Photographing a child with special needs / Giving the gift of images to a deserving family

I feel that the most important aspect of being a photographer is to capture history in images. Once in while, there comes an opportunity to capture a really special moment in a family's history. A couple weeks ago, one of our neighbors, who we have known for many years, asked if I could shoot family portraits for them. What makes this special is that they have a 11 year old son named Jeffrey who is non-verbal, uses a wheelchair much of the time, a walker some of the time, and only in the past few months has he gained enough confidence, stability, and strength to make several attempts at walking short-distances unassisted.

As it turns out, having a child with special needs like this, makes it very difficult for them to get family photos. They had tried getting photos at a local department store, but they limited the studio time and number of shots to the point where they could not get a nice photo. They also did not have the ability to edit the photos to the level that was needed.

I saw this as a great way to give back to a family that has endured so much. And here is how we made it all happen...

 

We started the photo session with the family sitting down. This put less pressure on Jeffrey and got everyone used to being in front of the camera. 

 

Being comfortable with his walker, we then moved to that for a while. (Photographer's note: You will see that there were distractions in the background. Knowing that I could control much of the shoot, but not everything, I focused more on Jeffrey and figured that I would remove those in post production.)

I love this shot of Jeffrey as he approached mom and dad. You can see the happiness in his face. This is one of the edited photos for the family. 

Then it was time to try and get some photos of Jeffrey walking on his own. Most of the time, I am very picky about my shooting location and backgrounds, but in this case, it was more important to find a flat surface for Jeffrey since he can not easily navigate any bumps or slopes.

As you can see, my wife Annette was on hand to help out. She was there to spot him, working as hard as possible to keep him safe and stay out of my shot.  

 

Annette knew that I could remove her from the image using Adobe Photoshop, so she stayed fairly close to Jeffrey as I fired off photos.

And it was a good thing she was close by. Jeffrey only went down once, but it reminded us all how difficult this was for him.

 

With Annette completely out of the frame, I was able to capture images of Jeffrey as he walked on his own, towards his parents. This was a huge moment for them, and I was excited to be there capturing this for them!

 

Interestingly enough, Jeffrey had much better balance while holding the leash of his companion dog, Kodiak.

Here is a cropped final image of Jeffrey and his amazing supportive brother, Adam, walking the dog towards me.

 And then we had the whole family get together and walk towards me.

All this walking was tiring for Jeffrey, so we let him take a break and concentrated on getting some images of the other family members.

Mom, dad and Adam.

After shooting images of the three of them, dad picked up Adam and was playing around with him. Re-framing quickly, I shot this photo of the two guys with great smiles.

After a while, we had Jeffrey stand up again and stand next to mom. I shot numerous photos of him looking at me (or Annette who was getting his attention while standing behind me), but really loved this shot of him looking up at mom. 

We were finishing up the photo session when I noticed Jeffrey's wheel chair, which was on the grass 20 yards away. I ran behind the wheelchair and then asked mom and dad to walk away from the chair with Jeffrey. For this shot, I focused on the three of them and let the wheelchair go out of focus. Jeffrey just happened to turn back and look my way for a fleeting moment and I grabbed it. (Photographer's note: I always shoot in continuous mode so that I never miss a shot. For this session, knowing that it would be more challenging than most, I actually used my Canon 1DX and sometimes shot at 12 frames per second to make sure that I captured as much as possible.)

 
This was my favorite shot of the day. Focusing on the wheelchair this time (and drawing attention to Jeffrey's name embroidered on the seat), I shot more images of them walking away. I love the symbolism of this photo with Jeffrey and his parents leaving the wheelchair behind. I hope that someday in the future, this becomes a reality for them.

It was the end of an hour long shoot and we had captured everything we wanted. At my wife's suggestion, we had the whole family lift their hands in celebration.

I for one feel very fortunate to live the photographic dream, getting to travel the world, go to the Olympics, and experience many joyous occasions. But sometimes even I take things for granted. Things like walking, talking, playing sports and doing everything that I want to do. Not everyone has that ability. I think that it is our responsibility to give back to those less fortunate than ourselves and share our craft and passion with those who can benefit from what we have to offer. After working on this project, I can tell you that I felt like the lucky one, not because of my health and mobility, but because I was invited to be a part of this special moment.

