Turning on the Charm

These are Isaiah's model eyes. He is no stranger to being in front of the camera.

Lying In The Grass

One of my personal favorites from our little "Birthday Session" with our kid, Isaiah. Again, playing around with some creative processing... I'm still not certain on how well I like it... It might not be subtle enough for me. I'm the kind of person who likes clean, simple, and classic. I like to achieve my look in the camera, with light and shadow, and I'm not a fan of "photoshop fads", but... I understand that creative processing can help to accentuate the message in the photo.

In this photo, I wanted to cool down the light a little and make it seem a little older, more colorful, and playful, without destroying the skin tone. I may or may not have succeeded. Let me know what you think in the comments.

See the whole collection at prints.levibethune.com

Isaiah is Three

Here is a little sneak-peek at our photo shoot with Isaiah this past weekend.

The sun was shining, and the park was empty. Perfect.

My plan is to take portraits of all my kids on or around their birthday every year. It will be a fun life-long experiment to see them grow up, and to see my photography evolve. I have more to share, but I need to set aside some time to process the rest of them. This one pretty much sums up the fun time we had at our first location.

This photo was taken with all natural light in the early fall afternoon clear skies and spotty shade make it a challenge. I'm employing a little different processing procedure than normal, but still keeping it vibrant and with the season.

Family Is Everything

This is a picture of the Soto kids during a recent family photo shoot.

Shot with my 15mm fisheye lens while laying on my back. Triggered a hot shoe flash with a pocket wizard that was laying on the ground next to my head, under a shoot-through umbrella that was stuck in the ground.

If you're looking for some fun family portraits before Christmas, I'm booking dates the weekend of Thanksgiving in Hampton Roads as well as December 14th through 17th.

More Hulking Out

In keeping with the previous montage, this is what happens when a young boy sees his friend take off his shirt and make intense faces. Clearly, Samo has had more practice than Isaiah, but there is still time.

Hulking Out

This is Sam. He has an incredible imagination, and if you know him, you know that the words "incredible" and "imagination" don't hold a candle to what Sam is really like.

Heather and I had just finished a little birthday session for Zoe when our kids' friends came to see what all the fuss was about. Naturally, they wanted to see themselves on the screen like Zoe as I was tethering the Nikon D200 to the Mac Pro via a new piece of software I'm trying out called Sofortbild.

I couldn't resist.

Sam, or Samo as we call him, loves The Incredible Hulk. Despite it looking like he's having pants trouble, in this photo, Samo is "hulking out". In his mind, he turns a deep shade of green, his muscles become huge, and his blue jeans turn into purple shorts.

But please don't tell him that his favorite Marvel character just got bought by the same company that brought us Hannah Montana. He'll probably hulk out for real, and you won't like him when he's angry.

Zoyenka, Age 1

This is the last post of Zoe for a while. It was her birthday on Friday, so I have to post photos online for the family, right?

A new tradition in the Bethune household is that I will be taking a portrait of my kids on each of their birthdays. While they are kids, it's for me and my wife, but when they get older, it will be for all of us, and when they become adults it will be for them. And when they get married, I'll use it to embarrass them. Because I love them.

Celebrating One Year

I gave Heather a hard time about going to great lengths to decorate a cake for Zoe's first birthday. I can imagine a baby would think of it as an edible punching bag, but Heather treated it like a wedding cake. It really was beautiful.

Every time I would say something about it, Heather would respond, "It's for me" and I would assume she meant that she was putting work into it because she wanted something to do, and perhaps that was the truth, but I realized something else.

Zoe doesn't care about her first birthday. She like the attention, she likes playing with toys, but she really don't understand the concept yet. To her, it's not unlike any other day. However, I can say with certainty that she understands the concept of treats and toys.

Heather, on the other hand, understands the idea of birthdays and anniversaries. Heather understands milestones and accomplishments. Zoyenka turning one-year-old yesterday had less to do about her age, and more to do with what Heather accomplished one year ago, and the 9 months prior.

I love one-year celebrations. "It was one-year-ago since..."

So, my wife had proper reason to go to infinite lengths to decorate the cake and to make it as special for her as possible. And then, we watch as Zoe smears it into oblivion.

