Sometimes It's an Accident

What was supposed to be a happy, fun, quick shoot with my Hannah (basically documenting her prominent shiner) produced a photo that has been very powerful for me. It makes me think of all the children who are the subjects of domestic abuse and simply have no voice. Anyone who knows me knows that I don't like to be a downer but sometimes an image touches you and that's art is truly doing its job. The impact of this image is almost entirely due to the post-processing. Hannah was certainly not in pain or even upset. I'm not sure why she was covering her mouth but somehow in post when I darkened and desaturated, it brought out this image.

{Photo IQ: The simple lesson of this image is to play around. Allow yourself to explore and experiment with images in post. You just never know what you're going to get! In this case, I desaturated and upped the contrast. It really wasn't too much, but it brought out the black eye and the higher contrast made the catchlights stand out more, giving the impression of nearly crying.
I've posted the original image below so you can see the real differences brought on by allowing some fun in Photoshop. What are your thoughts? Can true art happen accidentally?}

Olivia's Birth Story - LDS Hospital - August 2, 2010

It didn't take me very long to decide what to post as my very last blog of the year. It has to be the birth of my second baby girl, Olivia Erin Woodbury.

We named her Erin after all of the amazing people we know named Erin who exemplify the type of woman we want her to be. This time was different than our first, with Hannah we had the adrenaline-fueled midnight speed to the hospital while this one came in August, right in the middle of a busy wedding season so Lori was induced.

Since we had plenty of time, I set up several flashes around the room in order to get the best light. It was a lot of fun and the nurses were pretty impressed with the radio slaved speedlites and my big camera documenting every detail. I will show the flash placement in a Photo IQ post at a later date.

See out the slide show below for a full photo story of the event, or go to the full album on Facebook.

Lauren Betts - Baby Girl

Lisa and Scott have a nice sized family. For several years the happy bunch consisted of mom, dad, and three boys. Three boys. Poor Lisa. Lisa, the lone woman in a house of men. Trucks, blocks, and action figures littered her life.

Surprise! This year, little Lauren came along! Lisa finally has a chance to buy pink, tie bows, and capture the fun of the first little girl in the gang. I was thrilled to be able to capture some classic photos of sweet Lauren, both on her own as well as with mom and each of her big brothers. I have a feeling that this gorgeous little girl is going to be well loved and protected as she grows. Heaven help the boy that comes to the door when she turns 16 when she has bodyguards like these! What a great family!

{PHOTO IQ: A couple of tips for shooting babies that I would pass on. First off, turn up the thermostat so it's nice and warm. You'll get happier babies. Secondly, be prepared to deal with messes. It's a simple equation, babies eat, cry, and poop. Since you aren't feeding them, and you don't want the crying, you have to be prepared for the third alternative. We had a couple of covers for the basket and plastic underneath. It was not enough. Little Lauren still projectile pooped across the room. Of course, her mother was embarrassed but we reassured her that it was common and we'd prepared for it. It only delayed the shoot for a few minutes and we had a good laugh!
So to recap: Warm and poop.}

For those of you on smart phones who can't see the slideshow below, click here to be whisked electronically to the facebook album.

See more at www.jonwoodbury.com

The Cottam Family - Family Photography, Ivins, Utah

Aaronee and Vaughn were one of the VERY FIRST weddings I ever shot. They're some of our closest and dearest friends and we try to spend time with them whenever possible.
I'm SO excited that I finally got the chance to do a family session with them. They live in St. George, Utah and we were down there for a wedding in March so we did a family shoot in their new house then went outside to take advantage of the spring blossoms.
They LOVE the view of the red rocks from their east windows so we decided to incorporate the view into the photos as the backdrop. It's a hard thing to do to match the ambient light outside with artificial light inside but they turned out well. It's a fun idea and really highlights what they love about their new house.
The outside shots were basically a gift from the photo gods. We had this amazing, warm, sunset light from the perfect direction. It gave a very orange, comfortable glow to everything. I shot entirely available light (a rarity for me these days) and we just had a great time.

For the smart-phone crowd who can't see the slideshow below, here's the facebook album.

See more at www.jonwoodbury.com

Like a Kid in a Candy Store

"To be like a kid in a candy store" (American & Australian)
To be very happy and excited about the things around you, and often to react to them in a way which is silly and not controlled.
In case you didn't know what that looks like, a photo of kids in a candy store.
We were not just in a candy store, we were in THE candy store, Hershey World in Hershey, PA. We were in Virginia for a wedding last summer and took a jaunt up to PA to visit Tom and Britta. This is my daughter, Hannah, and Ella, their daughter.

Grace and Hannah

 

Sometimes I get so caught up in the technical quality of photography that I forget that one of the real values of photography is the ability to catch a moment. Digital photography has changed the world in this area. Nearly everyone has a camera available almost constantly. This image came out of our Canon Elph Point-and-Shoot at a recent family dinner. It's my daughter, Hannah (Right) playing around with her cousin Grace. It was a priceless moment that we were able to capture and will have forever!
I'm certainly not implying that quality doesn't matter--it does, even this situation would have been more artistic and eye-catching with a different angle, a better camera, or a shorter depth of field--but I just wanted to remind everyone (mostly myself) about the value of photography in general--the value of being able to freeze a moment in your memory. How much value will this image have in the future? Instead of fading into obscurity, will we think of this very image when these two hug each other at Grace's graduation, or when they laugh together at Hannah's wedding? I don't know. But I know that Hannah will never be two again, and they'll grow out of the thrill of hanging upside-down just to do it. Maybe my love of photography comes from my love of life and the constant need to grab a hold of a piece of it to keep for those moments when life isn't quite so magical or simple.

