A Behind-The-Scenes Look at a Family Photo Session

I love photos like this with golden back light in idyllic scenes. But the reality is for every ‘perfect’ photo like this there are dozens (if not hundreds) that don’t look so nice.

Lightroom is my favorite post-processing program. I had 982 photos from this session. To narrow them down I flag the photos that stand out to me and then highlight the final keepers in yellow.

This photo is straight out of the camera (SOOC) and is typical of the photos I ended up with. It can be really challenging to get a family of six to all look at the camera and smile at the same time. One or two kids are always looking away or not smiling. Inevitably, the mom and dad end up looking at the kids instead of the camera. You’ll need to learn to capture their attention.

This is what the photos look like after editing with Lightroom. It took 70 photos to get this one. I was discouraged, but it taught me that I needed to get better at interacting with groups.

This photo is SOOC. It can be really tough to get four siblings (one of them an infant) to look at the camera and smile at the same time. It helps to have a parent or assistant standing directly behind you to get their attention. That person should be playful and silly to engage the kids. This is far better than having adults off to the side yelling at the kids to “look here!”

This is a nice photo after editing with Lightroom. It took 33 bad photos to get this good one.

Sometimes you’ve got to let little kids get the silliness out of them. Why shouldn’t a photo session be fun for them? But be careful. Sometimes letting them be silly unleashes too much craziness. Honestly, I think they were much happier by this point.

By now, you can see that most of my photos were underexposed. I had to brighten them a lot in Lightroom. Now I use a combination of aperture priority and exposure compensation. I aim for the brightest exposure I can without overexposing it. Them I can make final adjustments in Lightroom.

This final photo (edited in Lightroom) has a pretty relaxed feeling to it. I’m not always looking for stillness and perfect posture in a photo.

I found it much easier working with each child individually. I could connect with each of them and provoke nice expressions. As a group, it’s difficult to engage them all at once.

SOOC. Typically, infants don’t sit up very well on their own, especially while sitting on bales of hay. I always have a parent sitting nearby to steady them. They pull their arm away for a few seconds while I’m snapping photos.

When they’re in a good mood it’s so much fun to make an infant smile.

Infants and toddlers can be really tough to photograph when they’re in a bad mood. They need lots of snacks (but not bribes) and time to be themselves between photos.

This photo was taken right at the beginning on the way out to the sunflower field. You can take candid photos at the beginning of the session as a way to warm up and get everyone used to the camera.

This was a quiet moment before the session began. I love the soft light on the mom’s face.

This is a pretty good example of letting infants and toddlers explore during the session. They’re curious about the world around them. So let them explore and you’ll likely make some great candid photos.

The last place we took a family photo was outside a big barn. The girls played with the barn cats and I couldn’t resist a few photos (even though I felt like my job was to focus on posed photos). My camera misfocused, so this picture is blurry. But there’s something so priceless about the moment that I consider this photo worth keeping anyway. I actually find something nostalgic about the misfocus. It doesn’t look so bad as a small print or on a small screen. But I wouldn’t give this to the family or put it in my portfolio.

This photo of the family walking together was captured as we moved from one location to the other. These days I plan a circuit for sessions and capture candid photos between locations.

This candid moment came after a few posed photos with the mom and her little one.

I saved this photo for last because it was one of the moments that changed me forever as a photographer. While I was photographing the mom and little sister I looked over and saw the big sister dancing on the path. To me, it was the essence of childhood. It didn’t take me 70 tries to get this shot. In fact, right after I took this photo she stopped dancing and posed. To this day, dancing is part of many photo sessions.