johngreep.com » Family

Haley

John — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 03:48:30 +0000

Heidi and Gary have added a new member to their family. The adorable Haley was a treat to photograph. She was very patient with us as she went through a few costume changes and had to endure the endless flashes.

As you can see, Haley has some great parents that are more than excited that she’s here.

Bella Returns

John — Sat, 19 Nov 2011 05:20:38 +0000

I photographed Bella and her family last year. She’s still a bit shy to start, but it didn’t take her long to warm up to the camera. I mostly gave her some distance and again encouraged her to play. Being a little older now, she responds more to direction.

Glenmore Park on the North side of the reservoir in the fall is a great place for pictures. It was still warm enough and we had a lot of leaves and color to play with. The wind picked up a bit to challenge me on some shots, particularly overlooking the reservoir, but once we got down near the water, we found some relief and a few good places to pose at.

This year’s composite image reflected the fall colors more. The bright playground just added a lot of pop to the photo. Can you count all of the Bella’s? This one is my all-time record for the number of merged photos.
A beautiful fall day in the park is perfect for a picnic. It was nice to relax and finish the session with a delicious lunch together.

Leon & Louise Family Portrait

John — Thu, 23 Dec 2010 16:46:30 +0000

It’s always fun to photograph Leon and Louise’s family. They were celebrating the American Thanksgiving, so they had everyone together, which is difficult to do. They have a nice park behind their home, so the original plan was to do the portraits there. However, just a week before our scheduled sitting, we had our first snowfall of the season. So we reverted to the basement, which still worked out well.
For the smaller portraits, the backdrop works well. The larger groups, I relied on the power of post-production. The simple background made it easier to fix so that it extended to cover the area I wanted.
For this shot of the boys, I wanted a more HDR look, so the backdrop didn’t matter as much anymore. I think it turned out great!
Photographing the children is always the most difficult. They had a great playset that I could work with. The idea is to at least try to make it seem, to the children, like it’s just play time. Getting them on the playset is easy. Getting them all looking at the camera at the same time is the hard part. Again, post-production to the rescue. I took as many as they could stand and then, after the best photo was selected, I was able to photoshop good faces from throwaway shots onto the selected photo. See if you can figure out which faces were replaced in the photo of the children. I’ll give you a hint: only two were replaced.

Bella

John — Mon, 31 May 2010 00:25:20 +0000

Photographing Bella was an amazing amount of fun. She’s a very dynamic child with a lot of personality. We made it easy for her by letting her play in the grass and explore. The experience of freedom for her made it easy for her to ignore the camera and just be herself. When she started to tire, we coaxed a few more poses by following the same rule: let her play.

What helped is that the day turned out to be perfect weather. A bit cool, but warm and bright enough to get some beautiful contrasts and natural expressions. We’ve been fighting bad weather all spring.

The composite set was my favourite. The posing is a bit random at first, but later, when I put it together, I discovered some poses that led to a “King of the Mountain” interaction in the background. Bella’s parents were absolutely pleased and excited about the results. That’s the part that makes photography so much fun.

Seitz Family

John — Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:46:35 +0000

Photographing the Seitz family was a pleasure. I like outdoor portraits, but the December weather, combined with young children made it necessary to shoot indoors.

The location had large windows that helped to give a better quality of light. The rooms were large enough to fit everyone and we had a great time being creative and just playing.

That’s what makes a photo shoot fun. Encourage conversation and help them to relax. Many of my clients have a lot of ideas and just love to show off. It just takes a bit of confidence building to get them started. I look for the right position to shoot from and do a little bit of directing sometimes. The results are more natural and relaxed.

With as many kids as there were, it’s important not to let them feel like they’re being photographed. Some like to give a forced smile. I’ll take a couple of shots and then try to distract them. A candid photo where they are laughing or just being themselves are the best. If you tell them to try hard not to smile, they can’t help themselves and they think it’s funny.
Sometimes, an odd perspective loosens things up. I’ll give them a quick look at how it turned out and it helps them not to be so shy of the camera.?