Ottawa kids | Ottawa Photographer – Family, Children and Engagement by Danielle Lynn Photography

I have a confession. The title of this post is actually hilariously misleading. Like any time I photograph young children, I showed up to A and R’s photo session fully expecting to be met with some age-appropriate apprehension, shyness and a whole lot of running around on my part. But once we got going, these two boys were actually a real treat! Dare I say, some of the easiest kids this age that I’ve ever photographed! For some in the 5 and under age range, having their photo taken can really be a tough sell. And I get it. Adult or child, I don’t know too many people who actually enjoy having a stranger stick a giant lens in their face and then be expected to act natural! But these two totally rocked it out and made my job soooooo easy! I barely broke a sweat!

A big thanks to their lovely Grandma for having me out to do these photos in her beautiful back yard. I’m so glad the family is enjoying the photos and I hope we have the opportunity to do these again in the future!

If you are interested in having your own family or kids photographed by Danielle Lynn Photography, please get in touch! With fall officially here it’s prime time to get outside and capture some fun family moments in amongst those gorgeous colours!

One of the best things about photographing my own kids is that it’s one of the rare times I can be truly creative and experimental. I find that with client work I’m less inclined to take on-the-spot risks. It’s not that I never do, it’s just that with my kids I always feel more free to make mistakes since they aren’t exactly paying. 😉 I can shoot and shoot and shoot as many frames as I like. Some things will work, some will not, but that’s how I learn. And now that they are finally at an age where they actually enjoy letting me take photos, it makes it that much easier for me. Dare I say even fun sometimes 😉

I shot most of these indoor images using my 50mm 1.4 lens, which is not usually my lens of choice. I wanted these to have a very shallow depth of field though so I shot with the aperture wide open at 1.4 (the lower the aperture, the blurrier the background and the smaller the area in focus). Shooting this way, particularly with fast moving kids is usually not a good idea. And I’m not gonna lie…I came away from this experience with a number unusable shots since it’s extremely easy to miss your focus with a depth of field this shallow. What I love about these though is the fact that they represent a creative risk. In this case, it’s one that feel that it paid off because I’m happy with how the images came out. But even if they hadn’t, they still represent something that I see so few people actually doing in photography today. Taking risks, whatever they may be, and despite any imperfections, just putting it out there for the world to see. Generally speaking I live my life pretty safely (I really need to work on that ;)). But I’m glad I have an outlet like photography that let’s me step outside of myself every once in a while.

My kids love the library. So today we took some time out to just enjoy a couple of hours at our local branch. With the start of school less than a week away for my kids, we’re trying to squeeze as many day time activities in as possible! On our way back to the car I couldn’t resist snapping a few fun photos against the brick wall. It’s funny how you can walk by a place a million times and see absolutely nothing. But given the right moment/mood/day it can suddenly be inspiring. That’s definitely what happened here. 🙂

Hope everyone with kiddos are enjoying what’s left of summer! To book your family or children’s session with me, contact me today! It’s still only August but I literally only have a handful of dates left for September and October!