Pumpkin Patch Photos

I have to admit, the idea of taking my kids to a crowded pumpkin patch never seems that appealing until I get there, but regardless of my reservations we do make the annual trek and my kids have love(d) it. So what are the challenges of that type of environment? First and foremost, I think it’s harsh lighting, often you’ll be there in the mid to late afternoon and the sun can be very bright causing dark shadows with little to no shade. Second, I think it’s often challenging to photograph the kids playing because they’re often running around exploring which leads to more often than not only taking the standard “grip and grin” type images. So here are my thoughts on a cure.

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1. Bring your dedicated camera with your longest lens, hopefully something like the 70-200mm or 70-300mm lens like I recommend and use that to photograph them having fun from more of a distance. This is one of those times kids tend to get lost in exploring, picking pumpkins, enjoying rides etc. so it’s a great time to pick off a few candid frames to remember the season.

   A couple of quick thoughts on camera settings. I’d put my camera into C-AF for continuous autofocus if the kids are running around and I’d turn on the sequential shooting mode to a low speed burst so I can fire off a couple of frames at a time to catch fleeting expressions. If you’re using an iPhone pull left on the on-screen trigger to get a burst of images.
   

2. When you’re taking portraits do what you can to balance the light. In this image, I had my wife use her body to create a piece of shade which gave me the ability to shoot with the sun at my back. Unfortunately, because Nick is now much darker than the pumpkins we need do do a little processing of the image in Snapseed or your favorite photo editor to bring the exposure of the background down to a darker, richer color. Notice that by creating the shade I’ve eliminated the harsh shadows you can see on the pumpkins AND he’s not squinting.

Note: If you’re using an iPhone for this try touching the screen where you want to focus and when the sun icon comes up swipe up to make the image brighter or darker.

BEFORE: love this image because we’ve done a great job eliminating the harsh light but the pumpkins in the background are a bit too bright.

AFTER: In this final image I’ve used a photo editor to just drop the brightness of the background for a bit more balanced image.

3. If you’re lucky enough to have really great light I love shooting back-lit (sun behind the subject) like in this image below. Here the sun is really low in the sky, almost set, and the light is soft and everything has a light shadow. Pro-tip: if you have a camera with live view on the rear screen or you’re using your phone shoot with it away from your face and have a conversation while you’re shooting.

Great light and natural expressions make life easy.

Last up: Sometimes great memories are just snapshots from your phone.

I’m a big believer that we need to make sure we’re intentional in spending time with our kids with minimal distraction and many times that can mean just a quick snapshot with our phones. Not everything we record is destined for the wall, but I love some of these images none-the-less.