One of my favourite photographers to check out for inspiration and new ideas is Brandy Anderson of Fresh Sugar Photography. She is based in Calgary and creates stunning child and family portraits. She recently posted on her blog that she was going to attempt to complete an image (including brainstorming, model-rangling, light-finding and image-snapping) in just one hour and included her first attempts, which are some gorgeous images of her girls. I thought it would be fun to try this little challenge, if for no other reason than my only willing (well, mostly willing but mainly bribed) subjects are my own girls, and getting an hour of shoot time out of them is a miracle! Not straying too far from Brandy's idea, I headed out to the backyard with my girls and gave myself an hour from start to finish. As usual, the first five minutes were fine, and then chaos began to reign.
My oldest, Brielle is usually pretty good at taking some direction and listening, but she had a case of the giggles, so I just kept snapping away, hoping for something where her face wasn't completely goofy. I was standing awkwardly on the top of the playcentre, which she found hysterical and kept asking if I was going to slide down the fireman's pole to get down (the answer is NO.)
Meanwhile, my youngest, Emery managed to strip herself naked and was careening around the driveway at a pace that would surely result in the eventual need for several Band-Aids. I had to abandon my giggle girl to get control of my little exhibitionist before my hour ended in tears or a hospital visit.
I managed to corral her in the garage (Brandy was right, great light in there) where she got her underwear back on (backwards, of course) and let me brush the grass out of her hair (not sure where it came from) and we got situated. I'm not gonna lie, the idea for the image of Emery is exactly the same concept as Brandy used, but I used a different angle for a new perspective, and to try to get a shot of her great lashes (they must be from my hubby, my eyelids are practically bald!).
So, here is my first attempt at One Hour Photo. Thanks again Brandy for the great idea!
