Recently, my sister volunteered to help with the Diabetes Bachelor Auction Fundraiser. She managed to talk two of her guy friends into being bachelors and asked if I would mind doing their head shots. I had never done "headshots" before so I was all nervous about screwing it up, but figured I could get a decent photograph. I looked up tips online and made my mom pose for some practice shots before the actual bachelors came by.
And I think I did a pretty awesome job! Taking headshots is much more challenging from the getting someone comfortable in front of the lens aspect than the technical aspects of shooting. Though it certainly didn't help I had all kinds of new light sources to play with since Christmas.
I ended up using my 18-200mm lens at about an 80mm zoom because that was the most commonly recommended focal length online. Which of course, led me to want a dedicated lens for portraits because I really like taking portrait style photos of the boys.
So I may have bit the bullet and bought one. Theresa has one already and had nothing but awesome things to say about it when I asked her opinion. Of course, the boys weren't in the mood to do "portraits", but I did manage to get a few shots of them. It is quite different than the 20mm I usually keep on the camera - I had to stand all the way across the kitchen to get photos of them! No wonder it falls in the "telephoto" category...!
Thomas was helping me make a cake by cracking eggs for me again! He was ready for his second try at it! Henry was more interested in playing with the potato masher. Probably the safer choice knowing Henry...
But he was still interested in what his big brother was doing. I have no idea what that look on Thomas' face is from, because he cracked that egg like a champ! He didn't even break the yolk! I was giving him high fives for his awesomeness!
And as usual, Eliza was in the midst of things even though she would clearly rather be somewhere else. At least she generally lets me take a photo of her. I mean, she looks away at first, but if I keep calling her name she always gives up and looks at me in case it's for food!
This looks like a super cool dark background, but it's really the living room without any lights on while the dining room table where we are sitting is well lit. Who knew winter could make photos look so much fancier?
Henry was much more interested in the dimples over his knuckles than Mommy wanting to take his photos. Poo guy actually got pretty upset about his finger dimples. Sorry little guy, you don't exactly have dainty hands... "/
Tonight, I decided to try the lens again at dinner and get photos of their hot dog trays they got from Aunt Theresa. They love their little hot dogs! I obviously wasn't paying as much attention as I should have and managed to catch the top of a glass and the ketchup bottle in the foreground of the photo. Ok, so the 85mm will take a little bit of time to get used to...
Henry checking out his hot dog and probably noticing that mommy didn't do a very good job squirting the ketchup into the bowl. In my defense, it's not the best angle to try and squirt ketchup in there!
Also another glass in the foreground. Sigh... I like this lens, but it is certainly going to take a little more situational awareness while photographing than I am apparently used to...