As a dad with 3 girls, one of my favorite parts of shooting a wedding is photographing how the kids deal with a long wedding day. They run the extremes of what everybody is feeling throughout the day. When most adults keep their emotion in check to some extent, kids just react to the day. Whether they’re bored, happy, angry, or playful, it shows. That makes it fun for me—even when they’re a little shy.

**For the best viewing experience, open up the first photo & use the left & right arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the photos.**

A few weeks back I jumped on a plane over to Seattle with my eldest (they each get to take turns) to meet with a couple of brides who’s weddings I can’t wait to shoot, and while I was there I got to shoot a couple of family sessions. The extra cool part of this was both the dads in the family sessions are two of my best friends in the world & have been for about as long as I care to remember. Since I live a few hundred miles away I don’t get to see them nearly enough & it was great to hang out with them & their awesome wives & adorable kids.

The weather rained the entire weekend—with the exception of the hours I spent shooting—so the sessions were wet but not rainy—thankfully. The sessions took place at one of my favorite parks, Tumwater Falls Park in Olympia. If you live on the west side of Washington make sure you visit & when you do, make sure you take the trek all the way back along the water & see if you can find the heart-shaped puddle. If you make it there during the Salmon runs I swear there’s more fish in the stream than water.

Challenge? What challenge?

A family session with 9 kids? How tough could that be?

As it turns out, not so tough at all. Especially when it’s the Fullmer family. We had a great session down by the Spokane River & everybody was about as well behaved as can be—except for maybe me. As a dad of 3 really (well, mostly) well behaved girls I don’t see any way to square that number & stay sane. But not only were they sane, they were a pleasure & it was very inspiring for me to see how they interacted with each other. Truly a happy family.

Thanks to my own Reagan for going along & helping to entertain the younger ones while I was taking pictures.

For photographers: The first photo is a composite of 5 different photos so I could get a wide shot with a shallow depth of field since we had to be closer to the tree line than I wanted to.

**For the best viewing experience, open up the first photo & use the left & right arrow keys on your keyboard to navigate through the photos.**

Generally I prefer to get my photos on location, but sometimes timing, weather, and circumstances add up to equal taking the photos inside. Fortunately I have the studio setup now that allows me to accomplish the photo taking without relying on nature at all—plus I love having absolute control over my light.

This time the Osborn family needed their family photos done and we decided it was a perfect time to get in the studio and get some use out of it since the weather has been on the cold/rainy side. First I set up the lights against the 9′ wide white seamless paper background and had Reagan stand in to test things (the last photo is a couple of these test shots). Once they were good, the Osborns showed up and we got to shooting. They were lots of fun and everybody did great in front of the camera. They all have such great personalities which makes my job easier since I don’t really have to do anything but catch it—you know, like karate kicks and stuff.

Finally I got a couple of photos with my daughter Gwyn hamming it up with her friend—which didn’t look like it was going to happen since Gwyn was being a bit of a brat. Of course she saw how much fun everybody was having and decided it was ok to be a part of it.

Even within the confines of a small studio I think we got some great portraits and I can’t wait to use it again.

#20: Spring Horse

#11: Tilt Shift Toy

One of the defining features of tilt shift photos is a small depth of field (lots of blurring) that makes photos of a large scale look like toy models. I kind of took that in a different direction here. Oh well, it’s funny to me. Reagan laughed at it too.

#12: Abstract Bokeh

Bokeh is the term for out of focus objects in a photo (usually the background). With my normal camera it’s pretty easy to accomplish. With an iPhone, with it’s automatic focus, it’s a little tougher. I had to trick the camera in to focusing on the background so the foreground would bokeh nicely. I’m really happy with the result.

Here’s a family that I was lucky enough to be able to shoot. Each one was adorable and quite a bit of fun. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen such patient children. Each child waited their turn and when it was their time in front of the camera they were raring to go.

Honestly, when kids are this cute and fun in front of the lens, the best thing I can do is get out of the way and follow their lead. Besides, if I could get away with a mohawk, I’d wear it in a second.

Here are some of the photos from the session…

I recently had the opportunity to shoot a little girl named Taylor. She was quite a little personality and it oozed out of her in the session. I don’t even think her parents expected her to be such a ham in front of the camera. We both had a lot of fun and her parents seemed to be pretty happy with them—especially the shots in which she insisted on playing with her toes. I’d have to say I am pretty happy with them as well.

If only all of my clients were as easy to photograph as Miss Taylor was.

Here are the photos…

(click to view larger)

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