mommy in this one.
My fave of Maya.