Day 26

26/365, originally uploaded by Aaron LaRue.

I knew from day one that I wanted to do portraits of my grandparents as part of this project, and today I got to spend some time with my Grandma.


I love my grandparents. They are both great people, they are always there whenever you need them and they never ask for anything in return. For everything I do know about them, though, I know there are 4 things that I don't know. I came into their lives fairly late in the game, and I think the coolest part about doing these portraits was learning about their past. Today my grandma and I talked about my great-grandfather and how he ended up moving the family to California from Oklahoma when my grandma was 3 years old. My grandma has some cool stories, and it was great just to hang out with her. The best part is, she was a great model. I never had to pose her, I just snapped the shots off while we were talking, and I think they turned out great.


This set up was pretty straight forward. I used an umbrella with an SB-24 sitting above the camera as a key light, and then set up a bare SB-24 behind the backdrop shooting down on my grandma as a rim/hair light. Beauty lighting at its finest. I managed to grab a set-up photo of today's shoot, but it's kind of janky because the room was cramped...





Here you can see the umbrella in the top left corner and the flash poking out of the backdrop. The background is just a black sheet that I co-opted from my mom's closet, and the background stand was an ebay purchase. Everything is super DIY, but it works. 


None of this stuff is necessary, though. I could have just as easily went into the backyard and shot some natural light stuff and it would have looked good. The picture is secondary though, the experience is the important part. I would encourage everyone to do this. Hang out with your family, especially your grandparents, and take pictures. I'll have these pictures for the rest of my life, and the stories to go with it. If that's all that comes out of this project, I'd be more than happy.