One of my favorite ways to learn is to watch someone else do what it is that I am trying to learn. I am a much more visual and tactical when it comes to learning new things and photography is no different.

Because of this, I LOVE behind the scenes shots of photography sessions. This was one of the things I googled the most when I was just starting out and surprisingly there is not a LOT of examples of this kind of thing out there on the web.

I tried to find videos taken during a shoot to see how the photographer interacted with the client and where they were standing etc...when taking the photos. There are a few resources out there but much fewer than I expected.

When one of the dads at the recent photo session that I did, took some shots of me during the session and then shared them with me afterward, I was elated! Not only do I enjoy critiquing myself, but I feel that information like this can be very useful to others when prepping for their own photo sessions!

So here you go! A look behind the scenes at the recent photo shoots I did for Mairin and Abby.

The reason I chose this spot in the photo below is because it was nicely shaded with some greenery in the background and the sun was shining beautifully through the tall trees camera right. I was using my 28-75 in this particular photo to get a wider angled shot.

Then I switched to my 70-200 and zoomed in a bit so I could get some of the beautiful compression. I had placed her plenty far from the background so there was some really good separation going on which would set up nicely for this lens.

One of the resulting final images.

I sat both girls in the chair in this path to incorporate some framing. Paths and walkways are always great for framing. Some of those final images can be seen in their respective blog posts.

I wanted to incorporate balloons into this session but it was so windy that it just didn't work out. The balloons were banging against each other something fierce and then they started popping. Major Fail.

You can see how in this photo the image seems rather dark and flat. However in the resulting image (right below this one) you can see the light I was aiming for in the background. One of my favorites!!

I set up momma and daddy and told him to lift her up and smile and have a great time. I keep the camera up and click throughout them doing the action to ensure I get a great shot with expression.

And this last one is probably one of my favorites, because this is soooo what a lot of shoots look like. I know some people will argue all day and say parents need to go somewhere else and not stand behind you, but I really don't mind it at all. Even if the toddler doesn't look directly into the camera for every shot it doesn't make it a bad picture. And no one can make a 1 year old laugh and smile the way their parents can, so I just go for it.