San Francisco Auto Show & The City at Night

It has been a really long time since I have been to the San Francisco Auto Show. As a matter of fact, I don't think I have been to this show since I was a kid. But, this past Saturday, we decided to make a family day trip to the city to check out the show and have dinner downtown. I was armed with my Canon 5D Mark III camera and 24-105mm lens, while my son had a 5D Mark II and my wife and daughter had their iPhones.

The Auto Show is set up to show all the current models of cars available, but from a photographic perspective, I really liked the vintage cars which were on display.

Due to the mixed lighting and numerous distractions around each vehicle, I decided that tight shots would be the most pleasing. So, I spent most of my time getting down low, getting in close and looking for interesting details in these classic cars.

I really loved the color and lines of this Lincoln Zephyr. This is a shot taken of the front side of the hood of the vehicle.

This was my favorite image from the auto show. For this photo, I got close to the hood ornament and metered the camera to darken the exposure, thus emphasizing the chrome details. I did remove a couple of small light reflections on the hood of the vehicle, which were distracting.

On the show floor, they had a couple of auto designers showing how they draw up concepts. One guy was using a Wacom Cintiq while the other was drawing freehand. My wife saw this shot before I did and took a nice photo on her iPhone. I liked it enough to grab the same image. Good job Annette. :)

I think I will have a V8.

Very cool front end of a 1932 Stutz.

I photographed most of the cars from straight on, but then decided to frame things a little differently.

Such cool hood ornaments, from back in the day when people wouldn't steal them off the cars. :(

Now that is a grill.

This is one of the last shots that I took from the auto show. I framed this shot to highlight the hood ornament against the cherry red car in the background.

After the auto show, everyone was hungry, so we went for a late lunch / early dinner at Tony's Pizza Napoletana in the Italian district in SF. Awesome pizza to top off a fun day. I was hoping that we would get served quickly, because I knew that sunset was at 5pm, and since it was a rare clear day in the city, I really wanted to drive over to Treasure Island (located halfway across the Bay Bridge) and take photos of sunset over the city.

As luck would have it, we got out of the city just in time to catch the last of the sunset over San Francisco. So beautiful!

This is the last light of the day, with the Ferry building, the Embarcadero buildings, and the Transamerica pyramid in the foreground.

During the holidays, all of the Embarcadero buildings are lit, which makes the skyline even prettier.


After catching the amazing sunset, we headed for Union Square in SF and checked out the outside ice rink.



Even though I have been hearing holiday music in stores since Halloween, I can now start to accept that the holidays are upon us. All the decorations are up and everyone seemed to be in the spirit.



I think this is Macy's way of saying that they believe in holiday sales.



Right before leaving the city, as we waited to cross the street to the parking garage, I saw this Cable Car coming towards us. I quickly raised the camera, changed the settings to get a 1/2 sec exposure, and did a slow shutter motion pan along with the trolley.

Photographing a party under water? Fun at the Aquarium at Pier 39 in San Francisco

Earlier this year, I booked a Bat Mitzvah for last weekend, and upon hearing the details, I was really excited and looking forward to photographing this event. Why? Because, for the evening party, this family was taking over the Aquarium of the Bay located at Pier 39 on the edge of downtown San Francisco. Now, there is nothing wrong with shooting a reception at a hotel banquet room, but I love shooting images somewhere new and unique.

The day started at the Temple with formal pictures of the Bat Mitzvah girl and her family.

Her little brother was a real crack up. He had a ton of energy and no shortage of personality. I had him hop up on this ledge and shot this photo of him "hanging out".

Using the Sigma 85mm 1.4 lens, I shot this photo of the Bat Mitzvah girl reading from the Torah (with a very narrow depth of field).

Just before the service started, I was looking around at the people coming in, and I saw this one gentleman who sat down towards the front of the Temple. There he was, sitting right at the very spot where the sun was peaking in through a high window.  (Photographer's note: I stopped down 1/2 stop to accentuate the contrast, and shot this image. Afterwards, I adjusted the shadows and highlights in Photoshop, but purposely left enough light on the top of the seats so that you could see that he was sitting and waiting.)

When photographing events, my goal is to capture the story of the day. Not only the expected moments, but specifically looking for those unscripted moments which really show the personalities of the participants. This photo shows dad giving his speech to his daughter, at a moment where he broke into a rare and genuine smile, while mom looks on from the background.

