Family Photos from the Valentine Banquet

Last weekend, we had the honor of photographing people at our church’s annual Young-at-Heart Valentine Banquet. This dinner is for those who are 65 and up, and it is hosted by our youth group. There is usually a photo location for couples or individuals to have their photos made, and that is what we were in charge of.

Of course, I know nothing about backdrops for things such as that. Just slap some cupids on the wall and put some balloons on each side and I’m good. Fortunately, Laura volunteered to come up with something, and after some Pinterest searches and a trip to the fabric store, she came up with a backdrop of red and silver shiny material. The setup was pretty simple because we hung it from a bar stuck to the wall with those handy Command hooks. Relatively easy to put up, really easy to take down, and easy to save and reuse another time if we want to.

So, here we are, the whole Burns family:

Not a bad looking group, if I do say so. And somewhat color-coordinated, too. We didn’t necessarily plan that, but of course most everyone wears some shades of red or pink to an Valentine Banquet, so of course our colors would match.

Here is Jaylin with his great-grandmother. I didn’t know if she would have had her picture made on her own, so I mentioned to Laura that she should go over and ask her to have her picture made with Jaylin. Laura got Jaylin to go ask her himself, and she jumped up and headed right over to the photo location with him. I guess you just have to get the right person to ask sometimes. And she is still looking good for a 91-year old!

And here is one more, this time of just the two of us. This one was actually early on when we were testing out the lighting and the backdrop and everything. And thanks to my remote shutter button for the camera, it is pretty easy to be in my own photos sometimes, although I don’t do that all that often. And I guess we could have been centered on the backdrop a little better, but we were just guessing where to stand, so that’s okay.

Show proper respect to everyone, love the family of believers, fear God, honor the emperor. - 1 Peter 2:17

About the Photo

While I have gotten into the habit of using my Olympus camera for most of my shooting these days, for this event I went back to the Canon 60D, for whatever reason. The Olympus would have done just as well, I believe, but I have used the Canon for things such as this before, and I knew how I wanted to set everything, so that’s why I used it. Although I put the Olympus camera in the car, just as a backup.

I also used a remote flash setup for this, because I think that light looks much better than an on-camera flash. I would go into more detail about that here, but it might take a little while. So instead, I will save that for a Steve’s Photography Tips post - watch for it soon!

Photo: A single Raw exposure, processed in Photoshop. Read more about photography tips, photo software, camera gear, and more at Steve’s Photography Tips.
Camera: Canon EOS 60D
Lens: Canon EF-S 18-55mm
Date: February 13, 2016
Location: Bartlett Woods Church of Christ, Arlington, Tennessee