”My Three Girls”

”My Three Girls”
©David A. Ziser

Every Fall we get several calls for family portraits.  In the  Midwest that is certainly the best time for outdoor portraits.  The optimum time of the year for us is the second and third week of October. That’s when the fall colors are in “full bloom”.

So what’s one to do when you get a call and the client wants to have their portrait made well after that date – in this case, the day after Thanksgiving – a month later?  The quick answer is – you still do your best. 

This image was made on the day after Thanksgiving.  Most of the leaves had already fallen to the ground and their limbs were pretty bare.  The good news was that I still had plenty of leaves on the  ground offering the Fall color for my image,

I arranged the mom and her two daughters in what we call a pyramid composition, carefully selected a high enough camera position so that the leaves on the ground would give me a good backdrop, opened up the aperture , and fired away.

Light was coming in from camera right – you guessed, strobe at 1/2 power through Zumbrella just out of camera range.

The long focal length and wide aperture worked their magic disguising the mostly leafless trees and blurred the background beautifully creating this very nice Fall portrait.  This image is what I call a “huggy” shot – it’s the last image of every group photograph I make – wedding or portrait.  I love how the “huggy” always brings out the best expressions of my clients.

Camera specs: Canon 5D fitted with 70-200mm IS lens at 200mm, F4.5 @ 1/200 second, ISO 100.  Enjoy!  -David