How I prepare for your outdoor fall family photos.
I'd never heard of McAuliffe Park until this family brought it to my attention. Tractors, bamboo trees, a barn and wide open spaces sounded too good to be true. I had to explore this spot immediately and when I did, fell in love with it! When you hire a family photographer, you aren't just asking someone to snap pretty photos. Yes, that's a tiny portion of what I do, but let me walk you through how I prepare for your family photo session.
Every location is physically scouted.
I don't just look at a Google image of a location and call it good. I will physically go to every single location to determine if it's a good fit or not before adding it to my location guide. Is it quiet? Is it spacious? Does it have good lighting? These are all questions going through my head as I walk through the space. I'll use my Sun Tracker app to determine where the sun is at any given time. This tells me the best time to show up to our session together. Every location has a different starting time and this app helps me figure it out. Below is an example of a location scouting trip to McAuliffe Park.
Your family questionnaire is so important.
Every family fills out a questionnaire before their outdoor fall family photos. What are your likes? Dislikes? What is your dream photo? I read and re-read your answers until I've memorized them because I want to get those important moments for you. Every family's needs are different. There's no one size fits all, so by reading your questionnaire and visualizing your session, I am prepared to capture your love and joy.
I get my camera settings right.
I shoot in manual, because it gives me 100% control of my camera. My shutter speed is always 1/500 of a second or faster to deliver crisp photos of your active children. My aperture (depth of field) is between f 2.5-f 3.2 to isolate you from your environment. My ISO is the last thing I toggle, as I determine if I want to overexpose, underexpose or keep the photo properly exposed. Throughout your session, I am adjusting my camera settings as the lighting changes and I am adjusting your pose to best utilize the light.
Every single photo is hand edited.
Every single photo is hand edited with care. I adjust, tweak and re-tweak your outdoor fall family photos until it looks right to me. I'll do an initial pass over of your photos and apply global edits. Then I'll go through every single photo and tweak the photos until the colors, contrast and crispness is exactly how I like. I'll wait a few hours and when my eyes are fresh, do another pass through and when I'm happy, will upload your gallery online. Editing takes many hours and can't be rushed!
Your love is worth capturing.
Your moments, your memories and your love is worth capturing. These moments go by so quickly. Invest in a photographer who is invested in you. I can't wait to work with you and bottle up these moments in time.
