So, apparently there is a thing called Texas Bluebonnet season. For a few weeks every year, large swaths of Texas are covered in these wild flowers, and taking pictures of people surrounded by them is a pretty big deal. Being a new Texan, of course I had to try it out, since family portraits in the blue bonnets seem to be a decent potential source of income if I can learn to do them well. My favorite model happened to hear that there was a field them right next to a local skate park that my son likes to play on, and it was a perfect overcast day, so we piled the family and the camera kit into the car and off we went. I knew I would want to play with depth of field, and would definitely want to be shooting a lot wide open, so I figured I would need to use a ND filter then add some fill flash off camera to light my models. Once we got a good setup, I would use the remote, jump into the frame, and get some family shots with me in frame as well. The day; however, had other plans. Here's what I learned.
Main Lesson: Your models all have to be onboard with the concept. I was into it, so was my wife. Trouble is the kids weren't. Our son saw his skate park next door and wanted to skate. Our daughter thought it was too cold may have been a little bit hungry. Needless to say, neither was very excited about posing in the blue bonnets.
I abandoned the idea of setting up the remote flash and just shot what I could with available light and high shutter speeds to open the aperture up. Our son had enough and headed to the skate park and was much happier there.
The ladies hung a little bit longer and we found a sheltered spot under a small tree with purple flowers.
The little one did a bit better with mom standing and rocking her, but still wasn't really having it, so they went back to the car and had a snack while I packed up all the gear I didn't get to use. Before we called it a day completely, I got a few shots of our (now much happier) son playing.
So, overall, pretty unsuccessful first attempt at shooting in the blue bonnets. We're looking for a chance to go again before the season ends, especially since the weather has been damp and cool enough that the bloom should be a bit larger now than it was then. Here's my takeaways:
1- Make sure your subjects are all having a good time and want to shoot. Keep some sort of bribery/toys/etc in the kit to force some smiles in cases of emergencies. Maybe a cooler full of ice cream and cookies in the trunk?
2- Available light is nice, but I definitely could have used a fill. If I would have had the time to set up the remote fill flash, shots would have been better, especially given that my main model was wearing a cowboy hat. Alternatively, I could have used a reflector, but given that it was overcast and I didn't have an assistant, the flash would have been the way to go.
3- The big one- I should have brought a stepladder or kitchen step with me so I could get higher up and shoot at more a downward angle, this would have let me get the effect of having my subjects surrounded by the flowers, instead of them mainly being visible in the foreground.
4- Color is a big deal on these shoots. I should have taken the time to do a color checker shot so I could make a custom profile and white balance in post. I usually do, but again, when two kids are screaming, things tend to get sloppy and corners tend to get cut.
That was my first attempt at blue bonnet shoots. I expect the next one will get me a little bit better results, in the meantime maybe I will get around to discussing some storage solutions that do work, unlike the last post about one that doesn't.
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