Happy Birthday Zoyenka

This is a photo of my beautiful wife Heather holding our daughter Zoyenka a few hours after she was born exactly one year-ago, today.

First birthdays are less about the child, and more about the mother. And, about everyone's reaction to the baby digging into the cake.

Sand, Glorious Sand

Zay really likes getting his photo taken just so he can ham it up and then see himself on the back of the camera. And Zoe really likes to do whatever Zay is doing.

My kids, Isaiah (Zay) and Zoyenka (Zoe), right after we wrapped a photo shoot with a friend of mine at the Virginia Beach oceanfront.

Out The Window

I snapped this photo during a friend's wedding reception in downtown Norfolk, VA.

That is my brother Jared holding my son Isaiah.

18 years underage

This is my son Isaiah with his best friend in the south, Gill. I bought Isaiah a pack of candy cigarettes, and he's sharing them with his friend. I'm limiting him to a pack a week.

Gill belongs to Jordan and Kristi, and is one of the coolest kids I know.

This was shot on a rather sunny afternoon in the shade, lit with a soft box over my Alien Bees B800 and a Nikon SB-28 off to the right with a green gel providing some subtle rim light.

Brothers

This is Steve and his younger brother Jerry. We had just finished some family portraits and were having a little fun with poses, so Steve took the opportunity to teach his little brother how to make a "Hand Gun".

Shot with a Nikkor 85mm f/1.8 (at f/9) using an Alien Bees B800 through a 47" octabox from camera-right. A Nikon SB-28 Speedlight was set up with a shoot-through umbrella off the left side to give a little depth and knock some shadow away.

What An Honor

Last week, Chase Jarvis, one of my favorite photographers who I follow on Twitter, held a contest. With the arrival of the new iPhone 3GS, he was giving away his current iPhone 3G to the person with the best photo taken with a mobile phone. I entered. I didn't win.

Beside lauding due praise on the winning photo, Chase also chose 100 of his favorite images out of the 3500 submitted, and posted them in a gallery on his blog.

There are some amazing photos in there, one of which is a photo I took of Zoyenka, pictured above. I am very honored to have a photo of mine anywhere near Chase Jarvis' name, let alone on his website. It's a photo taken with a cellphone, and all the the photos in the gallery are, so it's just shows to go you*, it's not what you use, but how you use it.

(congrats to Omar, winner of the iPhone)

*Ten points if you can tell me what movie the phrase, "It just shows to go you..." is from.

Do What The Model Does

Isaiah loves to "help" at the photo shoots, but unfortunately he also like to trip over cables and knock over light stands.

During the first two shoots we had with Yuri and Christina, Isaiah felt the need to do exactly what the models were doing. It's his way of practicing for when it's his turn to be my test subject instead of his mother.

Turn On The Charm

This is Rachel, Justin's youngest sister.

She was always posing. I was taking pictures of her brother and there she was, hanging on to a pole, leaning back, and looking out into the vast expanse beyond. Turn the light, compose the shot, snap the photo. She's a natural. And she's 5 years-old.

This Is Justin

Justin is the oldest of four kids who are all actors. I had the pleasure of spending time with them for a couple hours in the hot Carolina sun as we took head shots and portraits in NoDa. We stuck to one street corner in the area of North Davidson and 36th street, but anyone who has been there will tell you, there is enough texture to go around.

The entire day I shot with one light to balance out the sun, and sometimes I used a shoot-through umbrella to knock the sun down. The breeze was welcome to the face, but the umbrellas and soft box didn't enjoy it as much. It was so amazingly hot and humid, but these kids did a great job, and they never complained about it.

Trask Family

This is a little sample of what Heather and I shot today. I love this family, they are so much fun to be around.

Cool It

At the Norfolk Zoo there are these fountains of water splashing up from the ground. These kids had the right idea on that Friday afternoon. It was about 80 degrees in the shade, and if I wasn't carrying a camera and wearing jeans, I just may have joined them.

Monkey See...

This is my beautiful niece Isabella getting the attention of a monkey at the Norfolk Zoo during our last family visit to Virginia.