After a lengthy battle with traffic, I met the team at Carbon Canyon for one of the most fun-filled afternoons I’ve had in a while. These kids were bursting with energy, enthusiasm, and curiosity. I probably spent more time playing ball or on the playground than I did shooting. Dub-L was fantastic with the kids and gave them marching orders when necessary, which wasn’t often.

Thanks to the family for letting me spend the day with them. I had a great time! Click the pics for embiggening.

One of the things I like to do when I’m shooting children is to bring a smaller camera or two that they can use. Kids love gadgets, and most of them have used a camera of some type from a very early age. Letting them play with the small camera, and occassionaly my larger camera, often gets them on my side when nothing else does. To that end, I thought I’d share a few of the pictures the kids took whilst we were running around yesterday.

Thanks to Chris and Perla for making the drive out and letting me shoot their great young family. Oh, and little Christopher: it was a pleasure to take pictures with you as well!

Without further ado, here’s a sampling of what we took. For those of you reading this at 22:00 Sunday, I’ll add more a little later.

This is one I like to call “Who’s this lady think she is, trying to get my Cheerios?!?”

Click previews for larger versions.

From a technical standpoint, the first shot is terrible. It’s out of focus, framed poorly, and just feels kind of awkward. But then you look at Danger’s expression (“what the HECK are my parents doing to me?”), and it makes it a total winner.

There are a lot of great photos in this set, but I think this one is my favorite. Seriously, how cute is this kid?

Edit: More shots are available here.

I met the Gills at Corona Del Mar for some shots in celebration of Danger’s 9th month. We lucked out and had pretty good light, although it would have been much better without the incoming storm blocking the sun.

Here are all the shots I have in the gallery for now. Click away to see larger versions.

So, the idea for the shot on the left was that dad (blue) + mom (yellow) = Danger (green). As soon as blue and yellow walked away into the background, green went straight for the sand. He looked thoroughly annoyed that he had this sticky stuff all over his hands, but he went for it time and time again. Too funny.

Edit: I’m pretty sure the photo on the right was shot by Becky, so kudos to her!

A parting, contemplative shot for you.

I travelled to the far-off province of Fullerton tonight to shoot Declan “Danger” Gill as he approaches his 7th month. As you can see here, he’s a cute kid and is a lot of fun to hang around. Since his mom hasn’t seen the full set yet, I’m only putting up a few samples in the full gallery. Enjoy.

Kids are like secret agents. You might see one on the street and say “hello Gary”, and they’ll just keep right on moving because they have a mission they need to accomplish. They don’t need to tell you why they need to do it; they just know they have it, and it’s going to get done.

I had the great pleasure of meeting and photographing the Riley family today, and their two-year-old son Jack fits this secret agent thing perfectly. Several times he looked right at me, and you could tell his eyes were saying “hi Mr. Cameraman. I see you and your big fancy camera, but you know what? I have GOT to play with this toy train right now. Nothing personal, it’s just that if I don’t get this train moving, the lima beans aren’t getting to market, and I’m not going to let that happen. So you and your camera can come back later.”

In other words, kids have priorities, and your camera isn’t it. It’s what makes shooting kids so much fun. Below are some sample pictures from this immensely enjoyable shoot. A larger set, as always, is available in the gallery. As I write this, not all the gallery items are up, but will likely be up by tomorrow night.

A big thanks to the Svobodas for letting us shoot at their house!

I got together with Mr. Declan Gill and his parents again tonight. He was alternately cranky and happy, but a pretty good subject either way. Even shooting with my sublime 50mm f/1.4 lens I still had difficulty getting a fast enough shutter speed to freeze him. Next time we meet for a shoot I’ll explain the finer points of shutter speed and aperture. Maybe then he’ll sit still for a bit. ;)

I’m still working on getting a larger collection together, but I’d though I’d post some samples until then:

D with his momma:

D and me, shot courtesy of Trevor:

We tried to get a nice, calm picture of D resting in his dad’s hands, but we tried to do this upfront when he was hungry and all shaky-like. As you can guess, it didn’t work out all that well. :) Here’s one of the better ones:

Gear used: Canon 40d with 50mm f/1.4 lens, Expodisc warm balance filter, Smith Victor basic light kit and Port-a-Stand background stand.

It took him a while to arrive, but Becky and Trevor’s new son is finally here. They needed a photo for their birth announcements, and I was only too happy to oblige. I think big D was about a week old when we did this.

Much to my surprise, Declan was actually one of the hardest subjects I’ve ever photographed. I haven’t been around a newborn in years, so I had forgotten how active they were. Declan was full of energy, and despite promises of money and candy, he didn’t stay still much. Cute kid, but he doesn’t listen very well.

Two more, experimenting with Becky’s rings on his feet. I’m not sure where she got the idea from, but I think it’s rather cute.

The screen door was used as a gobo for this shot, adding a little bit of crime noir to the scene. ;)

The poor guy was having a tough time of it in the warm blanket and Trevor was in a hurry to get to his soccer game, so we cut it short. As much as Becky loves this child, I suspect that we’ll be doing quite a few more shoots in the future.