Family Photos at Home

Have you ever looked through your grandparents old photo albums?  I have recently and it was special for me to see them photographed where they lived and what they wore.  It was like a glimpse at what their lives were like.  These days, it is often hard to get the whole family to step out of their routine and away from work together long enough for pictures.  Some of the best pictures can come from home where you are the most comfortable.  Just like the good old days.  I recently visited "the farm" to take some family portraits for a client.  I love photographing in rustic settings.  There are many colorful and interesting things to shoot or use for a backdrops and with a little love, they just might grow into a wonderful shot.  These are some of my favorites from the day!

 

This was only a portion of the pedal tractors this grandfather had collected over the years.   He has crafted some of tractors and implements himself.  This set of photographs also made for an excellent series of black and whites.

We moved to the front of an old weathered barn that has seen many years for these next few photos.  This was one of the few locations I had scouted where we could escape the glare of the sun overhead.  The knots and separating grain of the wood made for an excellent backdrop here as I snapped this shot of the youngest member of the family.

I changed the angle here to accent the contrasting planks of wood.  As you can see, those old boards look as fantastic in Black and White as they do in color.  

 

A change of angle again gives us part of the old barn door as a backdrop for father and daughter.  

 

Taking a lower stance, I was able to shoot upwards for this shot and show the open loft door and the undersides of the eaves which made for an interesting composition.  This particular image was partially converted to black and white and the shirts were left in color to draw your attention to father and son.

For this photo of mother and son, I had this young man stand on and old timber that lay at the base of the barn.  This brought them to more of an equal height for a better portrait. 

 

We switched directions and crossed the driveway into the sunlight for this group shot with the trees in the background for something a little more vibrant.  

 

Next, we moved back into the shade to take some portraits on this restored tractor.  I love to shoot machinery as well and took some close ups while the family changed into their work and everyday cloths for a few more photographs.

 

This is a black and white showing a little more of the mechanics of the tractor.

 We took many photos with the tractor.  This is one of the few I got with the father by himself.  The sun was getting pretty low on the horizon at this point and I used this angle to stay in the shade of the covered building  to keep from shooting directly into the sun.

This was one of the last photos of the day and came by chance.  The daughter had taken a break to lay in the grass while I prepared to photograph her parents.  Realizing that you can never really escape the camera, she gave this smile as I laid down in the grass as well to snap a photo of her in her straw hat.

All of this smiling makes for a long afternoon.  This photo in a seated position allowed me to use the holly bushes in front of their home for a backdrop.   So the next time you are thinking about family portraits, consider your own back yard.  They are a timeless snapshot of who you are for generations to come.