Twins...Part II - Brooks & Eva

The second set of twins I've shot in the last little while are a little older, making them much more of a handful. Babies at this age crawl all over the place and are never content to sit on anyone's lap. It makes them difficult to photograph. But as always, it all turns out well in the end. Allison and Jim will definitely have their hands quite full for years to come. (No worries, only just over 17 years until they graduate!)

Twins...Part I - Brooklyn & Emmalyn

Got twins?
Do you want some? If you do, I know where you can move. It's in the water here in the good old 84123--this is the 8th set of twins in the last few years just in our immediate neighborhood! Some people think a child starts to develop their personality around the age of one. To you I would like to enter Exhibit A. At a little over a month they not only had personalities, I think they might have opposite personalities! It was almost like they were taunting each other right there on the blanket. I don't often shoot babies (I find them difficult to work with, they rarely follow direction well...) but we had a good time.
It was a simple shoot, two cute kids, a favorite blanket, and a monolight with a 48" x 18" softbox. (I did use a 580 ex II speedlight as a rim light and to bring up the shadows on a couple frames.)

Staying true to the theme, coming up I will double your pleasure and will post my second twins shoot in recent months in Twins...Part Deux - The Sequel!

Ben - Six Years Old

Ben is a familiar face to me. I've shot him every year for most of his life.
So now he's all of six years old. It's pretty amazing to get to watch these kids grow up. Ben loves dogs and puzzles so we incorporated both into his shoot. We borrowed our neighbors' dog and Ben and Sida had a great time messing around...almost TOO much fun. So here's Ben.
(His little sister, Lucy makes an appearance as well, I guess she liked HER session with me so much that she refused to be left out.)

All the Single Toddlers?

Since this has become the official song for the wedding bouquet toss and dancing toddlers are inherently funny, here is a video for your viewing pleasure. (It's nice to see TIME Magazine focusing on the truly hard-hitting stories.)

I loathe phone cameras...

...but occasionally you can get something decent. Thanks to a really cool photo editing program for the G1, I can now make my crappy pictures from my phone look okay. Here's a shot of my baby girl from our recent Yellowstone trip.

Camera phones pretty much are the proof that the megapixels of a camera mean nothing. Crappy hardware and crappy lenses will always mean crappy photos, no matter HOW many pixels there are. I have actually seen decent photos from phone cameras, just not any from any phone I've owned. Let me know if you own a camera phone that takes anything near a clear, sharp photo---I'll believe it when I see it.

Little McKenna

John and Melissa originally met us at our very first wedding show ever. They wanted us to shoot their wedding. It didn't work out at the time but we've stayed friends and I was excited that to do a session with their 2-year-old daughter, McKenna. We shot in our home studio (aka our dining room) and then out around our pond. McKenna loved the ducks and it allowed us to have a good distraction from just how vehemently she didn't want to take photos. Kids from one year to two are the very hardest to shoot because they don't fully understand what's going on and they're basically impossible to reason with. Younger and they don't care that you have a camera. Older and you can bribe them to at least get a couple of good shots. This one came out well. She is one cute kid!

Kids, kids, everywhere!

We shot 5 kids from two families all in one big shootapalooza! Here are the results.

Don't fret little Kira, tax day is always horrifying!

Okay, so here's the deal. I like shooting kids. I'm just not sure they like being shot by me...
Here's proof positive that I might be just a bit too scary-looking for babies. It's from a shoot today with all sorts of kids running around. (We actually shot 5 kids and babies in an hour or so. I actually had a great time, I just wish poor Kira could say the same! (Is that pure terror or just sheer horror? I can't tell...)

Baby Girl

This shot is from what the photography world calls a "self-assignment." I like to call it, "taking pictures of whatever the heck I want."
I teamed up with Andrea Hanks, one of the most fun photographers on the planet, on a session to celebrate the one-year birthdays of our daughters, Hannah and Juliet. Like all self-assignments, this one got pushed aside for the paying customers and would probably never see the light of day if I didn't just retouch one and post it. So here is one of my favorites. I'd like to post more but it's back to work for the people who actually pay me.
We had a strobe with an umbrella on camera left. That's it. The umbrella allows light to bounce around and fill a bit on the back side, especially in a small studio space. The background is Andrea's. I like it.

My Birthday shoot

For my birthday bought myself a few things. I got a radio slave system for remote flashes. I wanted to try out the system, which leads to the main thing I wanted--the chance to do a photo session with my OWN family! I guess the cobbler's children tend to go without shoes, eh?
Well I at least got a few minutes. Wednesday we went out to the Great Salt Lake and played around for about 20 minutes until Hannah (and Lori, but the one-year-old can take the wrap.) got cold. We didn't shoot a ton (we got a grand total of ONE frame of all three of us before the bitter end) but got some fun stuff that I'm going to post as my official birthday post for March 13, 2009.
PS. The sailor outfit was Lori's idea--don't hate me, future Hannah.


Best family ever.

My Baby Girl

I have to post these shots of my baby girl, Hannah. She is my favorite model and probably the most difficult to shoot--she's a year old. Click the slideshow below to see the full-sized photos.