When I was visiting my family in Indiana recently, I had the chance to shoot with Mandy, Brian and 17-month-old Ava in gorgeous Holliday Park on a day when we had the most amazing light that gave me lots of lovely lens flare to work with. Even though we were already into September, Mandy really wanted the shoot to have a summertime feel to it, and I think we were successful at getting that across in the results. Enjoy.
Evening light streaming in the window to light up our very grown-up boy…
This is one of my very favorite Oliver Daily shots yet. O’s got his little houser hat on, bought specially for his debut at the Wet Party in San Diego.
Day 43. Taking Oliver’s daily picture is becoming our morning ritual. He always seems to be smiley-est in the mornings, and that’s when the light streaming through the windows is at its best. As he gets stronger and more curious every day, he also gets more challenging to pose. He’s trying desperately to turn himself over or and to crawl, and has taken to launching himself into a roll off any pillow or raised surface, so today I had a momentary scare when he tried to roll himself off the couch. Caught him though, so all was well. 
Oliver Daily: the latest installment. Day 40! Can’t believe he’s almost 6 weeks old already.
A month ago, on March 17, PhotoMadly excitedly welcomed its newest addition: our son Oliver was born at home in our flat on the Brighton seaside. For the first few days we were too overwhelmed, amazed and knackered to do anything much beyond gazing at “baby TV.” That part of it hasn’t changed too much, but since then we’ve started to gaze at him a bit more through a camera’s viewfinder.
Last year, I took a creative photography and visual theory course at Garage Studios with Kevin Mason. During the course, Kevin introduced us to Noah Kalina’s “Every Day” project, for which Noah had photographed himself every day for years. With that as inspiration, at the time Kevin was working on his “Your Life is My Vanity Project” with model Georgie Hobday, for which he photographed Georgie once a week over the course of eight months. And now with both Kevin and Noah as my inspirations, I’ve started my own project with my beautiful son: I’m calling it “Oliver Daily” and I plan to keep it up as long as Oliver will let me, and someday I will be able to give him a book with an amazing record of his growth.
Kevin talked in class about how repeatedly photographing the same subject changes the way you see that subject, develops your relationship with him/her and forces you to start being more creative in your approach. I find all of that has been happening, and more; I’m also starting to find myself considering different issues like context, the photos as visual diary of milestones and activities and the use of different types of photos to represent different types of moments – e.g. on the days that Oliver had his British and American passport photos taken, the passport photos will be his photos of the day.
At any rate, I’ve posted the whole set of Oliver Daily photos thus far on our Flickr and Facebook pages. A few selections and outtakes are here.
My trip home to Indiana for the holidays provided another foray into shooting family portraits via Serra, her husband and their two children. I must say it was nerve-wracking shooting for a client, Serra, that has also worked as a photographer, especially as I started having some technical difficulties with getting my flash gun to fire! At any rate, nine-year-old Jake was an old pro at having his photo taken while 2-year-old Allison was a bit unsure as to how she felt about the whole thing. Nonetheless, we all went outside for some sledding and snowball fighting and in the end, we got some pictures which I hope capture the spirit of fun. Mark was, as always, my invaluable assistant on this one.
Going home to Indiana for the holidays was such a whirlwind and I’m as usual quite behind on my blogging. However, I did find time to shoot with some new clients while there who gave me the opportunity to expand my portfolio to include children and families. The shots below are of adorable 2-month old Sara, and her lovely parents Katie & Tony. We shot all of the pictures in little Sara’s bedroom, which Katie and her mom have done an incredible job of decorating with big bold prints and colors – and which made me start thinking of lots of ideas for Mark’s and my own soon-to-be decorated nursery. Many thanks to my sister Renee for being such a great assistant on this day.
Update: To my relief, Katie & Tony turned out to be quite happy with the results of their shoot with Sara, and Katie’s given me permission to post her comments as a testimonial: “Oh my goodness! These brought a tear to my eye! I am so excited to get the rest of them! Your work is amazing and thank you again for making some time for us durring your visit. We had a blast and we are thankful that we have these photos to cherish! Thanks again, you are awesome!”
