LUKE'S 4YR PORTRAITS

To finish off last month's festivities, Luke had his 4yr portraits taken. I wanted to do it different this time... meaning I didn't want to take him back to the place in the mall where ALL of his previous portraits had been taken. I wanted them to be taken outside and to look like all the Fabulous Children Portraits I had been seeing all over Blogland.

The best part of scheduling this photo session, was that it didn't need to be scheduled with a Professional Photographer, because I was able to do it. Yup, that's right, Luke was my First real client. Well not really the first, because I had three sessions over the summer, but the first since purchasing and learning Photoshop. So in my mind, my First.

We decided to take them at Marc's Hunt Camp, and we would do it in the evening, so I could try to capture the "Magic" Light. But before we headed for the camp, we went into the town of Louisa to the Town Hall. The building is constructed of beautiful stone and has these amazing Red doors, which I thought would make a great backdrop for a couple of shots.

This first one, I was just playing around with my camera settings, not really taking pictures yet, but I thought it was cute... sort of GQ in a way... very grown up.

Then I started shooting...

This next one has been a favorite of everyone who's seen it on FB, and I think it's one of my favs too. Just love the red door with his shirt.

We were only at the Town Hall for maybe 10 minutes, but I was able to capture the above amazing shots.

We went to the Hunt Camp in the truck, so we could get around the overgrown area around the trailer and the pond. The first place we went was on the north side of the pond. I had Marc stop at this little feed plot because there was some great light shining through the trees. That's where this one was taken.

Then we headed back up to the pond. A friend of mine had lent me a cool old wood chair, so I stuck it in the weeds for Luke to sit on. The lighting here was perfect.

I think this next one is my all time Favorite. I just LOVE his eyes. And don't you just love the band-aid? We had a little argument about it before we left because I wanted him to take it off - I didn't want it in the shots. But he insisted he still needed it for a week old Boo-Boo. I eventually gave in, figuring I could eliminate it during editing. But once I started the editing process, I decided to leave it alone because that's what he is all about at this age.

After the pond, we headed back up to the camp trailer and made a change of clothes. The sun had started to set more, so there was great "Magic" light filtering through the huge Oak tree behind the trailer. There is a photographer I follow on Facebook who specializes in "Back-Lit" photography, and her stuff is just absolutely gorgeous. I wanted to try to get that same feel with some of my shots.

As of late, Luke has been all about Dinosaurs. He's recently borrowed a couple from his BFF Lucas, so I thought they would be a great prop for a few shots. This one turned out really cute... he's growling like a Dinosaur.

Then a couple more up close shots.

Then finally, I asked Marc to help me try to get him to smile or laugh. He was successful.

Luke did really well!! He's a great little Model. However, he is a REAL stinker when it comes to getting him to actually "Look" at the camera. Out of the approximately 150 shots I took, the 8 or 9 above shots were the only ones where he "Looked" at the camera.