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Hey guys! I haven't been sharing much lately. We have taken 2 huge road trips this summer to Montana (twice) and Washington, with smaller trips peppered in between. I wanted to share some of my recent favorites of my children - most of which were taken on one of these trips. It was sure nice to get out of the hot, dry desert and have some different looking landscapes to work with.
A disclaimer - obviously I have taken dozens upon dozens of snapshots of real life with all of the kids on these trips - this is just my portrait work, and I have a handful of kids that are much more cooperative than others when it comes to this stuff.
1 - A random stormy hilltop somewhere in Idaho
2 - Montana
3 - Montana
4 - Montana
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7 - The Young Living lavender fields in Utah
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10 - A new favorite of my little guy, taken in a mosquito infested field of daisies somewhere in Montana, near the Canadian border.
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14 - These were taken in the Ho'h Rainforest on the Olympic Peninsula in Washington. I have many more to work on still but here are a couple. I miss this green - so pretty!! I don't understand when people complain about too much green - send it to me, I LOVE it!
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16 - A little different and more of a snapshot honestly, but my 6 youngest having fun at Ruby Beach. My little guy did a face plant in a wave the first 2 minutes we were there, so he got to run around in his birthday suit the rest of the day. lol
17 - Last but not least, a little blue hour fun with my oldest daughter on the 4th of July - something a little different for me.
These are all really good, as usual. My fave is 9, loving the flow, color and rhythm (undulating rows of lavender, your daughter's yellow dressing flared out; we can just feel her carefree, in-the-moment joy).
As always, your work shows creativity and a fantastic awareness of the surroundings - thank you for showing it.
I might be on my own on this one, but I have a critique of your images 7-9 with your daughter in the purple field. I know your "weapon of choice" is the 200/2 and it is most often fired wide open to great effect. However, I wonder if they would have been even more pleasing if you had stopped down to 2.8 or even 4.0. My thinking is that you have a giant purple blur in the foreground of these images which despite not having any detail, is actually quite distracting against the subject. If you were stopped down, they would be beautifully soft but be "separated" so you have a field instead of a blur. I might have even artificially blurred the background similar to it is now, but just that little bit more DOF in the foreground might have enhanced the image further.
(Or I could just totally be out to left field... always a chance!)
It was sure nice to get out of the hot, dry desert and have some different looking landscapes to work with.
