Since most posts and images from us over the next few months will be related to traveling, I figured I would share some images I took of my colleague's daughter, Janette, this past weekend. She's just over a year and a half, and this is the fourth session we've had since she was born. We headed out to Loyola Park just as the sun was setting. Jazz met up with us about thirty minutes into the shoot and a half hour later we were enjoying dinner at Leona's. A few years ago I would never have thought I'd be taking photos of a newborn, but at the end of it all I've found that I really enjoyed it.
On the technical side, this session was my simplest yet most rewarding. My goal was a more natural set of images, both in terms of composition and lighting, than past images. My thinking was that Janette should be more active and engaging than in the past. So the only gear I had was a Nikon D300s with a 24 mm f/2.8 AIS (manual) and a 50 mm f/1.8 AF-D. No flashes, no umbrellas, etc. Given that most of my travel photography will be with these two lenses, I also wanted to get more familiar with the two as a pair. Overall I got most of the shots I wanted with minimal post-processing. Some images suffered from my lack of manual focusing skill, but otherwise I would consider the hour session a success.
