Saturday, January 3, 2009

Family Portraits for Great Friends

I love taking family portraits and it is even more fun when I am shooting pictures of great friends. Well...yesterday I took family portraits of our close friends and their extended family. We decided to shoot the pictures at a local winery which is quickly becoming my favorite place to shoot portraits. It was raining pretty hard as we headed towards the winery but it cleared just as we pulled into the parking lot. This photo shoot was meant to happen!
Overcast skies with no harsh shadows - every photographer's dream for shooting portraits. Nature was very good to me yesterday.
This time, my wife went with us to help direct the shoot. I love having her there, since she has a great eye for locations and she is very good with people placement. She found this low wall and suggested that the family line up here. Normally, I would not line up a family in a straight line, since it can look more like a prison line-up than a family gathering, but I really like this shot.
After we were done shooting we were tasting some of the wines in the cellar when my son looked out the window and spotted a coyote. I grabbed my camera and we went out looking for it. We could see it watching us from some bushes in the distance. Due to good teaching with Moose Peterson (and watching myself on the Moose Cam), we kept biology in mind. We moved very slowly towards the fence and I made sure to raise my camera slowly as not to scare the animal. Good thing I have a good mentor! Not the best shot, but this is the first time I have ever seen a wild coyote in the SF Bay Area.

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