It was truly an honor to witness a small community gather together at Briarwood Day Camp in Buckingham, PA in celebration of Ethan Toohey’s bravery during his ongoing 5 year battle with cancer. With luck, the event was able to avoid the predicted forecast of rain and everyone stayed dry – except for the volunteers in the dunk tank. Even with the questionable forecast, around 900 or 1,000 people showed up for the fundraiser. I can only hope that the images captured can help share the story of the day – of the laughter, family, fun, friends, music, food, and good company.

The images are available for sale with all profits going to the Toohey Family Fund.

(Edited to add: 16-Jun-2011)
If you want to just make a donation to the Toohey Family Fund through Matt MacLean Photography without purchasing images, just click the button below:

Here are a couple of shots from the day…after the 6 minute video of about 150 images.

(If you don’t see the video below, click this link)

As I was driving down the long tree-lined driveway on the way to the photo shoot, I had a few concerns. First, it’s hot – like 95 degree hot, so I was scanning the property for shaded areas where I could shoot the kids without them getting completely fried from the late afternoon sun. My second concern was having three excited kids running around all in different directions (herding cats) and having only a few minutes to capture some images of 2 year old Dash before a potential crash and burn. Having two kids of my own, I am sensitive to the possible volatility of a two year old. Lastly, would I be able to work with 10 year old Nico? Has he reached the age where he is “too cool” for a family photo session? If so, what kind of magic can I pull out of my bag to be able to have enough of a connection with him to get a few good shots?

There wasn’t much I could do about the heat. We found some shade. That’s about it. As for the 3 kids running in all different directions? Yup. That happened. And it felt like herding cats but we were able to manage a few group shots. My last concern about working with Nico was a complete waste of energy. He was awesome and seemed to really have a good time with the shoot. There were a couple of times, when I was just working with him individually (when his siblings were having a snack break) that we were both cracking up so much I couldn’t shoot. I probably missed some good shots of him laughing…oh well, we were having fun. The hammock images of him really illustrate his willingness to just have fun while I was shooting.

The surprise of the day was Amalie. She was so excited to have the photo shoot that she had created some poses ahead of time. Every time I pointed the camera to her, she struck a cat-walk pose – hip kicked to one side, arms crossed with her hands on opposite shoulders, a head tilt, complete with a “cheeeeese” smile! Of course, I shot those images – and showed her the images on my camera. It was adorable…but we needed to get some natural smile (no cheeeeeeeese) images or else we wouldn’t have any print-worthy images of her. We got some good images of the kids throwing rocks, and running around, but Amalie’s eyes are ridiculously blue and amazing that I knew I had to get some closeup portraits – without the cheeeeeese. As everyone was heading back up the driveway, I was able to get Amalie by herself for a few minutes in front of a spring house on their property. In that 5 minute period of time, I got some of the best images of the day. She was so comfortable and relaxed that the natural expressions came through and we got those eyes!

Sometimes it’s funny how life can toy with you. You fret about the things that turn out to be nothing, and get surprised by situations that don’t even appear on the radar. And the most challenging situations can yield the best results.

We got some decent images, had a lot fun while shooting, and the kids were polite, kind, playful, and responsive (and photogenic!). It was an awesome day!

Here are a few images from the shoot…

Last Thursday, I had the pleasure of playing documenting a few moments in the lives of Sky and Lark (and their pup Huck). The setting was their backyard and the hundreds of wooded acres just on the other side of their fence.

As always, there were a few obstacles to overcome including 30 mile per hour wind gusts, Huck on the loose in the woods (and then jumping all over us in his excitement to have new friends), and Goldfish crackers.

But sometimes, you have to use obstacles to your advantage and make them assets – or at least, not let them be show-stoppers – and to not show that you are freaking out in your head thinking, “how on Earth am I going to get any good shots today?! The dog is going nuts chasing the kids and jumping on me, the kids are covered in Goldfish crackers since they’re hungry. Darn! The dog just ran through the fence into the woods – and the kids are trying to follow…and the wind just blew the reflector away…and THERE’S A GOOD SHOT – but wait, he’s holding a GoldFish bag!!!”

Breathe. And laugh. Let go of the need to control the uncontrollable and just have fun with it! (Oh, and find the dog).

Huck came back. I photoshopped most of the crumbs away. The wind made for some really interesting dynamic looks for the kids. And we got some good shots…

The kids listened really well and weren’t intimidated (at all) at being in front of the camera (or by me). Having my daughter Maddy along helped, as well. Not just from a “hold the reflector right there” type of help, but by being my liaison and facilitating the process by engaging with the kids and playing. We didn’t do many poses, just some positioning here and there…overall, we just played and had fun. Kids being kids.

Here are a few images from the day…

Click the thumbnails in the gallery above…check them out. Those were all captured (except for the shot of her holding a camera) by my 9 year old daughter Madison at the Lafayette vs Holy Cross NCAA baseball game the other day.