During this same speech, dad was so taken with emotion that he fought off tears of joy. Without missing a beat, his daughter reached down and found the "hidden box of tissues" and presented that to her father. I love dad's reaction, but also the smirk on her face too.

And then after the service was over, it was time for me to head into San Francisco to prepare for photographing the party.

Since I had not photographed inside the aquarium before, and I wanted a chance to shoot images of the displays before the party started, I went to the venue hours early. On the drive into downtown SF, I saw this view of the Bay Bridge with the fire boat in the foreground and stopped to get this shot.

Since I grew up in SF and know the city well, I knew that the sea lions like to hang out by Pier 39. After getting settled in at the aquarium and waiting for good cloud coverage (to avoid harsh shadows caused by direct sunlight), I grabbed my Canon 1DX with a 100-400mm lens and headed towards their favorite hangout area. As I left the aquarium, the weather was turning quickly and it started raining. This was my favorite shot from the short visit to their pier.

Then it was time to head back into the aquarium to try and capture images of the sea creatures. (Photographer's note: Not only did I see this as a fun opportunity to photograph the animals, I also figured that many of these images could be used in the family's album. My wife, Annette, does all the album design and loves to have detail shots to use as background spreads, for which to overlay the family's images.)



The first display that I came to was the sardines. They have thousands of these little fish swimming in circles. My goal was to fill the frame with as many fish as possible, trying to show as little blank background space as possible. I saw this as a perfect blue background spread for the album.

Maybe not the best photo for an album, but still very cool. This sea eel posed for me. (Photographer's note: Obviously, you do not not want to shoot images while using a flash, since that light will reflect right off the glass and back at your lens. I find that the best images are taken when shooting at an angle to the glass and not directly into the glass. This will give you less reflections and a clearer shot of your subject behind the glass.)

Great colors!

This was one of my favorite shots from within the aquarium. I spent at least 15 minutes at this one particular display, looking for good shots. After taking time to shoot the more obvious fish, I looked at the bottom of the tank and saw this little guy hiding out.

Next I concentrated on the Pacific Sea Nettles (Jelly Fish).

They may not have any brains, bones or organs, but they sure are cool looking.

Amazing patterns and colors...

Another favorite photo from the day. Nature truly is amazing, isn't it?

The Aquarium of the Bay is known for their underwater tunnels. I have been to numerous aquariums, but never had the chance to photograph inside the underwater walkways. This was awesome. (Photographer's note: I went down to these walkways well before the event to determine proper camera settings. For this test image above, I shot with no flash at ISO 4000 on the Canon 1DX. There was enough ambient light, that a flash was not necessary. I was also concerned about using a flash and having too much light bouncing around the glass.)

Looking up through the glass...

And then the party started and I had 100 people roaming through the displays.

My first priority was to get some photos of the "star of the day" with all of her friends. For this shot, I waited a couple of seconds for some fish to swim above. As luck would have it, this shark came directly over, as if on command. (Photographer's note: I did end up using a diffused flash when the guests arrived. I determined that there was just not enough light on them, so I turned the flash to -1 stop and added just enough light to properly expose the subjects but still have a good exposure in the background.)

Mom and dad relaxing and enjoying the subterranean sites.

Most of my photos, in the underwater tunnels, were taken in portrait mode, so that I could show more of the fish overhead. But, for this shot, I turned the camera back to a landscape mode to give a different perspective. I saw that I had some schools of sardines cruising by, and the flash helped light them up as they swam by.

Some of the kids enjoying the touch pools where they could touch starfish, small sharks and rays.

After an hour or so, the kids moved into the party room to eat and celebrate.

And they had a great time!

At one point in the evening, Patrick (another amazing MC from Denon and Doyle) had the kids up on stage singing. This little guy (who my family is convinced is "Manny" from "Modern Family") belted out a Justin Bieber song.

As the evening wound down, I decided to grab my tripod and head outside in the rain. Good thing that the camera and lens are weather resistant! I really wanted to get a nice night shot from the upper balcony of the aquarium. Knowing that the wet streets would give me some nice reflections, and having Coit Tower and some other marquis buildings in the background, I knew that this would be a great ending shot for the night.