Family Portrait

We have been planning to do this one since November for our Christmas card to friends and family. After Missy's doctor's visit and a 'long stop' in Ikea, we rushed home to do this year's family portrait. No time to go to the park or set-up for a studio shoot thus the backyard had to suffice. I would have wanted to do it an hour earlier to catch some nice backlight for accent but everybody had to be ready and it was not the case. As usual, making self portraits is always harder since nobody is really behind the camera to give ample directions and corrections and the only way to do it is shoot a lot and sort later.  Thank God for wireless triggers. Anyway, this will have to do or else we have to do a re-shoot which is quite unlikely given the busier Christmas season schedule.

This Year's Family Portrait

Last Sunday, we had our family portrait session for the year. Sometimes it's easier to schedule other people than 'shooting' your own family. I don't know, I guess we were just more busy than usual especially that Christmas time is here. Ophine just had her finals for her Master's and the two kids, well you know, kids. I was actually planning to do it late November but I was also kind of pushing it a little more since I'm still on a diet and wanted to lose a few more pounds besides I know I can have a 24 hour turnaround including the greeting cards we just had made in Costco.

It's hard for a photographer to do a kind of self-portrait (I was included, so it counts) since I can't see my composition with me in it I had to rely on a TV screen in front of us as we were doing the takes. It was actually not real time as I can only correct/coach the kids, adjust the posing and the level/height of each one after the image was captured. So after making a number of test shots and doing a lot more to capture the best one overall, we came up with this one. I just made several versions on the tone to have a variety.