Here’s one from before the holidays. They are such a nice and friendly family. The boys weren’t too into getting their pictures taken but I think by the end of the session they were starting to loosen up a little – dare I say even having a little fun. I love the earth tones their mom picked out. I thought they blended so well with the fall/winter season.

For the photographers out there, I thought I’d share how this picture was taken.  It’s a pretty simple setup, but a few things to keep in mind.  Generally when you take pictures in Auto mode you camera will meter off the dark tree and fire off the flash.  This makes the tree look bright, but it looks like the lights are off.  Instead you need to switch to manual mode so you can control the exposure.  Meter off the tree and take a few test shots until you get the tree exposed like you want.  Once you do that, the subject will be underexposed.  In order to bring the subject back up you’ve got to use some other light.  In this case I’ve used a speedlight in a softbox gelled with 1/2 cut of CTO to match the color temperature of the Christmas lights.  The flash was powered at 1/32 + 2/3 stop.  The camera settings were 1/50th at f/1.8 and ISO 320.  I used Daylight white balance to warm it up a bit.  Once you get your lighting right, it’s just a matter of waiting for the perfect expression!