Ashley Brockinton Photography

To celebrate the beginning of summer I wanted to share our new family picture we took a few weeks ago.  I think frequent family photos are so important but I am unwilling to ever wear khakis and polos and line up in a row (nothing wrong with it, its just not my style) to take one.  Now that our family is growing and its not just Sam and myself, I want to start making it a priority to have a yearly family photo that we not only have taken but that we also print…HUGE.  I’m planning on doing a series of black and white images for the next several years and having them printed on giant fine art canvases.  I seem to think that the larger a picture is printed the better.

So here’s to; summer time, family memories, hints of nostalgia, and a bit of quirkiness!

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A word about the making of this photo:

I knew that getting a four year old, a two year old, and our dog, Lola, to behave for this picture would be impossible, especially since we didn’t have another professional photographer there to guide us (we set the camera up on a tripod and had my sister click the shutter).  Because of this I chose a location with a uniform background and spacing that would allow me to composite a few photographs if I need to (and boy did I need to).  The only thing that made this image work is the intense planning I did.

Steps involved in creating this image:

1.  I had to come up with a concept and pre-visualize what I wanted the image to look like on our wall.  I decided ahead of time that I wanted the final image to be in black and white.

2.  Shopping for bathing suites that all had a retro vibe and had wide black and white stripes.

3. Shopping for props that would add interest and balance to the image.

4.  Got my hair done.  You can’t really tell because I had a hat on but Ricardo Blades did a really awesome vintage hair style.

5. Planning the composition of the image before we even got to the beach.  I knew I would need a small stool for Isabella to stand on in order for the composition to have a more rounded even feel.

6. Scouted beaches and did some research on what beaches allowed dogs.  {Thank you Nick Adams for your helpfulness on this.}

7. Enlisted my sisters to help with the logistics and keeping the girls in line (literally).

8.  Brought candy to bribe my kids into obedience.

**What a lot of people don’t realize is how much of the planning and the work actually is up to the client and not the photographer.  We offer pre-planning meetings for all of our shooting sessions to help clients get the ball rolling and to give ideas but ultimately the success of a photo-shoot relies heavily on the planning time put in by the client.

For more info on our family portraits and all other non-wedding related work that we do check out our portrait work at Red Box Photography.