Late spring, early summer is one of my favorite times of the year - especially for photography! The longer days lead to pleasant evenings spent watching the sun go down in the front yard, soaking up the warm light and glow of the Golden Hour.
As you all know, most of my photography is of Blair. What you may not know is that I don't give her much direction - I simply let her be herself and capture what she's up to. The majority of my work is done with a prime lens (currently obsessed with the 35mm) so I usually set myself up on the ledge of our driveway or front walk and snap away as she happily burns off steam in the yard. I shift myself around a bit to catch her brushing her hair out of her face or playing, but I try to avoid asking her to do anything - my favorite shots are her just being her total, 100%, natural self.
I love to watch Blair's imagination at work, and she thrives in the post-school day freedom of our evenings in the yard. On this particular evening, she was focused on "fixing" her slide with a toy tool set from IKEA. She meticulously examines the slide, taps it in several places with the hammer, and then moves to the next tool with serious precision.
Always a busy bee, there is a collection of balls that she often strews about the yard, but some days are spent simply rolling in the grass, watching the clouds go by, and re-enacting her favorite movie of the week. Silly faces are her forte and recently it's been tough getting her to ignore my camera - she turns on the goofiness as soon as she hears the shutter.
Most photographers' kids are so used to the camera being out that they'll ignore it, or run as far away as possible because they get easily annoyed. Mine wants to be all up in the lens, trying to steal the camera to take her own shots. To combat the grabby hands, I'll hop in the shot with her - as hard as a DSLR selfie can be, I always love how they turn out!
Ahh, welcome back, Golden Hour. We'll soak you up every last minute until the air gets too humid to breathe and we're all covered in sweat just waiting for the lightning bugs and dusk to arrive.
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