Taking Family Portraits on Vacation: Finding Freedom in Simple

There is nothing more satisfying to me than to help out my family, or do something because I want to for fun. I don't normally get the opportunity to just try things and when I get the chance to experiment, I take advantage of that when it comes around.

I knew traveling to see my aunt that my cousins (whom I've haven't seen in years) were all stopping by on the same day. I brought up the idea that we all wear matching outfits and take some family portraits while we had some free time. The shoot was born!

I just wanted to do something simple, with little gear as possible, and stress free. So I just got a simple crop Canon DSLR - nothing crazy. Just the stock lens and a 50mm pancake lens. I figured, let's just see what really simple can do.

Overall, I'm happy with what I came up with considering I went as bare bones as possible. Some of my favorites are below.

My first image I found that I had better results by avoiding any type of high key look whatsoever. Instead I focused on controlling the highlights, so that I can bring up the rest of the image in post. Of course, when you work fast, you miss the small stuff. So I few areas upon close inspection are a little blown out, but when it's your family, just have fun so that was the purpose in the first place.

The post-production was overall pretty simple. Lowering the shadows, increasing contrast, brightening the face, warming the image, and adding some grain. Overall, it turned out really well.

And doesn't my baby girl look so cute here? Yes, I think so too! It's a winner for that alone.

This image is one of my favorites in the entire shoot. This girl is just an absolute treasure to be around. She put up with all of my goofy suggestions and was open minded to posing. A really difficult thing to get a four year old to do!

I tend to go for portraits where the subject isn't looking at the audience. I love the eclectic grunge look, but I didn't want to over-texture the image.

I instructed the girl to hold the leaf as softly as possible, and just closing her eyes for a moment.

So what about the Pikachu? Well, Pikachu was what the little girl wanted before my mom and I even arrived. When we found a stuffed Pikachu, we knew we had to get it. So I knew that having the Pikachu in the image would have some sentimental value to all of us in this image. That is why it is there!

For post production I heavily contrasted the image, brightened the face, added grain, and raised the black levels so that I can recover all the shadow detail. Pretty straight forward.

Last but not least is this crazy rainbow sparkle photograph. This little girl loves everything rainbow and sparkly. so I figured let's try something crazy and craft a special image for her.

The posing and location was shot in advance. And then I added some sun rays, rainbow, and some glitter in there so give it some dimension and interest. I didn't spend a ton of time on the edit, so I wasn't expecting it to be a glorious result. However, I am satisfied with how it turned out, and I am happy about it.

I may play around with the color a bit more in a future image, but for the family. This one is perfectly fine.

I hope this is a little bit of fun for your day.

Until next time!