This shoot was a bit of a departure for me, but man, I sure love it! It felt good to do something different that stretched me creatively, and make this mom’s dramatic vision come to life. On a technical level, to get the images to be both dramatic but still maintain a softness, I had to use flash and a very high f stop. Where as I usually shoot at an f stop of 2.8-3.5 for a group of four people, for this I was at f11. Because I was using flash, I had to limit the amount of light I was letting through the lens. It was fun to stretch my photography brain and change my approach for a new look.
But the more meaningful aspect of this session is that I knew it needed to display a good amount of gravitas. The family was going through something very heavy together and these portraits may possibly have been the last of all four of them together. So, I knew that important did not even begin to describe what these images would mean to the family members. I couldn’t do anything to make things better for this family, but I could damn well make sure I did everything I could to make these images as beautiful and meaningful as I possibly could. I want the family to look at these in years to come and their hearts to fill with love. I know mine will.
