Over the weekend, we had the opportunity to do something I have wanted to do for many years with the kids...take some snapshots of them in an almond orchard.
When I was little, my back yard was twenty acres of almonds trees and every February they would bloom beautiful white flowers. It was like a magical forest full of hundreds of these trees in long rows with white flowers on the ground. It looked like it has just snowed. And there were pretty white flowers on every tree branch that you came across. As I grew older and the orchard of almonds were chopped down to make way for suburbanhood; I was still able to enjoy them on my drive near the local college, where they had rows of almond trees that bloomed every year in February.
So this weekend we took the kids out to one of the only orchards near us that we were able to access and took some snap shots and these are a few that we were able to get them to sit still for and somewhat smile for...
A few things that we learned while taking these...always shoot your subjects when you are facing the sun, you will see some shadows that we just could not get rid of. If you are facing the sun and your subjects backs are to the sun it is easier to manipulate the photos later and get rid of those shadows. I also brought extra snacks and toys to bribe them into smiling and standing still a little longer.
I find that we are getting better photos of them as the are older. And if you let them make some silly faces for the camera too....they were more inclined to smile when you asked them too.
One nice thing about living in the central valley is that the fruit trees are just getting ready to start blossoming, so I hope that we can take them out again and get some more shots in some other orchards and try and take some better photos with the sun behind them.
Happy Thursday!
Amanda
