Post-processing was very quick – I simply imported everything into Lightroom, then cropped and aligned images a little. For the black and white image below, I used Lightroom’s built in functionality for converting to B&W. Under the HSL/Color/B&W panel in Develop Module, I used the following values: Red: 0, Orange: +3, Yellow: 0, Green: -20, Aqua: -35, Blue: -30, Purple: +5, Magenta: +5. To give it a slightly “chocolaty” look, I used “Split Toning” with a slight coloring to Shadows and some tweaks to Hue and Saturation. Then, I used “Strong Contrast” under “Tone Curve” to make B+W look punchier, but it was not enough, so I increased the “Blacks” to 25 under “Basic” to bring up more blacks.

The day was sunny and nice, but the sun was still rather harsh, so I moved the kids under the porch to move away from direct sunlight. As usual, I shot in aperture priority mode and used an aperture of f/3.5, since I was standing rather close and I did not want to blur their faces. At the same time, f/3.5 was small enough to bring the bodies into focus and large enough to blur some of that background :)

This time, I decreased the aperture to f/1.8 to have a shallower depth of field, so Maz got out of focus a little…Plus I was more interested in Uma’s facial expression rather than snapping another shot of them together in focus.

For the rest of the images, I used an aperture of f/2.5 (I like to stay between f/1.8 and f/2.8 on the 50mm for good-looking bokeh), which delivers sharp images in the center, yet blurs the background enough to make the portraits look pleasing.

As you can see, all of the images were taken in a shade – I rarely work with sunlight, unless the light is very soft early in the mornings or late afternoons.

That’s how we decided to pica boo with Uma!!!

…and Maz decided to join :) but then he didn’t like this game much! He is a big man now, with a shovel :)

When it comes to photography, some children are very eager to pose in front of a camera and others are somewhat difficult to work with. Trust me, I know how it feels to work for hours and not get one decent picture. I have two sons of my own and up to this day I do not have a single good picture of them – nothing to be proud of, since both Nasim and I are photographers :)  Maz was no exception – boys like mine and Maz would rather go do some interesting stuff than pose in front of a camera. Nothing helps, unless you are equipped with extra toys, balloons and lollipops that I usually carry. My heavens, when I was photographing Uma and Maz, I forgot everything at home! To get these kids to look at me, I had to get creative by blowing a bubble with the gum in my mouth! Yeah, children do not mind if you chew bubble gum in front of them :) Whatever you have to do as a photographer to get their attention…

My wish did come true! You can cross the part about having a daughter though :) Erin contacted me asking to photograph her two beautiful children, Madison and Tyler. There goes the saying about wishing and them wishes coming true! Maybe one day I will have a baby girl after all… Until then, enjoy some of the images I took of Madi and handsome Tyler!

We went to beautiful Castle Rock to catch some amazing light and red rocks. Although there was a concert that day, we managed to sneak into the park to take some pictures.

Initially Madi was in a bad mood. Yes adults, try to take a nap when you are awaken shortly after. How would you feel? :) Madi and I talked a lot that day. We talked about princesses, dresses, chocolate, lollipops, love, mommy, little brothers, etc. She is a very smart girl and smart children need the right approach. I think I did find the right approach to her that day. As you can see she agreed to strike a couple of poses for me!

How about the puppy? Very cute!

Tyler was such a great sport. He started smiling and giggling right after he woke up from a nap. Adorable!

Little monster boy! Grrrrr, he says. Them monsters are not always scary, you know. There are some cute ones like Tyler!

Remember, I said we talked about Princesses? This was the reason! I knew somewhere down there Madi was keeping a little secret herself. She is a little princess :P

Here comes the lollipop and a tiny castle. Trust me, it is work in progress.

This little puppy is too special for Madi. It was Erin’s (Madi’s mommy) snuggly puppy when she was growing up.

Tyler with his grandma! Don’t they look alike?

I love you Erin, Madi, Tyler and Mimi. I hope you enjoy the images. Happy Birthday Madi! :)

We had a blast while photographing Sofia. It turns out, she is a very busy bee!  Nevertheless, she posed for me in between collecting sweetness around her  and made me one happy photographer :D

As I went along photographing, I found out that Sofia changes roles from a bee to a little fairy. Isn’t she adorable? :)

Love her! I hope you enjoy the images as much as I did.

This image was shot with natural light, early in the morning in the beginning of the session:

When you are shooting during the day with the sun directly above, spotting nice shady locations and utilizing a reflector to reflect some light into the subject’s face can work wonders. Most of the images below are shot with the Nikkor 50mm f/1.4G that we are giving away tomorrow.

Another image shot with the help of silver reflector:

The above image is my favorite from the entire photo shoot.

Malika, I will miss you dearly and I can’t wait to take your pictures when you come back to Colorado!

Time for the technical stuff. All of the images below were shot in natural light. Luckily, the weather cooperated and we had some nice clouds diffusing the sunlight for me. Where the sun was too bright I looked for shaded areas – mostly under trees and near buildings. Having a fast prime lens also helps a lot when you have to shoot in the shade without artificial light. So, for this shoot, I mostly used the Nikon 50mm f/1.4G mounted on the D700. ISO was pretty much kept at 200. Shutter speed varied according to availability of the light. The EXIF Data is preserved in all images, so feel free to explore the settings and let me know if you have any questions!

