posed and smiling at the camera

My kids are very used to my camera. They don’t mind it. In fact, they usually have ideas of what they want me to photograph or what they want to photograph. If we do something fun and I don’t have my camera out they usually ask about it. They don’t mind the camera….unless I want “nice posed” shots. 99% of the time I don’t want the posed stuff, but there is that 1% of the time I want it. I like having a few shots that just capture what they look like. So, once a year (around their birthdays) I convince them to let me do a more traditional photo session with them. In the past I have done one kid at a time, but this year I decided to do all the boys at once.

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Originally I was going to do it near the Riverwalk in OKC (I bribed them by taking them to the Lego Store – thanks Grandma for the gift certificates), but when we arrived it was crazy busy. There were sports fans everywhere – noted by the vast array of team logos and jerseys. Being the huge sports fans we are, it took us a bit to realize March Madness games were being played nearby. So we drove around and found an old (dirty and dusty) abandoned warehouse – the boys were in love.

Biggest Brother – 6 years old

Littlest Brother – 2 years old

The one on the left reminds me of someone that has had too many face lifts

I took some of Big Brother (3 years old), but will post those later. I will say this picture of him is the very first one I took of him that day. If this were your kid and you had hired a professional photographer to photograph him – you probably would have never seen this picture. If you notice the areas that are VERY white – they are overexposed. I didn’t have my camera settings correct, but as a mom this is a definite keeper to me!

Just the boys. Littlest Brother loves to mimic his oldest brother.

Can you guess which one of our boys has more personality than he knows what to do with?

This is my favorite shot of the day. If you have ever tried getting a picture of all your kids (whether it is 2 or 10) you know how unlikely it is to get them all looking and smiling. This picture makes me very happy….even in all its perfect posed goodness. I love that my girl is growing up with 3 big brothers.

UPDATE: Camera Settings are ISO 250, 1/100, f/4.0, 85mm

The kids faces are all on the same plane (about the same distance from my camera). If two were in the back my f-stop (the f/4.0) would have had to be bigger (for instance f/5.6) to get all the faces in focus. In this pictures Littlest Brother actually isn’t quite as sharp as the other 3, but it is so subtle that a little post processing can tweak it in regards to sharpness. To take a group shot with a smaller f-stop you need the faces to be an equal distance from the lens.

To counter balance all this cute posed stuff, I will post outtakes of the day tomorrow. I have a feeling you will enjoy that post more!

The day after these shorts and flipflops pics it snowed several inches….thus canceling Littlest Brother’s birthday festivities.

Thankfully he didn’t understand to be disappointed, we’ll do it later…in the sun without snow I hope.

Happy Monday!