September 18, 2009 - Joshua's black and white

1/400

f2.2

ISO 1600

50mm

RAW

I finally got my oldest, Joshua, to pose for me at the same window, so this completes the set I wanted to do of all my children. And just like the others, everything I said about the first photo applies here, too.

I'm going to break with my traditionally explanation and talk about what I don't like first — that finger resting on his upper lip! I really like the pose, but the finger is very distracting. He was moving around as I was taking the photos (almost like he was modeling for me) and I tried to get him back into the same pose but with his fingers resting on his chin instead, but I was unsuccessful.

Having said all that, I like this photo. The lighting for this portrait is probably the best of the bunch. One thing I did differently is I put my 52-inch round white reflector just out of the picture to his right. This bounced a little bit of the window light back into the darker side of his face, which really helped lighten up his eye.

Now that all five are done, Rachel and I aren't sure we like all of them. There are a couple we feel really capture the kids' personalities (like Leigh Ann and Tannah), but we worried some of the poses are too similar (Rachel wants variety in each kid's pose). We will probably take some of these again until we feel we have what we want.