Lila's First Day

I love candid portraiture, especially working with young families. One of my favorite assignments of late was to photograph a little boy meeting his newborn sister for the very first time. I traveled down to Yorktown, Virginia to meet the family at the hospital, just a couple of hours after baby Lila was born. Waiting for me in the hospital room were the father, and the mother’s parents.

Everyone was excited, and nervous at the same time. It was one of those magical moments of high anticipation, coupled with the trepidation of the unknown.

The most important thing for a photographer in these sorts of situations is to be as unobtrusive as possible, and to let the family act and react naturally. This is not just important from a moral perspective, but also from a creative one as well. The best images will always be those which reveal the heart and soul of your subjects, and that can only happen when they are completely at ease with your presence, or the lack thereof. This is obviously quite difficult to achieve within the very close confines of a hospital room, but I’ve found the best approach is usually to refrain from any photography initially. Have your camera out, of course, but don’t immediately launch into a frenzy of picture taking. Just engage in gentle conversation, as and when it’s appropriate, and pretty soon you’ll be a part of the scene. Gradually, you can start taking photographs… nothing fancy, no flash either, so as not to disturb the baby.

Just observe and capture moments as they occur. It may take a little while to work into a rhythm with your work, sort of like warming up for a race. Eventually things will begin to flow though.

 

I prefer using a decent zoom in these cases, so you can hang out in the background, but still get close in details and expressions. My favorite lens for this is a nice 70-200m F2.8IS. It’s pretty big, but it gathers light like a black hole, and that big aperture gives you such wonderful control over depth of field. The image stabilization (IS) makes it much easier to take handheld shots in low light with relatively low shutter speeds as well.

Don't forget that you are there to tell a story though. I loved this sequence of shots with the little boy, who's so wonderfully full of beans. He was so excited to see his newborn sister, but a hospital is not exactly a play ground either, and he was restless, wanting new things to explore and do. He was so patient though, and wonderfully behaved.

After you’ve captured a few decent images, show some of them to your clients, as it reassures them (and yourself) that you’re game is on. Once your subjects feel like they are in good hands, the threat of the lens becomes more like a welcome sign, and you can even get them involved in helping you take a photograph. It’s great, for instance, to have someone holding a reflector for you to improve the light on your subject. 

  

The important thing is to keep it simple, and make it fun. Great images will always fall to you when this becomes a priority.

  
 

 

I loved every minute of this work, and being with the family. I hope it shows in my photography. My very favorite image is the last one. It was just one of those magical moments which comes along once in a while.

Not one of these images was posed, with the exception of the shot with the wedding bands on baby Lila's feet, and that was in response to a personal request from my clients. This is the way I prefer to work, as interfering too much to get "the perfect shot" rarely works with anyone other than professional models. It almost always looks forced and contrived otherwise (as do most model shoots, but then again, that's by design). A photographer's creativity shows best more often in their restraint, and careful observation, rather than trying to control a situation. Something all of us can learn from I guess, including myself. 

Digging Out….

Well, we had the storm of the new millennium here in Washington, DC. More than 24” of snow fell over a 36 hour period. No power, no heat, no running water… no internet! “A three hour tour, a three hour tour…” well, not quite, but I had that song in my head when I awoke in a nearly freezing room on Sunday morning.

I’m not complaining mind you, anything but. It reminded me of how lucky I am to have some of the simple luxuries of modern life. Having a little jolt like this every once in a while does some good. There were fabulous photographic opportunities of course, so that was at least one positive thing. Mind you, we are still snowed in; marooned, as it were, in a sea of white. Nine trees fell across the only road leading to my house. The snow, piled thickly in their branches, was too much to bear.

At least the sky is blue, and sunny, and the electricity has returned… hopefully for a while. We were melting snow on our gas stove just so we could wash the dishes, and flush toilets earlier in the day!

We’ve also begun to dig ourselves out with a little Kubota tractor. It’s tough going, but actually rather fun. Clearing the half mile of road leading up to the state maintained streets is probably beyond the beast’s capability though.

The birds are feeding frenetically on the railings and posts we cleared to lay down seed. They are desperate as the snow has covered all of their normal food sources. And we are expecting more snow tomorrow night…

A titmouse flies off with a sunflower seed.

A bluebird awaits his turn before flitting down to the feed tray.

Goldfinches battle it out with the storm.

This female downy woodpecker was climbing the dogwood tree. 

A goldfinch in the morning sunlight.

If you feed them, they will come.... Part 2.

