Children being photogenic

Jake enjoys some cake in celebration of his turning 3.

As a family portrait photographer, I live vicariously through my friends. What does that mean? With my best friends here in Florida being co-workers with awesome young families, I tend to enjoy shooting them whenever I get a chance - and some time off from work.

The latest opportunity came on Jake's third birthday. I've done a 3-year-old's birthday once before, and it was attended by many of the same adults and children. Though the company's the same, the experience is different with each gathering. And the end result usually includes me doing more mingling with the children than with the adults. They tend to accept me as one of them. I'm not sure who teases me more, though.

Anyway.

Jake's big day was my first birthday event at which I was equipped with my newest piece of portrait-taking equipment: Nikon's SB-600 flash. It offers full, quick light and stops subjects' action - even the squirmiest of children.

Too bad it malfunctioned early in the evening.

But it did an excellent job for the above shot of the birthday boy, blue cake frosting covering his lips and chin. With the help of the flash, my newest piece of glass - a 105mm macro, also from Nikon - proved to be an able close-portrait lens.

Thanks, Nikon. Now send me free stuff.

The flash didn't fire for this one. (I realized later that the flash's malfunction was mainly my own brain's malfunction because the battery had died.) So this shot of Julia, the other 3-year-old, holding her baby elephant Ella turned out a bit softer.


But, truthfully, these family-shooting opportunities came weeks and weeks ago, before I started my new job. It proved, however, to be good practice for shooting people again -- like this sheriff's agent, right, and his 2-year-old boy with Down syndrome.