Sabine Reading (Or So You Think)

We were hanging out Thanksgiving day getting everything ready for the feast. Sabine was playing around in her room, but it was very dark. We have those super knock-out-light removing blinds in there in case she naps. Rather than open the blinds up the entire way and let the sun bathe the room, I wanted to eek open a tiny bit of light into the room. Taking a stylistic cue from David Duchemin or Joe McNally, I figured, “Hey.. place baby by beam of light.. that should work..”

The thing you have to think about here is this. You probably wouldnt want to stare at the sun.. so neither will a small child. Instead of -facing- her to the sun, I put her back to it to get some around the hair. because I was metering for her head, I was guaranteed to throw the rest of the room near dark.

The only problem I was faced with was the fact that her face was really dark. As she was throwing her books around the room, I thought “Hey.. Chicka Chicka ABC has white background for its pages (and some cool alphabet stories of climbing a coconut tree). What if I gave it to her to play and the book serves as a bounce?”

I gave her the book, and as she opened it to check it out, there was the fill light I needed. The smile came from the fact that she didnt really expect the book to shine back to her. Not too much time here.. rip a couple of shots.. and she’s done. The one above was the keeper for me. I’ve been reading a lot of David Duchemin and Joe McNally lately so the entire “Light one part of it” or making mood lighting is really at the forefront of my mind, framing a lot of the pictures im working on.

Below are a couple of other shots from that shoot.. only 20 shot.. 3 keepers..