I spent many nights trying to thinking of a way to squeeze a Mother’s Day portrait marathon into my schedule this year. Exhaustion (Dean, my little cuddlebug, I love you at 2am, 4am and 6am but would really like to sleep some day!!!) did not allow for that to happen. I decided to think outside the box and find a way to encourage all of you to try your hand at taking some of your own shots for Mother’s Day. My facebook casting call resulted in four photo shoots. During each of the short shoots, I coached a Dad through a mini photo shoot of his wife and child(ren.) My shots in are in black and white and the Dads’ shots are in color. The Dads’ shots are presented straight out of the camera with no cropping/color correcting/etc.

Nick and I spoke at length about filling the frame (i.e. when you look through the viewfinder what do you see) with the “action.” He took the concept one step further by getting close to his subjects…and then I asked him to get even closer. He produced a wonderfully intimate image of his wife, Julie, and their children.

I started Todd’s session by asking him to reflect on an everyday moment that he will look fondly upon is his golden years. We worked on photographing a glimpse of what bedtime stories look like in his mind’s eye. With some encouragement, Todd attempted to capture the moment by trying out a number of different angles. Todd did a great job of including just enough of the book in the frame to relate to the viewer that his girls were reading a story.

Bob spends a lot of time in front of the camera as Dana (my office manager extraordinaire) has become an enthusiastic photography hobbyist. When it came time to turn the tables, Bob was eager to learn a few tricks to take a good portrait of his girls. We worked on encouraging the girls to interact by bringing their heads close together. Next, we took the interaction one step further by asking them to snuggle and hug. I know that Dana loves the image he shot as it’s her facebook profile this week.

Finally, I worked with Clark to become more comfortable using his camera and shooting with purpose. His daughter Ruby is 10 months old and getting bigger every day. As parents, we often forget to photograph to show our kid’s physical size. I asked Clark to take a photo of Ruby’s hands in Tara’s hands. The resulting image allows us to see just how tiny her precious little hands are.

I have to say that I was quite pleased with the results of the experiment. All of the Dads walked away from the exercise with a sense of pride and accomplishment. Hopefully, a few of you will be inspired take out your cameras tomorrow and take a few photos of your family for Mother’s Day! Remember…fill the frame, get close, encourage your subject to touch, shoot an “everyday” moment and/or shoot for scale.