Well... I had been planning on doing something else for today's entry, but the persistant snowfall has changed my plans. We've already had about 8" of snow today, and it's still going strong. That, coupled with very unreliable power service this evening has persuaded me to feature the back garden again.

This is what it looks like outside right now... well, it would, if the sun were up! I actually took this shot two days ago, but it looked just like this in the dark when I took the dog out a few minutes ago. It's still snowing mind you. They say we'll get anywhere up to 30", which seems incredible for lowly Washington, DC.

Well, I did actually manage to take a few photographs as the snow was falling this afternoon. This little red bellied woodpecker came by for a feed. I was amazed he stayed long enough for a picture, to be honest, as they are perhaps the most nervous birds in the area. But they are also just about the most beautiful birds too, and certainly my favorite. They will fly off at the twitch of an eyebrow though, so photographing them up close is very difficult. This one just flew into view as I was preparing to photograph a bluebird, which you can see, out of focus, in the background. Other than pressing the shutter button, I didn't move a muscle, so the little chap didn't fly away... but did keep a wary eye on me, as you can see.

The bluebirds were out in full force again today. We had over a dozen at one point, but never in a place easily photographed, sadly. You always have to be patient with wild animals... and let them come to you, rather than the other way around.

Nuthatches are really quite tame, and tolerant of human activity... not nearly as flighty as woodpeckers. They love to hang upside down too, which makes for interesting photography, and fascinating viewing. I love to use shallow depth of field when I take bird photographs, as it really makes your subject pop from the screen. I think this was at F5.6 at 400mm focal length and roughly 7' away... so really only the bird is in focus.

This female cardinal sat for quite a while during the snowfall.... it was wonderful to watch her. She'd occasionally flit back and forth between where the seed was and up to her perch in the dogwood tree.

And finally I close with a jenny wren... they are such sweet little birds, full of character and charm! Cheaky too!

If you feed them, they will come...

I woke up this morning to a beautiful fresh snowfall. Every branch of every tree was covered in an inch or four of fine white powder. It was a perfect backdrop for photographing the local songbirds as they hung out in the trees waiting their turn at the feeder. What better way to spend a snow day, after all?

(click images to see larger versions)

Most birds are naturally very nervous, and dash off at the slightest sound, or movement. The trouble is that you need to get pretty close to song birds to photograph them well, unless you have a very powerful lens. Even with a 400mm lens you need to be closer than 10 feet from these tiny creatures to capture a good image.

The trick is to put out some feed, and find a comfortable place to sit/stand nearby. You might even put your camera on a tripod to ease the burden. Then you wait very quietly, and without making any unnecessary movements. If you have to move then you must do so very carefully, and without drastic motion. An alternative is to create a blind of course, but sometimes this isn't practical.


The birds will come, especially if there's snow, and they get used to you before too long and you can quietly work away. It's best to position yourself near a bush, or small tree which is close to where the feed is. The birds like to congregate in such places for safety, before they flit down and back with their food. Your photographs will have a much more natural look too.

A goldfinch with the beginnings of its spring plumage.

Also, it is important to use relatively high shutter speeds when photographing birds, as they move quickly, even when just nodding their heads. You'll need to use shutter speeds of 1/300th sec at a minimum, and faster than 1/1000th sec if you want to capture a bird in flight without too much motion blur. You will also have to bias your exposure setting by at least +1.0 f-stop in order to get a good exposure of the bird when photographing against the bright snowy background. I actually used +1 1/3 for some of the images here.

This little bird puffed its feathers out to cope with the cold. I think it's a female goldfinch, but am not quite sure.

A little house finch in the dogwood tree.

Eastern bluebird.

A nuthatch clings to the dogwood's trunk.

Eastern bluebird.

A cheeky little nuthatch!

In closing, it's important to note that birds will be desperate to feed when it snows. You should never disturb them from feeding at times like this, because it might mean the difference in their surviving the day.

A clear indicator that you are disturbing the birds is if they fly off at the sound of your shutter every time it clicks. You must stop, and leave them be if this happens and find a more stealthy way to create your photography... or get a bigger lens. I've never found this to be a problem in the suburbs, where the birds are used to being fed by humans. It's a different story in the wilder areas though, and may require you to build a blind, and maybe even use a "blimp" to quiet the shutter... Alternatively, if you have a modern DSLR, you can photograph in "live view", which is much quieter (as the internal mirror will be stowed already... it's the mirror movement which creates most of the noise in a digital SLR anyway). Good luck with your efforts!