Photography lessons learned at Emi Lou's 1 year photoshoot

Shortly after moving to the Houston area, I started looking for a photographer to take Emi's 1-year photos and possibly some family photos as well.  I knew I had been spoiled living in Utah, where I could get SPECTACULAR, modern studio photos for ZERO sitting fee and the images on CD (with printing rights) for just $80 at FotoFly.  I was willing to pay more than double that if I knew I could get good photos.  I knew that my friend Ashley, who takes some of the most incredible portraits I've ever seen, has portraits starting at $200, so I hoped I could find a good photographer with similar rates here.

Unfortunately, all the Houston-area photographers I found were either so bad that I could have sworn I'd seen their work on YouAreNotaPhotographer.com or they wanted you to spend (LITERALLY) $1000 on photos!

Since we had just spent around that much on a new camera body, I decided to try and take the photos myself.  I mean, with good outdoor light and a decent camera, you have to be able to get at least a few decent shots, right?  Well, I'm pretty happy with how the photos turned out, but I did learn a couple lessons in the process...

I had planned on getting out to my chosen photo spot around 8 am.  I figured the sun wouldn't be too high or too hot at that point.  Of course the morning of the photoshoot, not only did we get a late start, but I got half-way there and realized I had forgotten Emi's shoes and the cupcake.  By the time we actually got to the field to set up, it was already 9:30 and close to 90 degrees!  I figured we'd make the best of it though and see if we could get any decent shots.

I found one of my old point-and-shoot cameras the other day and gave it to Gigi.  She's been having lots of fun with it.  Here are some of the pics she took while I was setting up...

Love the clouds in this one!

Classic feet shot :)

Here are a few of the shots I managed to get that morning...

 

I can't figure out of the color/tone of those last two pictures looks so different because of the different light angle or because of my photo editing skills (or lack thereof!)

I'm really bummed I didn't get a better picture of the cupcake before Emi Lou tore into it.  I wish I would have brought my stepstool so I could have gotten a photo from a top-down angle...

One of the important lessons I learned at the photoshoot was, auto-focus rarely works.  I put it on auto-focus a few times and it never focused on what I wanted it to... like on the flower, instead of the cupcake in this one...

Another lesson learned?  Auto White Balance is your enemy!  When the light started getting really harsh, I switched it to AWB.  I couldn't tell on the display how off the color was, but when I transferred the pictures to my computer I realized it was so bad not even Photoshop could help...

I managed to get a couple more decent shots before we left though...

(Love those chubby legs and her cute diaper!)

Emi did not seem to be enjoying the photoshoot at all that morning.  I couldn't really get her to smile and I could tell she was just hot and tired, so we decided to go home.

Of course, always the perfectionist and never satisfied, I left fully planning on coming back later to take more photos! 

It was a really cloudy day so we didn't get a good sunset, and it got dark a lot quicker than I had anticipated, but my little model was much happier in the evening so we were still able to get some good ones...

So my photos didn't turn out as amazing as my friends Ashley's, Hannah's, or Ashleigh's always do, but I think they turned out better than a lot of the "up & coming" Houston photographers advertising on Living Social and Groupon!  And I actually had fun and learned a lot, so I'm glad I decided to take them myself :)