Being on the road for most of the month of May, there wasn’t enough time to create a video to demonstrate how I would shoot the next Shoot to Serve photo assignment. However, I did take some photos that I can share about! Having spent some time with Julianna’s family this week, it wasn’t hard to ask her and a couple of her siblings to pose for me as they were going about filling special niches in life.

I learned some things as I shot this assignment, so I hope sharing them here will help you as you set your sites on fulfilling this assignment over the next month!

Homemaker

It’s a special calling to fulfill the responsibilities of maintaining and operating the home! To capture this, I asked Lydia (who happened to be home for the day) to pose for me in the kitchen cooking up something yummy.

First, I determined where I would take the photo. Then, I cleaned up the area and set up some props to cover up things in the background like electrical outlets. Lydia changed into an outfit that wouldn’t look busy and put on an apron. Then she got out all the ingredients for her peanut butter balls while I got out my camera and determined what lens I would use.

At first I was going to use a telephoto lens to make the background as blurry as possible. I could do this by shooting through the kitchen door from the foyer. However, I soon realized that this position prohibited me from being able to use bounce flash for my photo. From on top of my camera, the speedlite (I used the Canon 430EX for this photo assignment) would fire in the foyer, illuminating the wrong room.

So first, I started without any flash. As you can see below, the natural light from the kitchen windows actually didn’t look too bad:

But I really wanted to use the flash. It would help make the background darker and subject lighter. So, I switched to my 24-70mm and just stood as far away from the subject as I could.

My first attempt at bouncing the flash didn’t work too well:

Not only was I failing to make the background darker than the subject, there was also a hard shadow behind the subject! These two problems came from bouncing the light up, to the right, and forward. What I needed to do was bounce the light up, to the right, and backward.

So I stepped forward a little more and repositioned the speedlite to bounce properly. I should have increased the power of the flash more (so that Lydia would pop off the background more), but what I was getting wasn’t too bad at all. I snapped away while Lydia experimented with various natural, happy expressions. I also had her step to the side and face at an angle to the camera to make the subject feel more relaxed and the photo less formal.

A happy camper helped make the mood in the room feel fun and authentic too. 🙂

Mechanic

I wanted to photograph more than just one subject. This photo assignment is so varied. It wasn’t hard to shoot, even though it was photographing people. When Julianna’s brother pulled in after a hard day of lawncare work, I asked if I could photograph him as he was doing some maintenance on his mower and truck.

You know what I found out? It takes a whole lot less time to photograph something if you don’t have to go through the work of setting things up! The photoshoot with Lydia took almost an hour. With Jonathan, he was already in his work clothes. He already had the mower out. There was already grass clippings piled up everywhere. His tools were there. He was already on a mission. All I had to do was take pictures as he worked!

Of course, I did ask him to pause now and then. Or look at the camera. Or pretend he was excited about such and such. This wasn’t purely a documentary shoot. And I’m sure it took him a little longer to do his work with me around than if I wasn’t there. But because he wasn’t on a deadline, it worked out very well, and it turned out to be a great way to spend some time together.

Farm Girl

After finishing up with Jonathan, I had an idea pop into my head for my third setup!

Here at the Bennett’s house, chickens contentedly roam around the yard throughout the day and we have fresh eggs for breakfast just about every morning. What if I were to photograph someone gathering eggs out in the chicken coop?! It’s not something I have the opportunity to photograph every day. And I thought it would be unique. With braided hair and a flannel shirt, Julianna would make the perfect subject!

At first, I thought this would be an easy concept to capture. But when I went outside with Julianna to get started, I realized it was super dark in the chicken coop! I couldn’t use bounce flash because the ceiling and walls were not white. And putting together a whole lighting setup would take a while.

But that’s when I noticed the new little contraption Daniel had recently made for the chickens to lay eggs in. The place where you gather eggs was actually now outside the chicken coop! And would you believe it? After being cloudy all day, the sun was just now starting to peek out and shafts of light just happened to be streaming right down on the lid of the new egg box. It was perfect!

The only thing we had to do was catch a chicken to use as a prop. 🙂

The ideal circumstances only lasted for a short time. But that’s all that I needed to get the shot!

Thank you, Easter, for posing so nicely for us. 🙂

Now It’s Your Turn!

Like I said, even though people are the subjects of our photos this time, it shouldn’t be that difficult to find folks in your life who enjoy fulfilling the niche that they work in from day to day. Make sure to get all the details here as there are some specifics you’ll need to know about. But overall, it should be a pretty easy photo assignment! Have fun, be creative, and I’ll looking forward to seeing what you all come up with!