We went through the editing process together last night, which was “painful” for her since we culled the images down to 18 from around 300. I did help her with the post processing (ok, ok…I did all of the post processing, but it was minimal, and she was sitting next to me)

As mentioned in my previous post, on the ride to the game we talked about some basics, but during the game I let her shoot what she wanted and didn’t guide her. For the majority of the time, she was by my side, but she did wander off on her own quite often to get a different angle or she saw something that caught her eye. I let her wander and just warned her to be aware of foul balls. It was funny for me to see the double-takes from some of the other photographers that hadn’t noticed that she was with me.

She shot with the Canon 5d Mark II with the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8L. She was shooting in either Shutter Priority or Aperture Priority mode the whole day (basically, she shot with whatever settings I was using). We swapped that camera back and forth quite a bit so we had to figure out a way to determine image ownership. Our solution was to take a snapshot of our respective shoes prior to shooting. That way in post processing, we’d know that all the pictures between Maddy’s shoe and the next image of my shoe were all hers. Then once the images were imported, I just tagged her images with “MKImages” (Madison Kathleen…MK is one of her nicknames). This workflow was strange, but solid.

I think she did a really great job, wasn’t intimidated by anybody, and seemed to have a lot of fun. She has already been in my ear about shooting Lafayette versus Army this Saturday, if the weather is ok. In the meantime, she has offered to assist me with an outdoor portrait session on Thursday this week.

Between my 3 year old riding a two-wheel bike on her own this week and Madison doing so well at the ballgame, I’m a really proud dad!

Today was my first time back to my college baseball field since graduation, many (many) years ago. I was really impressed with the much needed renovations to the ballpark, since back when I played, our field really didn’t compare too well with the other fields in our league. It was a really windy day, but overall the weather was a nice low to mid 50s, partly cloudy day. A good day for baseball.

My 9 year old daughter, Madison, joined me for the game. Instead of having her just tag along next to me as I moved around the ballpark shooting, I actually let her use my second camera. Prior to the game, as we ate lunch at home and during the hour long drive, we talked about how to use the camera, what to look for when shooting, as well as thinking about composition and backgrounds. She asked a lot of good questions and she seemed really excited about the day.
She captured some pretty good images too!

We didn’t stay for the entire second game of the double-header. I could tell she was ready to head home for some dinner and an early bedtime, since she was up much of the night before at a slumber party. I was fine with leaving, since I had such a great time shooting with her and watching my old team play some really good ball.

The full gallery of images is located: here.

I was in a creative funk to begin 2011.

Blame it on the brutal winter, and now, a soaked spring. Or it could have been something else entirely. Or a combination. At this point, I’m not overly concerned with the source of my rut, all I know is that I need to, at least, try to get out of it.

This spring, I’ve really been focusing on sports photography. The problem with that is the sports I’m shooting are entirely weather dependent. My youngest daughter is dad dependent. Aligning the weather and babysitting schedules to allow me to get out and shoot has been frustrating, to say the least. As luck would have it, on the beautiful sunny days, my wife needed to work late and I couldn’t get a sitter and on the rainy days, everyone is available to help me out. And we have had a lot of rain. Just to illustrate this, my oldest daughter has had 6 straight softball practices rained out over a 3 week span – they haven’t had a single practice yet!

With the frustration of dealing with the spring weather and coming off of a tough winter, I wasn’t shooting much at all. I was also tired of being frustrated. Some cliched sports axioms ran through my head: “You can’t get a hit if you don’t swing the bat” and “You can’t score if you don’t shoot”. Friends who knew me as an athlete can testify that I followed those two axioms religiously. I wasn’t afraid to swing in baseball, and in basketball, if I could see the hoop, I was going to shoot.

One cannot get out of a shooting slump if the camera stays in the bag.

I decided to mix it up and pull out my 100mm macro lens which has been resting unused for a very long time, since I’m pretty much married to my 70-200 and 24-70.

It was a really nice day and my youngest picked some dandelions for me. I screwed on an extension tube and began to shoot. I didn’t use a tripod nor did I use any on or off camera flash, which can be disastrous for macro work with extension tubes. But I wasn’t looking to create amazing images. I just wanted to see differently.

The month of March, in the Northeast, generally does not have the best baseball weather. My two shoots in March proved to be no exception. With the wind and cold evening temperatures, I was happy to be shooting and not feeling the sting of the bat. It appears, I have reached old age…

For these games (and for future games this season), I was using two bodies and two lenses. On the Canon 30d body, I had the Canon 100-400mm f/4.5-5.6 and on the Canon 5d Mark II, I had the Canon 70-200mm f/2.8. In bright sunlight, this setup seemed to work ok, but once the cloud coverage increased and I lost some light, the 100-400 just wasn’t cutting it. Also, I quickly found that my two cameras have slower frames-per-second than I wanted for sports action. But, since buying a new lens and body doesn’t fit the budget right now, I’ll shoot with what I have.

I’m looking forward to shooting more High School games this season, as long as the rain holds off. I can’t believe how many games I had on my schedule got rained out. Bring on the sunshine!

More images can be found here and here.

Well, it’s 2011 and I should have a blog.
Well, a photo-blog, at least.

I have an unquenchable desire to add to the white noise of the internets.

Let’s begin with some pictures of my two daughters today in the snow, shall we?
We shall.

(Starting a blog with pictures of your kids is only a step above posting pictures of your cats…talk about kicking things off with a bang!)