This past Saturday, we had the honor and privilege to be invited to attend Genevieve’s baptism.  It was a small ceremony conducted at the same church where her parents were married.  I was asked to bring my camera to do a family portrait at the brunch afterward, but decided to bring it into the ceremony with me as well.  Am I glad I did!  The ceremony was very touching and I think Evan and Nicola will really enjoy having these images to look back on.

The ceremony was done at the back of the church near the large entry doors, one of which was left open.  This gave some very nice light and allowed me to get decent, relatively noise-free exposures atf/4 and ISO 500, with no external flashes.  (Didn’t want to interrrupt or distract from the ceremony).

The brunch afterward began about 11-ish, and by the time we came to portrait time, it was about 12:30.  We had very nice weather this weekend, which unfortunately for me meant that at portrait time, the sun was at full force overhead, with no clouds at all. Yikes! I had foreseen this as we were driving from the church to the house where brunch was served, so I started looking for shady spots with nice backgrounds as soon as we got there.  I found a couple different options, but the gazebo seemed the best since there were 8 adults plus the baby to get in the shot.  Set up a couple speedlights on stands, at ~45 degrees left and right with shoot-thru umbrellas and had at it.  I actually didn’t need a lot of light on them since the ambient was allowing a very nice exposure, but the umbrellas gave a little soft fill light, and added some nice catchlights in the eyes that I really liked.

Enjoy!