Most of my day yesterday was spent with April Ladd of April Smiles Photography. She is a newer photographer just getting started with her photography business. She signed up for a mentoring session with me. It was fantastic. I love to share my knowledge with people, and she was the most receptive student I’ve ever had in anything I’ve taught in my life. Her brain has a wonderful capacity for learning and retaining information quickly.
April has a sweet southern voice that comes along with a great personality. When I opened the door to my home to greet her it was like meeting an old friend. She was also super excited for me after learning about our miraculous spontaneous pregnancy. Her husband works a full time job and works as a volunteer fire fighter. They have an adorable 3 year old son too. She has dedicated herself to learning as much as she can in the short time since she purchased her DSLR camera. I think this dedication will serve her well in his dream of building a successful photography business allowing her to stay home with her child and provide an income for her family. So many of us {me included} want to make sure we are taking care of our families needs both emotionally and financially as pursue the dream of making a living with our art.
Our shoot was so much fun. Here are a three images April took of our adorable baby model, Ryan and his parents. Urban settings are so much fun with families.
Ryan showing off his adorable naked self. He was great. It was so funny trying to get his attention. He was either fully engaged with us or fully ignoring us. I’ve never seen a baby quite like him. He also has the coolest hair. The ends are darker then the roots!
The warehouse we got permission to shoot in was pretty cool. There were these large skylights we used to create a moody couple shot.
All their loving feelings definitely shine through on this image.
I can’t wait to see what other new things April shows off.
Here are a few of my images from our shoot. I love this blanket for its heirloom qualities. They will no doubt still have this blanket in 20 years and still have an image from this shoot featured in their home. Family items like this make excellent props in a shoot.
Ryan loved smiling right into the camera. I think he’s going to be a major charmer when he grows up.
I love Allison’s face in this image. It was taken just a fraction of a second before April’s above. They are both perfect in their own way with her smiling at Ryan in April’s image and at her husband in this one.
This is an outtake. I plan on showing more of these as there are often quite a few interesting or eventful moments during a shoot. Here we had little Ryan in those cute blue undies to show off his perfect baby skin with no diaper on. Well, you guessed it, he totally peed. Rich is holding him out enough so that he will not get it all over more then just his arm. With a few minutes and a few wipes we were all back to business. :-)
One of Arpil’s requests was to work with challenging light. We placed Allison & Rich in several places where the light would be more difficult. This image is definitely one of my favorites from those.
Silhouettes are so much fun. It’s easy to take a crazy bad light spot and turn it into something cool. Her hairpiece totally works to define and give a little attitude.
I can’t wait for the next photographer who wants to do a mentoring session with me!
~ Shannon
