Category: Family

B&W film photography

This is a test of my reintroduction to b&w film photography. I recently had the desire to see all of my extended family. I made some soft plans to go visit them, I decided I should photograph them when I see them, I decided I should shoot film for the project, I decided I should photograph them all with the same camera, same film, same distance to subject. Thus the portrait project I am calling “The Last Film Project”. I plan to photograph all my living relatives with my Hasselblad 500 C/M, with TMY (sometimes TMX) black and white film by the end of 2020.

I had not use my Hasselblad in years, maybe a decade. I ran a roll of film through the camera a while ago to check that everything was functioning correctly. It works perfectly. These are images from a friends wedding this summer. I want to test out the framing and close focus, so I asked some friends for a quick portrait out by the barn. The light was fading so I shot them quickly standing in open shade, backlit. The old eyes are not what they used to be. I struggled with the old ground glass focusing screen and missed focus on about half the images. I need more practice and possibly may want to use some strong cheaters.

As you can hopefully see all the couples really like each other. They were fun to shoot. Fun to be shooting film again. I even have to break out a light meter!

I shoot the film and send it off to North Coast Photo in Carlsbad CA and get processed, sleeved film with large scans in about a week.

Holiday family photography

A collection of images from a holiday family photography session. This is a case where the family asked me to come to them. The other option being the family come to me in the studio or we go to a location not the house. It was right near the holidays and the entire family was home for a week or so. I had photographed the youngest daughter a few years ago and the Mom asked me to come to the home. I had a lot of fun with this session. They are a really nice family and a joy to work with.

We started indoors and carved out a corner of the living room and removed any holiday decorations, making a simple background and setting. After that we went to the backyard where we got a bit lucky with the lighting. The day had been fairly overcast and as we started shooting the clouds thinned giving us a slightly contrasty backlit scene. The temperature was right about freezing, so not so comfortable. The family were troopers and did not let the chill show for the photographs.

We then went to the front porch, de-holidayed the setting and photographed a bunch of different family groups. The family loosened up a bit and we had a bit of fun.

Mom recently got back to me with the print order. We had a conversation about images and sizes. I went back to the original file and reprocessed the images with more care. For holiday family photography I don’t alway need to retouch individual faces and did not need to do so for this set. I did have to remove a few unwanted indoor items. The print order came back to me in about a week and I delivered the images. Happy family.

Family studio portrait photography

This is a recent session of 3 siblings as a surprise for Mom for Christmas.  Dad called and arranges a time for the kids to come to my studio in Clarkston.  As a family portrait photographer I like to, need to get the best, most natural poses and expressions for the subjects.  Sister and two brothers were very easy to work with and are naturals in front of the camera.  Mom has seen the proofs and is already planning for an order for grandparents, aunt and uncles.

Family Portrait photography at the lake

Another family portrait of really good friends.  Last time we photographed in their Clarkston home is a snowstorm.  This year we are in their Waterford MI home on the lake.  I really liked the stone steps they put in and used the steps for the location.  We had a bit of a grey day, so I brought in some subtle additional off camera lighting.  I’m hoping they will love them so much they will get a large canvas print of the wall.