Last weekend I had the opportunity to do a portrait session with a co-worker’s daughters and their pups in Armco Park.  Admittedly I was a bit nervous – portraits aren’t my wheelhouse.  But this was a no pressure photo session where no money changed hands – my gift to them.  God blessed us with an amazing day weatherwise.  We met at Armco Park at 4pm, so the late afternoon/early evening light was perfect.  I’d never previously visited Armco Park – the location was chosen by my co-worker’s wife.  The session turned out to be a very collaborative process – they knew of a specific location within the park to shoot in, and I suggested a couple.  Both of the couple’s daughters were in dance and apparently had “stage presence” as a result.  Between their experience, natural ability and some direction from their mother, I had to give next to no posing direction – which was great because that’s not my forte.  This allowed me to focus on light and composition.  We moved quickly.   We were done in an hour, but I could have spend an hour in each location switching between lenses, trying different angles, etc.  I came away with a bit over 300 photos that I culled down 30ish keepers which I sent them.

In terms of gear, here’s what I brought for the shoot:

• CAMERA

  • R5 Mark II.  If I did it again, I might go with a two-camera set up.  But in this session, I focused on one lens at a time which worked well enough.  I toyed with the idea of bringing the Fujifilm X100VI along as I’ve done precious few people photos with it.  Maybe next time.

• LENSES

  • Canon RF 85mm f1.2 DS.  I don’t think I’ve used this lens all year.  WOW!!!  Such incredible results with this lens.  I pretty much stayed at F1.4 the entire time.  Maybe next time I’ll brave a few shots at f1.2.  I was just really concerned that because both girls or a girl and their dog would be photographed together that shooting too far wide open would be a big risk.
  • Voigtlander Nokton RF 50mm f1.0.  Even though a manual lens like this was a bit of a risk as I wasn’t sure the kids or the dogs would stay still while I manually focused.  But I knew what this lens could do and wanted to use it in this application.  My only regret was not opening up more as I stayed at around f1.8.  My thinking was stopping down a bit more would help if I was ever a bit off nailing the manual focus.  But thankfully I nailed every shot.

• FILTERS

  • It was bright out despite being late afternoon, and I knew I wanted to shoot well below f2.0.  So I brough along K&F VND+CPL filters for each lens.  Great call.  I had plenty of exposure head room to shoot at my chosen aperture settings and the grass, leaves, and sky really popped.

• BAG AND OTHER ACCESSORIES

  • Neewer Rolling Bag.  Rock star of the photoshoot.  Having the right bag is critical and this bag was the right choice.  I ended up bring a couple of extra lenses than what I actually shot with, and other extra “just in case” items that I absolutely would not have brought if I was traipsing through a park with a backpack on my back.  Made the whole shoot easier and more comfortable.
  • Collapsable Reflector.  I think every photographer has a light reflector that folds down in a closet somewhere.  I’m glad I brought mine a long as it really helped even out the exposure on the kids faces in a couple of the shots.  I need to use it more.

Here’s a sample of the photos I got from our session:

After I got home it took me about two hours to select and edit the keepers.  I didn’t have to do much.  I used a couple of the native portrait filters in Lightroom and in some cases had to either bring back blown out highlight details in those white dresses, and had to try to lift the facial shadows n a couple of other photographs.  I’m pleased to say I got it “in camera for the most part.

I had an absolute ball taking these photos.  Let me know what you think!