11 May Redheaded Princess
The little 3 year old cutie you see sitting on the rock above is Joanna. She arrived to the shoot shy, holding a stuffed animal, sporting both leopard print shoes and a tiara, and topping off the ensemble with a Dora the Explorer temporary tattoo on her forearm. We spent a few minutes walking around and watching the ducks so that she could get comfortable and warm up to a strange tall man holding a gigantic camera.
She soon took on the typical 3 year old form – restless, full of attitude, totally funny to watch and listen to, and changing her mind faster than she can blink her eyes.
For ten minutes, I had a calm and mellow subject, very easy to work with. After that, I had to find ways to entertain Joanna to get her to stay in one spot and looking in the right direction. You have to be crafty to hold a child’s attention for an hour.
I setup a light and was using my exposure meter to get a reading when I found the perfect distraction to get a solid 5 minutes of shooting, my wireless meter. After I used the meter to test the light, I turned it’s wireless feature off and handed it to Joanna. Putting the wireless on my camera, I told her that she was in charge of making the flash fire (not really), but she really got a kick out of it. Counting to 3, Joanna and I worked together to get that flash to fire and take a picture. She loved it and I got my picture. 🙂
We then went on an “adventure” through some walking trails and captured some good shots of her in action. We got some great shots on a little foot bridge, as well as some reflection shots next to a pond. We ended the shoot with some flower picking and some good old fashioned running around.
Joanna was an extremely entertaining subject. Don’t tell Parks and Rec, but she loved feeding the ducks, tossing out half a bag of cheerios during the shoot. The birds ate well that day.
