Quite a while ago I read an article about Russian photographer Elena Shumilova who takes beautiful, really stunning images of her children. She has only been photographing for about 4 years but her use of light is absolutely incredible. You should really browse through her images on her flickr site. Her ‘key elements’ are shooting when the sun is relatively low and using it as back or rim lighting, and shooting with a very wide aperture to get a very shallow depth of field. She seems to live in a very photogenic place and can throw in a variety of cute animals to add to her images.
As mentioned I was really inspired since I first saw her images. When I found myself on holiday in Andalusia this year, I decided to try and use her ‘key elements’ for portraits of my children. The place was beautiful, the light great and I had a lens that I could stop down to f/1.8. Looking at the images at home there is so much I could have improved. Particularly a reflector would have been great to reflect some light back into the children’s faces. But the images were mostly taken as snapshots on a walk. So here we go…
Wow! Those images are great ; your lighting really gave an amazing touch to the photos.I think that your Under the Andalusion Sun photos are my favourite.I almost feel as though I am there when I look at these awsome pictures!!!