When holding a camera in my hands (and often when not), I spend unhealthy amounts of time obsessing about the light, whether working with the available light or supplying my own. But every once in awhile, nature just hands it to you in perfect form. No assembly required. Just click and enjoy.

Somewhat random train of thought follows

One of the things that I – and I think many photographers – struggle with, is taking pictures that tell a compelling story. “Your Moments, Your Story, Your Life” is much more than my attempt at a clever tagline; it’s a philosophy that guides the way I shoot. Even so, whenever I’m shooting – whether an incredible wedding, a family portrait or just something for the grins of it – it can be easy to settle for taking what a “pretty picture.”

You know what I mean: we’ve all vacationed somewhere beautiful and come back with hundreds of uninspiring pictures of a beach that fail to come close to recreating the feeling of being there. Ooo – pristine blue waves lapping over white sand. Snooze. (I’ve shot thousands of these myself; that isn’t said in judgment of any one else. )

And there are certainly photographs that don’t necessarily “tell a story” but nevertheless inspire us. Maybe it’s the composition, the colors, the contrast, the lighting … something captures the eye and the imagination. My point isn’t to put down such pictures because I enjoy taking them myself.

I have a love/hate relationship with portraiture in part because so many portraits are booorrring. I gravitate towards documentary coverage because I feel it’s much easier to look at the resulting photos – even if they aren’t my best work – and feel like I am watching a story unfold in front of me. On the other hand, portraiture obviously allows us (photographer and subjects) the luxury of planning for and optimizing things like the lighting, the setting, arranging of the subjects and yes, even communicating a “story.”

Take this picture of my good friends Danny and Heidi and their adorable little boy, Cooper. Beautiful people, nice fall setting, favorable light. Bonanza, right?

Certainly not my worst work. But it’s also fairly unimaginative. There’s also no real story going on here, except that of a cute family cheesing it at the request of their unimaginative photographer.

Now how ’bout this one?

So. Cute! But maybe not the best portrait … we can’t really see anyone’s faces really clearly. What about this next one?

Real, spontaneous smiles! Love it!

Side note: I try to work such that I “pose” people in a natural way. I also often continue shooting even after the “posed” portrait has concluded, which in the case of working with babies, is three seconds … if I’m lucky.

Okay, next one – Cooper just has beautiful blue eyes. I had to show them off here.

See the progression? And these tend to be my favorite pictures, the kind that I’ll endeavor to shoot and feel most proud about when I get done and am clicking through them afterwards. I may start off “guiding” people with small, general instructions, but then allow the scene to unfold naturally. In this case, two happy, easygoing adults and their absurdly cute, happy baby boy make for pretty easy work.

And I looove shooting with babies because they are, even at Cooper’s age (about a year) more or less unaware of the camera. They’ll interact with their parents and their environment in a totally natural way.

Thanks for reading! And thank you, Danny and Heidi and Cooper, for a wonderful afternoon!

I really enjoyed meeting and working with them both: here are a few of my favorites. Their dog, Tank, makes an appearance too!

Sometimes when you’re shooting on location, things jut don’t quite go quite as you envisioned them. Luckily Elizabeth avoided the worst of it!

Loved shooting with you both and I hope we’ll get the chance to get together again soon!

Charlotte Rose and James brought a lot of energy to this one and they personify the reason I love working with kids: sometimes you just have no idea what you are gonna get. The results were sometimes poignant and sometimes just funny. Following are a few of my favorites:

Beth actually had the concept for the below shot and I love it! One of the reasons why I always encourage any one I work with to voice their ideas!

Loved shooting with y’all and your beautiful family and I surely hope to do it again soon!

Anything yet?

While I most love capturing real moments and unscripted joy, I still have fun with creative portraiture. For some reason, I got it in my head (maybe about four months ago now) that our good friends’ son, Luca, looked kinda like Charlie Brown. And I don’t mean that in any derogatory way, because Luca is already one of the cutest, happiest kids I’ve ever known! But a round head is a round head and I can say that because I have a big biscuit myself. I tell all this to his parents, Anthony and Linda – who like the idea too – so I went to Amazon.com and ordered the shirt.

Of course at this age, he is growing up so fast. So I don’t know how much he still looks like Chuck (or for that matter, if he ever really did.) But the shirt still fit him and we were wrapping up a low-key, fun Friday night barbecue at their place. Luca had just woken up from a late afternoon nap, so we weren’t sure he would be in the mood, but it didn’t take much prompting for him to unleash the cute on us all.

Danny and I first met in college and though they now live in Sugar Land, TX, as coincidence would have it, Danny grew up not far from Dayton. So this past Christmas, Toni and I got to spend an afternoon with them and enjoy a lunch of chicken enchiladas and catching up. Aaand we took some pics – these are a few of my favorites!

Get These or About 340 Other Prints of Heidi, Danny and Cooper!

Nicole and Scott are two friends of ours who recently welcomed their first son, only a couple weeks ago. The proud parents both wanted to do something that wasn’t “typical” (love it! ) so after we got the requisite family Christmas card shots out of the way, we got to experiment with a few looks.

Jacob is about a month old, and as a photographer, this is such a special time to take pictures! Yeah, I’m a wedding photographer, and while it’s awesome to work with brides and grooms on one of the happiest, most incredible days of their life , I’m also blessed to be able to photograph the special nature of the “every day” moments in our lives as well!

While an infant at this age may be aware that there is someone else in the room he doesn’t recognize (who is also popping the flash off repeatedly ), he won’t pose or alter himself or his expressions. He doesn’t care! And there is such an incredible intimacy shared between parents and their newborn baby; one that an observer can “feel” but can’t express in words! All I can do is take the pictures and hope that they capture a fraction of the love that Nicole, Scott and Jacob experience together.

So that is why I loved this shoot. Oh, and last but not least … Jacob is a *cute* baby: