Jody McKitrick » ody McKitrick is a lifestyle portrait family and child photographer located in Northern Virginia.

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This session is a little different for me.  I really wanted to practice using my Contax. I had been (still am) too nervous to bring it to a full-fledged session, so I decided to set up a practice session where I could… ummm… make that thought… I could control all the variables. First, I found the location which is AMAZING. It’s only about a mile from my house. A little background on that. I had hired a personal organizer (Nina) to help me with a project at my house. She is amazing and I highly recommend her if you are in the NOVA area (email me for info). As we worked on my house project, we talked a lot about our mutual love of interior design. She told me that she rented a carriage house of a larger house and that I should come see her place sometime. Well, I did and I about died… it looks like it should be in Elle Decor magazine. I asked her if she thought I could do a session there. I originally wanted to do a session with her, but she is camera-shy (silly beautiful girl) and wasn’t up for that, but she asked the owners and they said yes (thank you dear owners!). The next step was finding models. I knew I wanted sisters but I wanted the girls to be a little older and I wanted them to be close. After a few days of wracking my brain I thought of the perfect girls who live half-way between the location and my house. Not only are they sisters, but they are twins and they have that bond that only twins can have. (Side note: Nina is a twin and her older sisters are identical twins too!) Oh, and not to mention, the girls I had in mind are beautiful. So, I had the location and the okay from the Mom of the girls. I decided to take it a step further and even purchased clothes (the girls are just a little older than my daughter so I knew she would wear them later). After nailing down a date, we were set. Now all I had to do was… NOT SCREW IT UP.

So, the day of the session, I was nervous, but mostly excited. All I had to do was pick up my kiddos from camp, go home, get my things together and then pick up the girls. Well… while picking up my kids from camp a young camp counselor pulled out in front of my car as I was exiting the school and really did a doozy on my car. It was banged up badly. I was flustered. And angry. Because of this I was totally off schedule and did I mention that I was flustered… and angry? Not the way you want to go into a session. Oh and on top of that, I was now late. I didn’t want to reschedule the session because it took me forever to get this set up, so we decided just to go for it. What else could go wrong? Well, since you asked… we began shooting first in Nina’s carriage house when we heard this strange noise outside in the kitchen. Was someone home? Uh no… that would be a BIRD flying around in the house. Fantastic. So, after a bit of time, I managed to actually capture the bird and take it outside. Alright, let’s try this again… we go outside and continue shooting. I forgot to mention I am a really slow shooter when it comes to using my Contax. I think I meter like 10 times before I take the shot and that is only after 10 times of refocusing. I’m painfully slow. So, we are shooting again and suddenly my camera stops working. Are you kidding me? “Check the battery,” the girls say. “No it can’t be the battery. I just changed it,” I replied.  Fiddle, fiddle, fiddle. “Maybe it’s the battery?” one of the girls says again. “No, it’s not the battery,” I reply starting to panic. Fiddle fiddle. Finally after what seems like forever, I decide I’m just going to try a new battery…. even though I’m POSITIVE it’s not the battery. Ya, it was the freakin battery. Sigh.

So, this was a bit of a crazy session. We didn’t have near as much time as I wanted and I never really found “my groove” (see flustered above) but I know I couldn’t have picked a better location or more perfect girls. Aren’t they stunning? They were so cute coming up with all sorts of ideas. I did use my digital camera for part of the session because I wanted to make sure some of the photos turned out. I LOVE shooting my Contax. Absolutely love it. They come out of the camera looking beautiful (the film photos above have VERY minor edits). I really would love to switch to film but right now I need to be better at it. The main problem is I am too slow and I think I lose that connection I have with my subjects because I am too worried about metering/focusing. In addition, it is NOT cheap. I about died when I sent all my rolls of film in this summer and got my bill. Ouch. That could have been used towards a new lens. So, if I am going to switch to film, I better make sure I am getting the type of photos I need to justify the cost.

I am looking forward to practicing more film and I would love to do more styled sessions like this with my clients. I still love lifestyle sessions, but I think this will be another fun option. If anyone is interested (Anyone? Bueller?), please send me an email and we can come up with something fun for your session. I have all sorts of sessions in mind that I hope to post later. Actually, I am working with the amazing photographer Anne Scherrer on styling my own family session coming up at the end of October. You can take a peek here at my Pinterest board. I’ll definitely share those photos when Anne finishes them.

Phew that was long. If you made it this far, thanks for reading! I think over the next few weeks (if I can get organized enough) I’ll just post random photos here and there from this summer and not write anything. I think this has been long enough. I have some sessions to post too.

Oh and finally… Nina, I AM going to get you in front of the camera one of these days.