Should you shoot your children?

Shocking, just shocking I tell you! What kind of post title is that? Shooting your children!

Ok it might be a little title shock but the topic is real. Many of today's photographers got their start by taking images of their children and that is a fine way to hone your craft. This usually works great until the kids hit pre-teen and then it is revolution and uncooperative time. Give it a few more years and they are ok with it. When photography starts to hit the pocketbook then they are really ok with it. When it comes to wedding photography I would imagine it could get a little dicey.

This is where I am. My youngest son and his fiancé asked if I wanted to shoot their wedding. I had to think about it and then asked them one question. Did they want me to shoot it because they liked my images or did they ask because they did not want to hurt my feeling as a photographer.

From the images I have taken of them they really like what they see. This was a good answer. Now I had to ask myself a question. Did I want to do that much work at their wedding or just sit back and enjoy the time. Was it going to be to weird photographing my son's wedding? Finally would it interfere with my participation in the wedding. The answers were yes, no, and no. What does the father of the groom do anyhow other than walk down the isle behind his wife being ushered to her seat. As far as weirdness, it will be different but a great honor to do.

So the next thing to do was get some engagement photos as their wedding is this August. This seems like an aggressive timetable but they are both of the mindset that wedding planning is dragged out too long and they don't want to delay the inevitable. They have been in a close relationship for over three years so there is no issue there.

So last Saturday we went driving around to a couple of different location and got some nice images.

These two were actually take last and the sun was already gone so the use of a tripod was in order. I was using the 5D Mk II with an EF 24-70 f/2.8 L mounted. Exposure was 1/13 second at f/5.6 and an ISPO of 1600 while the focal length was dialed in at 35 mm. I did use a flash to expose the coupe and the 1/13th second was definitely dragging the shutter.

This image was shot on a little lighted bridge earlier but the sun was not a factor except for illumination. This was more of a plain Jane image but I played with it in an iPad App and came up with this cepia-grunge look using a little selective focus.

Time will tell about shooting the wedding but we are all looking forward to the event.

I'll keep you posted, take care... Doug