Pumpkins . . .again

Pumpkins. It started with a film camera (remember those), black and white film, a dark room in my bathroom, a faithful compadre's house with hay and cornstalks, a few friends and their kids dressed for fall, and of course, pumpkins, lots of pumpkins.

My first "fall photo shoot" in 2001 started with a desire to give my friends a fun fall photo of their kids or family with tinted pumpkins. It was a great success - lots of orders. The problem was I never anticipated the time it would take to hand develop each print, spray it, color tint each pumpkin with chalk pastels, and spray it again. I was up until the wee hours of the night just with the developing, while John and a college student were tinting them - it was crazy. All those beautiful, orange, round pumpkins that I kept throwing in each shot (seemed like a good idea at the time), were getting cursed at 1 am in the morning. I think I probably came out in the red for that shoot because of the amount of man hours it took to get a final tinted print!

So when the girls emailed me to take fall pictures . . .with pumpkins . . .I thought it would be fun. And it was. Except this time all I needed was my digital camera and Photoshop. . . .throw in pumpkins, lots of pumpkins, as many pumpkins as you want . . .not a problem!

Not my normal portrait shoot

I have been wanting to try something a little more creative, more model-ish, if you will. I knew Katie would help me out and have lots of fun doing it. We headed out to the country and my "propmaster" and I drove around in the Ranger scoping out just the right spots for what Katie brought to wear. Below are just four of my favorites. I am not sure what to do with all these cool shots (took over 170), but it undoubtedly stoked my creative fire.

3 . . .4 . . .5 . . .got it.

I jammed myself up in a door frame but still couldn't get all of her in the frame, so I held the camera up over my head and pointed and clicked . . .and clicked . . .and clicked. I finally achieved the proper angle and voila, I got this shot. I love the theater in the background. Another fun shoot had by all.

Something new in someplace old

John headed down an alley to look for something a little different in Downtown where we have been shooting in the last year. This red metal door caught his eye, something new for a back drop. The red is very vibrant and it worked perfect with what she was wearing. We will be using this spot again, I am sure.

Baby face . . .

You just have to love that face. I was so excited when I saw that I had captured that pout. She is adorable. I always enjoy letting the baby/child move around at will - they are happier longer. Don't get me wrong, we have to have pauses and stops along the way to shoot them being still, but I like giving them a little freedom. I like to capture their natural expressions.

something simple . . .

Stephen needed something simple and quick to put on his blog page. We just shot on the back deck one afternoon and came up with this . . .he says he does think this way sometimes! I really wanted a shot with the light shining on one side of his face so as to leave the other side dark. All were happy with this result.

Campus again . . .

Another successful shoot on campus, with a Dad that is all things Aggie! John and I loved how the leaves piled up in the corners of the steps to add a little bit of color and texture . . .again. I thought the mixing of the maroons and grays between Mom, Dad, and boys worked perfectly. It made for a most excellent Christmas card photo.