DIY Kids Photo Shoot

All I wanted for Mother’s Day this year was for my kids to cooperate for me to take their pics! Luke was 6 weeks old by time we got around to it but I LOVE them and am so glad we made it happen. 🙂

ALL FOUR KIDS LOOKING THE SAME DIRECTION AND HAPPY:

I’ve got a lot of tricks up my sleeve to make this happen, but they mostly consist of me making inappropriate noises and jumping around like an idiot. 😉

Despite all my tricks and best efforts we still had a few biting incidents! What am I going to do with this kid?

LOCATION:

I was planning on taking them at our house in Nebraska, just on our king size bed with white sheets and some natural light coming through the window. But…we don’t have a headboard yet because I cannot for the life of me decide what I want, and the walls are a weird white/lavender color. We are in the middle of moving and I’m staying with my parents in Utah for the month of June. They have a beautiful new home and a beautiful headboard! My Mom asked if I just wanted white sheets on the bed for the pictures and I told her yes. When I walked in and saw this GORGEOUS white bedspread my jaw dropped. Oh, ya know, just something she had in the closet. So perfect! And how beautiful is this sweet girl???

WHAT TO WEAR:

Because my husband has been between jobs for a couple months I decided we better go with what we had for clothes. Emma had this adorable plaid dress, which she wore for family pics last year, and it was perfect. I wanted to go with soft colors and am always drawn to blue. Levi had the blue polo and shorts and Linc had the white polo and aqua shorts handed down from his cousin who wore them last summer for family pics. I wasn’t sure what to put Luke in, but my Mom had bought him a set of onesies that included this white and grey striped one that I thought was just the thing.

EQUIPMENT I USED FOR THIS SHOOT:

These photos were shot with my Nikon D5100 and prime 55 mm lens. It was tricky to get back far enough with that lens and get all the kids in the frame but it is my favorite lens. The blurry background I get with this lens just makes me happy! I edit all my pictures using Lightroom and generally just adjust the lighting if needed, white balance and give them a contrast punch. To give the eyes a pop I use the adjustment brush tool and increase the clarity and exposure. One day I will take a photography and Lightroom course to figure out what I really should be doing. 🙂 This is one of my favorite pictures from the shoot. Our little Lincoln is 19 months old and is sure he is the center of the universe! This picture sums up our current family dynamic so perfectly. See how he is in focus and the other kids are blurred in the background, that’s the beauty of the 55mm lens…or so it seems.

Lincoln wasn’t thrilled about posing for pictures so I grabbed a book, Peter Rabbit, that my Mom happened to have on her dresser. How adorable is this picture? They really do love their little brothers and love to read to them.

LIGHTING:

The soft light coming in from the window to the left was so perfect. I always use natural light when I can. My parents windows are really big and the bed is back from the window so there was no direct light. Man, those are cute kids! I may be slightly biased though. 😉

INDIVIDUAL PICS:

Emma recently turned 12 and Levi turned 8 so we decided to do some individual pics of them as well. My sweet Emma is growing up so beautifully! We challenged ourselves to create a different hairdo each day this Summer and it has been so fun! You can check them out on Huckleberry Beauty on Facebook and Instagram. We would LOVE for you to follow us!

Emma has started wearing just a little makeup. We have the most incredible mascara from Maelle Beauty and the Cheeky Blush is our favorite! Go check out my site if you’re interested in high quality makeup and skincare! maellebeauty.com/mandymills

She is beautiful on the inside too and is SO MUCH help to me!

12 going on 20.

Levi has such a fun personality. I love this picture of him laughing.

This boy is sweet through and through. Everyone that knows him loves him.

And one more…

Lincoln was so much fun to photograph. This boy is BUSY! Good thing he is busy AND happy so we got some good shots. I basically had to have a pillow fight with him. He thought it was hilarious when I held the pillow up over my head.