Real Life.

I have been planning this shoot out in my mind for months. I wanted to do it in January for a bunch of reasons. One being that it's an indoor shoot and it's really cold out! Another reason... my son turned 4 this month, and my daughter is now 2 1/2. I thought it would be so nice to have these pictures to remember this time in their lives.

These pictures did not turn out the way I was expecting... but much, much, better :) I am in LOVE with these pictures and I cannot wait to hang them all over my kid's room!

I took these photos in my bedroom on my bed. I have one small window facing north. The fact that there is snow everywhere helped reflect plenty of light into the room. I used my 50 mm 1.8 lens during the whole shoot. I used the aperture priority setting (Av), and I  had the aperture set to 2.8... right where I like it. I switched the ISO between 400 to 800 during the shoot, just testing things out. Luckily the shutter was quick enough (usually between 1/100-1/200s) to capture some movement. I love having my 50 mm lens for low light... I am finally getting used to the focal length. 

I told my kids to dance, jump and play... and they did. We had some music on and that got their energy going. They had a lot of fun. Then they decided to pull out some books... not part of the plan, but it worked. So. Perfectly. I love these photos :)

This is why I love lifestyle photographs. So simple and beautiful. Relaxed and candid. I love that my kids had fun the whole time I was taking pictures... no tears, or begging for them to pose just right. I just followed their lead and things worked out just perfectly.