Last weekend I had a family portrait shoot scheduled first thing in the morning. The extended family (4 adults and 6 kids) were getting together for granddad’s 70th birthday, and they wanted a portrait of everyone together.
The brief was for a ‘relaxed’ style picture taken on location in the seaside suburb of Sumner in beautiful Christchurch, New Zealand. I scouted some locations a few days prior and decided to do something on the esplanade, with iconic Sumner landmark Cave Rock in the background to give a sense of place.
The morning of the shoot came and wouldn’t you know it the rain was threatening to come down. A very fine misty drizzle started just as everybody turned up. Instead of relocating indoors, we all decided to press on and see if we could get the photos done as quickly as possible. Everyone was very accommodating as we arranged on the rock wall, they were a great group to work with.
We arranged everyone for the big group shot and then my assistant collected umbrellas and jackets from the group and we shot off a number of frames – I figured there would be some cloning and masking involved given such a large group, so I wanted to make sure we had each person with eyes open and smiling in at least one of the frames!
After doing the large group we reposed the grandparents with the 6 grandkids and did another group shot.
The pictures turned out wonderfully. I had to do some composite work and masking on the people and the sky to get the final images – each final picture is a combination of 3-4 separate frames. This is the largest family group I’ve shot to date and I’m extremely pleased with the results.
Interestingly, here’s a photo I took of my partner while we were out location scouting for this shoot. He’s sitting in the exact same place as where we shot the final portrait (you can see the white rock in the bottom right in both pictures), but here you can see how different this image looks:
In this picture we’re dealing with full sun instead of overcast, the tide was in instead of out, and I used a shorter focal length (34mm on a 17-40 lens vs 78mm on a 70-200 lens for the family shoot).
I much prefer the longer focal length in the group shot and how it pulls Cave Rock more strongly into the picture. I also actually prefer the ‘tide out’ look and the view of the sand. As for full sun vs. overcast, I have to say I’m on the fence. The sunny shot has a certain summery glow to it, but I love the soft light and colours you only get with shooting on a cloudy day.
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