Post-processing is minimal, imported with standard settings and made very quick changes in Lightroom for some of the above images.

This particular picture was shot with the Nikon D700, Nikkor 85mm f/1.4D @ 1/3200, ISO 200 at f/1.8, almost wide open. I really love the bokeh and contrast the 85mm f/1.4D produces and it really is one heck of a lens for portraits! Along with the 50mm f/1.4G, this is my top used lens for what I do. I took this picture early in the morning using natural light, so no reflectors or off-camera flash were used.

Stay tuned for more tips from this photo shoot and for more amazing pictures of Isadora!

Here is the picture that started my journey into photography:

I remember the day when I received it. Lola said that Omar started to smile and it was her attempt to capture the moment. It drove me nuts that such a beautiful picture turned out to be so blurry and we both agreed that we desperately needed a professional camera to capture those kinds of moments. Little did we know back then that it was the light and our technique, not the camera, that caused the above image to be blurry :)

Long story short, I came home and after a couple of hours of research, bought our first DSLR – Nikon D80 kit with an 18-135mm f/3.5-5.6 lens.

So, what is your story and what got you started in photography?

Before I go on to write about the photo shoot I just want to tell all of you how delighted I am to know Laura, mommy of Uma and Maslin. She is so sincere and absolutely lovely! Laura, if you are reading this, I want you to know that I am glad that I met you and I am looking forward to many, many photo shoots and play dates with you and your adorable children.

Knowing how much I love to cook and take pictures of my dishes Laura bought me an amazing book with a lot of citrusy recipes! I can’t wait to get my hands on the book and do my own wonders in the kitchen. Thank you for being such a wonderful person!

Here are a few adorable shots from today. I love these kids! Their expressions are just priceless, for everything else, there is MasterCard :)

I thought it would be fun if we pulled away from the white background with the splash of color. Fruits and baskets came in handy. I am sure Uma and Mas enjoyed bouncing and biting the fruits :) They are such cooperative precious individuals. I just want to kiss those cheeks up.  Aunty Lola loves you!

Hey there handsome boy :)

Sister and brother hug!

Seeing happy kids makes we want to have a third one. Kids are life!

Click “Continue Reading” to see lots of cool photos of vampires, zombies and other cool characters!

We started out by taking pictures of families with kids:

Her mommy:

Then, we met our first interesting character, who was dressed as Christ:

Then a penguin:

With a piggy:

And their friend:

Then, we met Steve, who was dressed as a cardinal. He turned out to be a photographer himself :)

He had one of the best-looking costumes and I asked him to pose several times for me.

Sailor:

Pokahontas and Waldo:

This next costume of a spider was definitely the best costume I have ever seen in my life. Apparently, the lady that was wearing it is actually the creator of the costume and she runs a costume-design company in Boulder. People couldn’t resist and were constantly asking her for a photo. I was able to convince her to come over to our spot and pose for us:

Wow, what an expression!

Next, an Indian girl visited us:

With her bunny friend:

A headless horseman posed for us a few times as well:

Then, we were visited by a couple of clowns:

Happy kids:

These guys were definitely some of the best vampires we saw that day. They covered themselves in blood and did everything they can to look real.

Spiderman:

And his “captain” mommy:

More kids with fun ideas:

And more vampires:

This guy was my favorite! He got into his character better than anybody else and was refreshing his mouth with “blood” to get the perfect shot.

He definitely nailed this one and it is definitely the picture of the day!

Other interesting characters, including the “Broccoli” man, who had real broccoli attached to his head:

These guys showed up a little later and posed for us as a group:

Lots of fun characters, so I asked some of them to pose for us in smaller groups. We started out with sexy cops:

Then a priest with a pregnant nun:

Then zombies (they were everywhere):

Then dark knights from LOTR:

And finally a cop with his prisoner:

Our photography show was then stolen by a big group of zombies, who performed Michael Jackson’s “Thriller” zombie dance. It was another tribute to Michael Jackson, similar to the ones you’ve probably seen on Youtube.

They did a really good job and really energized the crowd around them:

By the time I collected my gear, there were 5-6 rows of people in front of me, so all I could do was set my camera to Auto ISO, raise the camera as high up as I could and shoot – that’s why these pictures came out blurry.

Happy Halloween!

Here Uma is in process of demonstrating her bubble blowing skills to her brother Maz.

She is good! She really tried to peek into the lens from that tiny hole. Well done, Uma!

Maz is such a character. I love the way he looks at the camera so seriously.

Snack time!!! Uma trying to feed Maz :)

This is my favorite picture of the day. Don’t you just love the expression on her face?

I call this picture “Oh, I am such a Cinderella. I lost my shoe again.” Love it!

Blasting it out with some of the last leaves of the fall.

I am wrapping up my night on a very happy note. Children always make my day!!!