Hattie the Cuttie - Chicago Baby Portraits

I was really pumped for this baby portrait session. You see, my wife and I are great friends with Hattie's parents. I have photographed their little Henry before. We were so excited to hear the news when they told us they were pregnant! My wife and I were both like "No way! Congrats! I hope you guys have a girl!" Well, I wanted them to have a baby girl. They already had a boy, so a girl would bring balance to their family :)

Here are a few of my favorite portraits of the new born shoot:

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Set-Up

  • Nikon D700 - shooting in RAW
  • Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8
  • Nikon 50mm f/1.4
  • Alien Bee strobe with medium softbox
  • Pocket Wizards (2)
  • White sweep with natural light
  • Adobe Lightroom 2 for editing

    • Rock On! info@ottorascon.com | my portfolio | facebook | twitter | 773.430.4785

    By The Way: The power of the strobe was beginning to make little Hattie fidget, so I decided to only use the modeling lamp of the strobe to get a handful of images. I switched to my 50mm f/1.4 lens and went to town :)

    Cute Sibling Portraits - Chicago Family Portraits

    Jennifer and Vanessa were high school friends. I photographed Vanessa's wedding earlier this year. Jennifer saw Vanessa's wedding photos and really liked them. So she emailed me wanting some family photos and set up a family portrait session. I love how these connections are made. Okay, that was a really quick intro on how I came to meet Jennifer and her family. They are a really warm and loving family from Downers Grove with two amazingly beautiful children. The little girl and her baby brother both made my job pretty easy as they smiled and allowed me to take their portraits. Having a 2 year old has helped so much in preparing for kid portraits. You have to be quick and ready for anything that they throw your way.

    I really love photographing families out in different outdoor environments. But there is something very special about going into the families home and photographing them in their home environment. Here are a handful of my favorite photos from this family shoot:

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    My many thanks to Jennifer and her family for having me photograph them. It is such a privilege to meet new families and for them to allow me into their lives. I hope to see them again soon.

    Set-Up

  • Nikon D700 - shooting in RAW
  • Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8
  • Nikon 50mm f/1.4
  • Alien Bee strobe with medium softbox
  • Pocket Wizards (2)
  • 36" silver reflector for natural light portraits
  • Adobe Lightroom 2 for editing

    • Rock On! info@ottorascon.com | my portfolio | facebook | twitter | 773.430.4785

    By The Way: Have a plan A, B, and C when photographing young children. You just never know which plan will work best.

    Hi-Key Little Beauty - Chicago Child Portraits

    Is there anything more cute and amazing than seeing a baby smile? I don't think there is. I became really interested in baby portraits the second I knew my wife and I were going to have our daughter. Since then I have had the privilege to have taken so many of my families, friends, and clients baby photos. I have traveled to Wicker Park, Downers Grove, Orland Park, and other places and into peoples houses and lives. So my many thanks to you all! Here are a handful of images from one of my latest baby portrait sessions. This cute little baby girl is probably one of the best babies I have photographed in recent memory. I don't recall her crying at all, or even fusing. We wanted to do her first year pictures and some Christmas pictures, but that might have been too aggressive of a plan. We ended up breaking up the portrait session into 2 sessions. Her parents were so cool about doing so and brought her over the following week. It was a bit of a challenge to select the images to post just because she had such a great smile most of the time.

    [gallery columns="1" size="large" orderby="title"]

    Set-Up

  • Nikon D700 - shooting in RAW
  • Nikon 80-200mm f/2.8
  • Alien Bee strobes - 2 on the background and 1 on my model. Note: the background was about 10 feet away from my model. Any closer and the light reflecting from the white seamless would enter the lens and create some contrast issues.
  • Pocket Wizards (2)
  • White Seamless background
  • Small white table for baby to sit on. Her father was just behind her.
  • Adobe Lightroom 2 for editing

    • Rock On! info@ottorascon.com | my portfolio | facebook | twitter | 773.430.4785

    By The Way: Shooting hi-key images is so much tougher than you think!