With all the beautiful warm weather (in between all the crazy cold days, and a sprinkle of snow) I decided to take some photographs outside. One of my favorite props right now is the Pink Parasol. Out of the closet came a dress that was actually too small, a pair of brightly colored stockings and some oversized rainboots. I love rainboots on little girls. I topped it all off with some extra froofy feathers and a miniature tophat headband. (Note to self: wind + froofy feathers = feathers in the face = a lot of ruined shots) I practiced using an off camera flash on a stand with a diffuser which proved extremely difficult to utilize since my subject considered the entire yard to be the photo backdrop and pranced frequently out of range of the flash. We're talking running all the way across the yard, nowhere near the flash. Children tend to do that since a warm sunny day in the middle of the cold gray winter offers too many distractions for their adventurous cabin-fever riddled selves to resist. Forget trying to convince them to come back because they have another thing in mind alltogether. Should I get serious and command their return? Of course not, becuase that would mean grumpy children, with frowns (and not the cute kind of frowns either). I gave up grabbed the flash. It was so bright I really needed it to soften the sharp contrast of the afternoon sun and and dispell some of the deep shadows it can cause, so I proceeded to chase my free-spirited subject around the yard.
Guess what? It really didn't matter if my subject subjected herself to my artistic direction because as always there is something magical in a child's natural expression and stance. Something fluid exists in their natural movement. When they know they're supposed to be posing I find they generally start to do weird things with their hands and their bodies, as if to stand or sit as directed causes physical pain resulting in grotesque and unnatural muscles contortions. Minimal instruction like 'cross your legs so your undies don't show' is fine but much more instruction than that and suddenly there are ants in their pants.
Here is one of the few without feathers in her face...
