Fabio (photographing children in their environment)

It seems that in the new year I don't manage to post regularly either, no excuses.

Here are a few photos from the archive. I shoot a session with Fabio in october at his favourite park. He was having great fun running around and you can see it in the pictures. Being in a known place meant that he ignored me completely and I could do my work without him hiding from me or puting strange faces. Sometimes I would just wait for him to reach the place where I wanted him and then call his name. He would look at me only for a second but enough to capture his beautiful eyes looking into the camera.

I always try to adapt to the kids and follow them rather than trying to pose. It is important to spend some time observing them, since they tend to repeat the things they like, and position yourself where the light, or the scene, will be the best.

I choose the late afternoon in order to have that magical low light and it really paid off. You can see how his blue eyes are full of light and not in shadow, as they would be in the middle of the day.

I took the whole session with the 70-200 mm mostly at 2.8 in order to maintain the focus on Fabio thanks to the shallow depth of field. That also allowed me to work with speeds high enough to render him sharp, even when the light decreased after sunset.

I hope you like them.

Lifestyle portraits in Düsseldorf, Kerstin & Josie

A few weeks ago my neighbour contacted me because she wanted a few portraits of her and her daughter taken. She wanted to make a photobook for her husband's birthday, which is today. She wanted something natural not too posed and a few close ups so we arranged to meet at the park close to our house.

A few days later the light was perfect and I called her to see if she had time. I like my pictures to convey the emotions of the subject. My idea was to let them play together and have fun. I wanted to capture the moments as they happened.

I needed them to relax and we started the session with some silly pictures, them jumping together, walking along the path... Josie even helped me to take some photos of her mother. After 10-15 minutes they were totally comfortable with the camera and I had already a couple of keepers. Then I was able to come closer and focus on the faces. Once the mandatory portraits were taken we just strolled around, they played, sat together on the grass... I just kept shooting directing them just minorly to make them look towards the light or move to a better background.

We had all a good time and enjoyed the shooting and they were as happy with the photos as I was. The father has seen them today when he got his present and loved them. A satisfied customer and a happy photographer.

Here are a few images from the shooting. Enjoy!