Family is everything!
I feel very privileged to have my parents, sister, brother-in-law and girlfriend as part of family. I am lucky in that we are a close family and although we all have those moments where there is a difference of opinion; nothing is closer than family. I have quite an attachment and have grown a strong relationship with my niece and nephew Isabelle and Joshua who are twins. They were born prematurely and have minor complications. What struck me more than anything was how there individual personalities were there at a very young age, something I had not experienced before. They are both bright little sparks and very entertaining, it’s never a dull moment! Somehow they have just ignited my enthusiasm and playing with them has been great fun. Many of my wildlife shots have come from visits to the zoo. Isabelle just seems to attract the wildlife to her so, I’ve managed to grab the occasional good shot here and there.
Having invested in some cheap backdrops we organised a day for the twins to get dressed in various costumes and just enjoy posing. The photos you see here are the ones we started off with, the pair of them dressing smart / casual. I wanted to create a gritty street feel against the mock brick wall backdrop. So, here are some of the results of Isabelle modelling:
And now Joshua. I had an idea before the photoshoot of adding some graffiti to the wall. Something that I had not experimented with before. I started with just a basic spray can effect, but would like to try some more complicated graffiti another time. Something for me to ‘Google’ and research into later for another time.
Joshua is a big StarWars fan (nothing to do with me – honest!) He absolutely loves Darth Vader. We’ve had great fun on various occasions with Joshua waving round his light sabre whilst I’m trying to capture the action. A nice piece of hessian sacking was used to represent Obi Wan Kanobi on one occasion and with a little post processing with motion blur, Josh Vader had struck him down. On this occasion, we just had a straight forward pose. With Isabelle we tried a snowy backdrop. I had bought one of those cans of fake snow and tried a test spray in the sink. I have to say, I was rather disappointed as I was expecting a thick foamy type of shaving foam like material to be projected into the air. Unfortunately, it was more like the ordinary spray that you use with a template to spray a design on your window so we abandoned the spray. Since that day, I have invested in a bag of fake snow in a bag which I’ll just sprinkle on instead. Here are the two photos:
It is such a delight to se Isabelle being able to stand unaided, as this is something which she couldn’t previously do before her spinal surgery. They are such a delight to be around. Love them to bits :0)