In this vlog, hosts Darren and Katie take viewers through a full day of three family portrait sessions using a single Sony A7III with a Tamron 17-70mm lens. They discuss pre‑shoot logistics (arriving early, scouting locations, timing), gear choices, and how they adapt to weather and client needs. Throughout the day they demonstrate lighting strategies—preferring shaded areas under colorful trees, leveraging golden‑hour light, and using natural light to avoid harsh shadows. The hosts walk through their posing and direction techniques, from simple walk‑away shots to interactive family poses, while keeping the subjects comfortable. They also share behind‑the‑scenes moments like dealing with allergies, handling horses, and managing client interactions. Interspersed are channel updates, celebrating reaching 1,200 subscribers and aiming for 10K, with calls to like, subscribe, and a promise to show final raw versus edited photos. The tone is informal, instructional, and enthusiastic, offering practical tips for photographers while promoting their growing YouTube community.
Chapters
What are we doing today, Katie?
You have my hair stuck in your beard.
Uh-oh. What are we doing today?
We are going to capture 3 families today. 3 families.
We're gonna take pictures. We're not gonna capture them.
We're taking them. We're stealing them and holding them captive.
As many of you know, I keep a lot of stuff in my Prius. Yes, I drive a Prius. And—
Would you like me to hold it while you're driving? I feel like videoing and driving is— Oh, my lemonade! Anyways, we are doing a full day of shoots.
We're doing 3 photo shoots and we're using one camera. We got the Sony A7III with the Tamron 17-70 lens for you gearheads out there.
I'm not a gearhead, I just like to edit.
We had this idea of doing like a holiday mini portrait session and anyways, got rained out the day that we were going to do all of them and now we had to reschedule. We didn't know it, and now we're having to go to these people's houses, which is fine.
I think it's sweeter because it has a piece of their, like, family and all the things and pictures and their land and all that.
So that's what we're on our way to do. We're going to try to show you a little bit behind the scenes of what that looks like, how we pose the families, how we talk to them, how we approach the shots, what kind of location do we need. Like, do we shoot in the sunlight? Do we shoot under a tree? That kind of stuff. Um, it's going to a good time. Also, if you're not subscribed, make sure to subscribe because we just hit 1K like 2 days ago. We're almost at 1,200 now.
Yeah, you did!
1,200 subs in a couple more days, but we're trying to hit our next goal, which is 10K, which is crazy. Anyways, it's gonna be fun.
Come along for the ride!
Katie's a freaking bomb photographer, so it's gonna be lit.
Bye! We'll see you at our destination. Okay guys, first steps first, okay? Put in the address, make sure you're arriving to the destination at least 10 minutes prior. I like to show up at least 10 minutes early because I like to see my lighting in our venue, whatever location, to get a game plan for ideas. But Darren flies by the seat of his pants.
Listen, if it says it's going to take me 10 minutes to get there on Apple Maps, then I leave 10 minutes before. That's my toxic trait.
Anyways, step number 1, be on time.
Alright, here we go. Last time, start off looking at the camera. Walking this way, slow.
3, 2, 1.
Something funny, something funny.
Perfect.
All right, here we go. Big smiles. 3, 2, 1.
There we go.
All right, go for it. Walk Really slow.
Boom! Come here, Tally! Come here! Oh, that sounds like a goat. Oh, there she comes!
Hey, darling.
Oh gosh, come here. All right guys, just wrapped up shoot number 1. Let's go! Uh, shoot number 1 had 2 different families, like separate sides, and then we combined them together, and that was a really smart idea. The photos look stunning. There was beautiful, like, golden trees and the light was coming through them. They were wonderful. So we're currently heading to our second second session. It's about an hour away, and it's gonna be good.
Recap, so, so that last shoot, uh, we're shooting at like— it was what, 3, 3 o'clock in the afternoon in the fall, and the sun is still pretty bright outside. But a little life hack if you're a photographer watching this: find a completely shaded area, find some trees. Uh, we found an area that was absolutely gorgeous with like lots of color in the trees Lots of space in the background to create that separation of subjects.
And your subjects will be so much happier if you find a shaded location because they're all not like—
Sweaty.
Dying and sweating and their eyes aren't all like barely open and it's just like really a more positive experience for everybody in the shade.
So yeah, face away from the sun, make sure it's not too harsh or if there's any like weird splotchy spots on their face—
And in our case—
Avoid that.
There was beautiful sunlight going straight through the trees. So it like came through the gold leaf, so we still had a sun element, but it wasn't like this harsh lighting.
Yeah, but it was a good shoot. We're on our way to a second shoot. We're probably gonna get close to golden hour by the time we get there. Um, it's just like at 5-ish.
Yeah, ETA is 4:30, so we'll get some BTS of that too. Bye!
Shoot number 2, baby, let's go! We're here. Y'all get headshots. New profile pic. All right, here we go. 3, 2, 1.
Okay, y'all actually do locked arms or something. Yeah, and then kind of like back away from each other and fake laugh.
Let's take a step this way. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Yeah, that's good. 3, 2, 1.
Can y'all connect arms?
Oh, hair is flying.
No, that looks good.
All right, perfect. Yeah, 3, 2, 1.
Okay, y'all all kind of like look in at each other and laugh like something. What's the funniest inside joke in the family? No inside jokes.
Outside jokes.
Big smiles.
Yeah, big smile, we're happy. Are we going to start walking?
Yep, here we go.
All right, walk real slow, real slow.
Look at the camera a little bit. Smile. Oh, that's good.
Perfect. Hey, horsey.
You can even throw that side of your hair down. You are. You're okay. Turn your shoulder that way a little bit more. There you go. Stay on that other side. You guys both do it.
Yeah, she's the actual good one.
Give me a kiss. I got you, girl. I did it. Love it.
Your shampoo must smell pretty good.
I don't wash it. It probably smells like hay. Jake, spin her around like you're dancing. Oh yeah, act like you're dancing. We'll steal from Bryson.
Oh yeah.
Oh my gosh, this is so cute. Pick her up, Kitty, pick her up.
Uh-oh, uh-oh.
Give a kiss. Can y'all kiss? Oh, that looks so good on the camera.
Wow.
All right, friends, we are done for the day. Uh, the third shoot went absolutely great, or I guess the second shoot went absolutely great. Beautiful lighting, and we found another pretty gold tree, so that's a win.
Yeah, this one they had a lot of horses. We were able to incorporate some horses, so that's difficult if you've never Yeah, here's some footage of that. It was a fun time. I'm surprised I didn't start sneezing because I am honestly very allergic to earth.
He's allergic to the earth.
Everything. Every animal, every grass, everything. But it was a good time. Thanks for sticking around and watching today's video. I hope you learned something, whether it's posing or lighting tricks.
And shouldn't we put some of our finished pictures in the video? Yeah, yeah, we'll put some of the final photos photos. Maybe we could do like raw versus edited or something.
Yeah, we'll put some of the final photos because the raws look amazing, but the edited are cute.
Yeah, can't wait.
It'll be good. Um, make sure to like this video and subscribe to the channel if you haven't already. We're just over 1,000 subs. We're trying to hit 10K like I said earlier in the video. Um, hope you guys have a good day. We will see you in the next one.
