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Yesterday I did my second ever proper¹ photoshoot (the first one having been at Allhands with Michelle). This time I was doing some family portraiture of a friend's daughters, one a very precocious nine-year-old and the other having just turned one.

It was, by and large, hell.

Now, let's make this clear from the off, it wasn't hell because of the kids, though the one-year-old was cranky due to lack of sleep as a result of some new teeth coming through. The thing that really made my life hard - harder than I'd anticipated for reasons which will become almost immediately clear - was the sunshine. After days of blue but cloudy skies and, yesterday morning, a nice low-level grey blanket that made all the shadows nice and even, yesterday afternoon's weather turned out to be blazing sunshine with nary a cloud in sight.

It occurred to me, when mum suggested that we do some shooting out in their newly completed garden, that maybe things were going to be awkward, but I dismissed the thought. After all, I had enough light modifiers and a willing and able assistant (Awesome Fiancée is Awesome) to be able to at least mitigate some of the problems that I was going to encounter. I hadn't, however, reckoned on the pale, practically white, patio.

So, dear reader, imagine yourself in my position. Blazing sun from above, being reflected almost uniformly from below. Shadows, where there are shadows, are harsh at best. Trying to shade the subject doesn't help all that much because there's a big fat patio in the background of most shots that's blowing out all the time (I discovered to my horror about half an hour into the shoot that my camera was on ISO 1600. Whilst not devastating, it certainly didn't help matters).

Oh, I'm sure that I got some good frames. The older of my two subjects has been pretty much harassed with a camera by her mum since she was knee-high to a grasshopper, so she knows how to behave in front of a lens, and we got some good shots of her. But I can't help but feel that I should have dealt with it better; I should have been more willing to try different things (I had a bunch of lighting gear with me, so why not use it? I could have dropped the ambient down by two or three stops and used the sun as a backlight... Gah). What I wouldn't have given for an Elincrom Ranger or a Bowens Gemini head.

Oh well, we live and learn. Reviewing the photos I can see that despite the accidents and the sunshine and the patio and the general futzing around I've taken some pretty good shots, so the shoot, on its own terms, was a success. And I've learned several things that I thought I already knew:

1. I need to slow down and stop letting the fact that I'm shooting for someone other than myself pressure me into rushing things.
2. Control The Shadows.
3. Call the shots. The client's ideas are paramount but it's up to me to implement them, and I need to make that clear to the client, too.
4. Know the location beforehand. I didn't in this case, and it bit me.
5. Control The Shadows.

My next job is to try out some of the ideas that I had after the fact and then re-do the shoot on my own terms and in a location of my choosing. It's a good thing that these are kids who are used to - and who like - being photographed.

¹ I.e. one not involving my Awesome Fiancee or some other member of my family as an experiment. Whether this actually makes it "proper" or not I leave as an exercise for the reader.