Family portraits

The start of a busy three weeks for me. Next week I'm off to Fort William, in the vain hope of repeating my previous success getting published. The week after that I've a brief holiday in Prague, combining a reunion with my cuz from California with a 70th birthday treat for my Dad. But this weekend it's another tryout for me, as I turn my hand to family portraiture.

When friend and workmate Tracy recently returned from maternity leave, I thought she and her young 'un might make for a good subject. Formal or semi-formal portraiture is something I've not really tried until now, but figured I'd better give it a go now I've splashed out so much on a decent portrait lens. She was dead keen when I put the idea to her, so I trotted out to her place where she and her family obligingly posed. We started off with a few indoor shots before her elder son returned home from school, and then the lot of us headed to a local park for some outdoors family snaps.

The results left me with... mixed... feelings. I took an unprecedented number of shots, filling one and a half 4GB CF cards over the four hours I was there, but my keeper rate was pretty miserable: roughly 20 out of over 500. Hopefully that'll be enough, and three or four of the best ones should find their way to Flickr.