A lovely and sunny post-Thanksgiving photo session with the Fuge family (and their fur babies) in Sparta, Tennessee.
Tag: Canon EOS 6D Mark II
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Weeks Family
Mike Weeks is about to reach the big six-oh. To celebrate, his family got together to surprise him for a family photoshoot, the day after Thanksgiving, at his favorite location: Lost Creek Falls in Sparta, Tennessee. All his adult children, plus the growing grandchildren, were there to participate. Mike and Natalie, who hired me, travelled all the way from South Carolina to make this shoot happen, and it was a blast. At first, everyone was suffering from the cold and the short climb down the trail to get to the waterfall, but once we got going, everyone started warming up and having a great time. Natalie was thrilled I was able to take over from her notes and handle the group. After I delivered the photos, Natalie texted that I “knocked it out of the ballpark! Great positioning! Sooo pleased!”
Behind The Scenes
By the waterfall, we noticed Maryland landscape and nature photographer Callie McDonald of Callie Rose Photo and asked if we’d bother her if we did our thing in front of the falls. She was happy to let us through, and even did me a solid by agreeing to snap some shots of me working. Hopefully, we can do a photoshoot together next time she’s in town. Check out Callie’s work. She’s a real pro, her work is beautiful, and she’s a very nice person.
BTS photography by: Callie Rose McDonald | Website | Instagram
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Isabel Senior Portraits
Isabel is a waitress at her family’s Smithville, TN restaurant. When she found out I am a photographer, she immediately inquired about doing her senior portraits. A few weeks later she booked me, and I was on the road to a quaint ranch near Shelbyville where there was a dancing horse Isabel was excited to shoot with. Isabel wanted her portraits to stand out so photographing with a horse two hours away from her high school was a great idea. There were wide open spaces, a beautiful sunset, and some very helpful locals who assisted our shoot. Angel operated my 50″ reflector. Isabel loved the results of my official first Tennessee gig.
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Oscar Guerra
I was contacted by the Guerras yesterday to capture a headshot of Oscar who has decided to run for county commissioner in south Texas. This is my final week of freelance work in south Texas as a resident as I am relocating to Tennessee next week, so I’m taking on some very small jobs for fun and supplemental income to help with the move.
I was able to fit in their session this morning and they were happily surprised that I was able to bring my mobile photo studio to them. I recently adjusted my preference of composition to shoot in landscape but save for the square aspect ratio. This gives me a lot of freedom in editing to crop for various aspect ratios later, such as widescreen, square, and vertical.
My Canon 6D Mark II gives me a lot of megapixels to work with, and the quality is fantastic even when zoomed in quite a bit. This is how I also shoot my video work since I am often asked to later recompose a video for social media. “Capture wide, then crop in” is a throwback to medium format photography, but now with 4K and 6K sensor video cameras, and 24MP stills cameras, that axiom works very well in today’s commercial photography landscape.
I was able to get the photography delivered to the client same-day, and finished the flier for their meet and greet event happening next weekend. I even got the client an 8×10″ crop of the headshot so they could have a nice portrait! Great time!
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Ingram Family
A nifty beach photo session with the Ingram family. The parents were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary, and the couple wearing cyan were celebrating their 10th!
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TJ & Amber
Photographed on April 10 at McKinney Falls State Park in Austin, Texas, I set out to capture TJ and Amber’s individual personalities, as well as how they are when together. I wanted to make sure we got the most romantic light possible given the weather, and decided to begin the session at 6:30 PM just before sunset so that the sun would still be visible just above the tree line.
The changing room at base camp. I was invited by my BFF Herlinda to drive up to Austin to do the shoot. She picked up a privacy tent at Cabela’s so that her son TJ and his girlfriend Amber could change wardrobe on location. I liked the tent so much I bought it from her!
During the shoot at the falls I wondered if I should digitally paint out the people in the background, but ultimately decided to leave them in as they gave the background scale.
The afternoon before the shoot, we had done some shopping and I was lucky enough to find a Precision Camera store where I purchased a Westcott 50″ 5-in-1 reflector which would be much more appropriate for the two-person shoot than would my modest 24″ 2-sided one.
Amber looking like a silver M&M as she bounces sunlight onto TJ. Everyone would take turns bouncing that gorgeous Texas sunset back into our subjects for various photos. I even held it once while Linda snapped the photo under my direction because the wind was too strong at the time (the photo of the couple seated together on the rock).
Texas, y’all. Next, we moved on to an open field near the parking lot which was full of bluebonnets. I had the couple sit down in the field with the sun behind them for some gorgeous, and very Texas, shots. Bluebonnets don’t grow where I live, so seeing this many and being able to walk through them safely was an awesome experience. It was so pretty, I had to take a selfie.
Selfie in the bluebonnets (and some red and yellow assorted wildflowers). All in all it was a great photo session and a fun weekend trip. I delivered the photos a few days later, and Herlinda, TJ, and Amber were all very pleased. It’s amazing what a little reflected light can do for a photoshoot when you don’t have (or need) battery-powered strobes.
The photos were all taken with my Canon EOS 6D Mark II. I used my Canon 28mm f/2.8, 50mm f/1.4 , and 85mm f/1.8 USM lenses, except in the bluebonnet field where I used the 24-70mm f/2.8L USM because I knew I only had about 5 minutes before the sun disappeared behind the trees. No flash or artificial light was used.
Selfwe with Herlinda, TJ, and Amber.
