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Karen’s Beautiful Rainy Day Family Portraits

I recently posted on Facebook about installing this large 7×4 foot portrait, and included with a few images of me hanging it. I received a bigger response than usual, 260+ likes, 30+ comments, and private messages from people asking how I did it. So I thought it’d make a great blog post.

Here I am hanging the portrait with a couple large Little Giant ladders that still were’t quite tall enough.

© BryCox.com, Bry Cox
Bry Cox hanging a beautiful 7’x4′ family portrait in this beautiful home. The size of a photograph should fit the space properly.

And here is the portrait so you can see the details better. This family had grown quite a bit with married kids and lots of cute new grandkids. So when they hired me, they wanted to make sure that they could see everyone’s faces and could enjoy the image from the given viewing distance of the room.

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The day of the shoot was cold and rainy but I still wanted to create the image outside. Yes, they have a large home and we could have set up in a room somewhere, or I could have even set up a studio in their gym, but I always emphasize my specialty of lighting and emotion, and I knew I could create something with more drama outside in front of their home. And yes, we could have rescheduled for a pretty, sunny day, but I don’t like to reschedule for lots of reasons.

One, many times like this, it’s the only day when family is all in town. Two, sometimes rescheduling means the portrait is never created. And three, rain makes for really beautiful and saturated colors when custom lighting is handled the right way. Plus after 20+ years of creating photographs full time for clients I know that I can work within the cycles of a rain storm as it goes from a big downpour to a slow drizzle to hard rain again.

The trick is to be all set and shoot quickly when the rain slows down so that I’m done before the next wave of hard rain comes again. And that’s what I did. While the family waited in the warmth inside, I set up my lights and camera and had everything metered and ready to go. I kept everything covered until we had a lull in the storm, and then had everyone come outside and we began working.

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Storm or not, I pose and position people quickly and in natural stances, then I play with the kids with a puppet routine that I’ve worked up over the years. I love it when even the tiniest kids, babies really that can’t even talk are laughing at my puppet show because they know it’s funny.

I started with the largest family group, and moved quickly to individual family groups. I only shoot about 3-5 images per family because I don’t want to wear people out, or exhaust the natural smiles of the children. And on this night we had other reasons to hurry as the rain was starting to get heavy again.
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Besides the biggest group I was able to get two other families groups shot before the rain hit hard again, so I moved under the awning that can be seen in the earlier groups. Again, I wanted to stay outside so that all of the family groups would have a uniform look, color scheme, feel, and lighting style. I want them all to look good when hung together and not look like different shoots. So working under the awning was perfect because the clients were able to stay dry (even though I was standing in the rain), and we were able to finish the session so that everything matched and looked beautiful.

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I love that this little baby is laughing. In the big family group, she was the kid laughing the loudest at my silly puppet routine.
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At some point, no matter how fast you work, kids are spent. They only have so much energy for photos, but it’s still fun to try and get a grandkids photo, even if some are crying. We did one under the awning and then went inside to the fireplace and did one big casual group of the entire family.
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Here is a view of their finished portrait in their home. The most common concern with families is getting your portrait too big or too small for where it is hanging. You want to be able to see faces and it is hard to imagine sizes when looking at a price menu. That is why I preview your order on a projector so that you can see your exact image at the exact size you’d like it. And if you know you’re getting over a certain size, I’ll come to your home and will help measure walls so that we get it absolutely perfect. And yes, I’ll even come hang it for you too.

© BryCox.com, Bry Cox
Bry Cox hanging a family portrait. Notice how the size works so well with everything.

Summer is ending and this is a great time to photograph your family. It’s always hard because schedules are crazy, and right now kids are going back to school. But winter is even harder and right now it’s still warm and pretty outside. Give me a call at 801-728-3317 and let’s create something amazing for you.

Until next time, America.

Happy Mother’s Day (My Two Nephews)

For Mother’s Day, I wanted to honor my sister and mom by posting these two collages I did of my two nephews, ages one and three. We did this shoot because my smallest nephew had just turned one. I had previously posted about my older three year old nephew, but my little one year old nephew is so tiny and cute, I wanted an excuse to feature him as well, and Mother’s Day is perfect for that.

And since these little boys come in quite a bit for photographs, I thought it’d be a fun change to light these little boys with a completely different lighting setup, one that I use for adults because of the exactness of the lighting. Kids move around so much that I need more leeway in my lighting and tend to light them a different way, but these kids are familiar with me and my studio so I tried this fashion style of lighting that I use for my high-contrast black and white series, and it worked great. They were so fun and expressive, it was hard to stop shooting them.

I like the results so much, I am going to have to try this now with other kids that come in to the studio.

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Yesterday was also my brother-in-law’s birthday, and I presented him with these collages as a gift. My older nephew looked at the images and got really happy and proud saying, “That’s when I was laughing, and when you had the pig on your head.”

He’s a smart kid and can replicate my pig puppet routine I do for kids down to the last nuance even weeks after a shoot. In fact, I had just featured my older 3 year old nephew at Easter because he’s reading like crazy, and read a beautiful Easter message I wanted to share.

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So thanks to the women and moms in my family, and thanks all the women and moms out there. Happy Mother’s Day!

And until next time, America.
– Bry

Winning Over Deborah’s Cute Kids

When these kids arrived, it was a typical scene where one of the kids (in this case the young boy) didn’t want to be photographed. He cried and carried on about it, and didn’t want to change into his gray sweater and in fact he wouldn’t stand anywhere in the studio without collapsing and crying. But my specialty is exquisite lighting and emotion, meaning that I’m not just going to nail the lighting and technical aspects, but I will also draw out real expressions. I love winning kids over and have worked on it my entire career. In fact I have an entire routine now from years and years of playing with my pink pig puppet in the studio. One of my friends who has moved away, has a few times called me by FaceTime just so I could do my pig puppet routine for her little girl again.

So when this cute, sad guy wouldn’t cooperate, I told him he could keep his white shirt, he could be as sad as he wanted, and he could even have his mom by him. I just needed him to stand here so I could show him my pig puppet.

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This was just the warm-up. Within three images I had him laughing, all that’s all I wanted at that point, was for him to relate standing in my studio to fun and laughter. So at that point I let him go and continued to photograph his sister. She was adorable and cute, and really held her poses well. She was a young model and was warmed up before we started.© BryCox.com, Bry Cox

When it was her brother’s turn again, he was a breeze. I had him won over. We got him in his sweater, he sat in his chair while I moved around the studio adjusting lights and getting things set for him, and when I started my pig puppet routine, he laughed and laughed right on cue. From that point on, he never stopped laughing. I changed setups, I shot black and white, I changed backgrounds, and each time it was his turn, I would start my silly puppet routine and he would laugh. Notice how he’s almost falling out of his chair laughing in some of these photos.© BryCox.com, Bry Cox © BryCox.com, Bry Cox © BryCox.com, Bry Cox © BryCox.com, Bry Cox © BryCox.com, Bry Cox

When it came time for a family group portrait, both of the kids did a great job and we were able to get a great image of everyone. And when everyone left, this little guy was drunk with laughter. He could hardly stand straight. It was so funny, and completely opposite of how he arrived.© BryCox.com, Bry Cox

I love photographing families and children. If you need some great family or kids portraits, now is a great time. The Christmas rush is over, and I can fit you in quickly, 801-728-3317. My studio is located just north of Salt Lake City, Utah, and no matter what the weather is like outside, I can get great images in the studio. And many times you can view them right after the shoot too.

And make sure you check out ideas on my main website too, at BryCox.com. Happy New Year, and until next time, America.