Trying some Lifestyle Photography

On some of the photography groups I'm in, I'll see people posting their examples of "Lifestyle photography". For those who don't know, this is basically capturing moments as they happen, in your house or whatever you're doing - not explicitly posing, but more trying for candids, etc. It's not a style of photography that I do a lot, but last month I wanted to give it a try. My kids were each enjoying a nice warm bath (separately!) mid-day, and so I gave them some toys to play with, grabbed my camera, and captured what I could. I think it was a good experiment; I can definitely use some improvement, but I love some of the moments that I captured of my kids, and that's what it's really all about.

Here are a few of my favorites of each of them. Love these two.

Lincoln Park Zoo | Animal Photographer

In November 2015, I took a trip through the midwest for work, finishing in Chicago. I had the chance to spend a couple of hours walking around the Lincoln Park Zoo, which I had heard wonderful things about. While it wasn't the top zoo I have ever been to, it was definitely a good one! I think part of it was the weather - it was such a beautiful cold, clear day.

Contemporary Dance Recital 2015 | Dance Photographer

While this was the first recital I photographed during recital week in June 2015, it ended up being the last one that I posted here! I love photographing the beautiful ballerinas, and the adorable little ones, but for pure dance enjoyment, the Contemporary recital is definitely my favorite. I love the styles - modern, jazz, lyrical, tap - and the fact that the girls get to have a bit more freedom of expression and movement than you typically see with ballet. With that said, let's get to my favorite photo from each class!

Jazz I

Yes, they are Minions! With my little dancer second from the left, in the front.

Rising Stars Dance Recital 2015 | Dance Photographer

The second of three dance recitals last June was certainly the most adorable: the Rising Stars! These are all the kids ages 7 and under at the Loudoun School of Ballet. The have two recitals per year, winter and spring. I previously photographed the winter recital (in fact, that was how all of this dance photography started!), and was very excited to photograph them again. After photographing the older dancers, I realized how much easier the little ones are - they don't move around nearly as much, and there are far fewer dancers per class!

There were a total of 15 classes plus 2 Intern dances for the theme of "Cinderella". As I did in my previous post of the Ballet recital, I'll post my favorite photo from each class here.

Rising Stars Interns: Ballet opener

I love the way that these blue skirts twirl!

Rising Stars Interns: Closer

My dancers in black and white | Dance Photographer

Every fall, I have the chance to observe my kids in their dance classes. For this one week, I get to see what they do during class and watch them concentrate so well on what they are learning. This year, while editing the photos, some of them were just begging to be edited in black and white, so I'm posting them here all together. There's something about the starkness of the black and white, in this dance setting, that just seems perfect to me.

Solo Dance Portraits | Dance Photographer

When creating my previous post (and a couple of upcoming ones!), I kept coming across photos that are much more portraits - solo, duo, or a few dancers together. They're not quite representative of the class as a whole, which is why I didn't want to feature them in the posts I'm doing about each recital. Instead, I will share them here, with each photo getting to stand on its own.

Ballet Dance Recital 2015 | Dance Photographer

As all of you who follow me on Facebook know, I spent much of my time in June and July finishing the action/stage photos from the Loudoun School of Ballet's spring dance recitals. This was a huge undertaking - I ended the dress rehearsals with over 4,000 photos, spread over about 50 different classes. It took me the better part of a week to just organize everything! And at that point it was edit, edit, edit. I could not have been happier with the results, and am so thankful to the parents who chose to purchase from me.

I of course cannot post all of my favorite photos here - there are just way too many! So I thought in order to provide everyone with a sampling of the style of stage dance photography I do, I'd post my favorite shot from each class. Even narrowing it down this far is a little bit difficult, but I think I've managed to highlight the best ones. I also took posed "class photos" at the end of each dance, but the action shots are so much more interesting, I think!

The school has graded levels of ballet classes - in this recital were levels II - X. I have a soft spot for Ballet II since it was my daughter's class!
Ballet II

Halloween Costume Photo Shoot | Child Photographer

Kids love dressing up in their Halloween costumes, and it's so hard to get good photos of them during the excitement of Halloween night. So, what's a photographer to do? How about get the kids dressed up before Halloween and do a couple of photo shoots? Both were done just after my daughter's dance class (as her hair was already done!) - we just changed into costumes and headed outside!

This first set were taken just outside of our house, near the pond. My son was VERY excited to wear his full Darth Vader costume (and use the light saber as prop!), and my daughter was happy to model her newly purchased dance costume.

Welcome to the world, Baby L!

About a month after our sunset maternity shoot, baby L entered the world! I photographed him around one week old, and he was a fantastic little subject...who did not want to miss a thing during his shoot. Look at those bright eyes!

The G family | Maternity Photographer

I was so excited for this maternity shoot, since the dad-to-be is a coworker of mine! He and his wife are lovely, and a lot of fun! They brought a few ideas and props to the shoot, and I had some ideas of my own - together, it made for a very fun sunset maternity session.