I can count on one hand how many times I’ve been back to the place I grew up since I went away to college.
I was lucky to have a wedding back down in San Diego so I stayed a couple extra days and went to church on sunday, back in the same building I spent countless hours while in jr. high and High School.

While roaming the halls I saw two old friends and of course they had large families by now.
So I told them lets go outside and take some pictures.

We went in the back so we wouldn’t interupt as many people and the kids could run around at ease a bit more.
We just kind of hung out for a while and watched the kids play like kids are known to do.

Why not right? It was more fun for me to chat while a camera was in my hand and while the kids ran around doing fun things.
Plus it’s nice to do nice things for old friends.
Specially the ones that keep in contact the most on facebook.

Even organized a couple of group things.

You might think I made the poor kid cry… but I stand innocent.
I suppose sometimes kids just cry. I know that never happens to any of your kids.

Parents aren’t supposed to have favorites… but photographers can.
This red-head is a model in the making.

In just a matter of about 30 minutes I was able to come up with 129 usable images.

Probably the person I knew best of this photoshoot is the one person I didn’t get a picture of…
Perhaps pretty amusing, hopefully she finds it funny too.
But I did get her husband and all her kids.

I even had a few old church leaders who were there when I was growing up… as they were coming in for the next meetings.
I could only get them as they walked in quickly in order to avoid being late.

So i was down in San Diego for a wedding I went and visited where I grew up in Chula Vista… and then I went and visited an old friend of the family.
I wanted to visit them and I also really wanted to take some pictures of her, her kids and her brother, because I thought it a kind gesture.

See full gallery here

There are benefits of having me stop by the house… Personally I love shooting anytime anywhere.
If there are no expectations even better… (meaning I’m just doing it out of the kindness of my heart and the people don’t expect it to happen and there’s no huge committment.)
And in this case I didn’t feel any expectation or pressure and I was able to just lounge in the couch and had the camera in hand as the kids played around… and I got an good dinner out of it.

It’s a tricky road us photographers walk… we want to be known for our photography and we certainly want to share it.
But we also want to be liked for ourselves outside of photography, appreciated for our company as well.

We want to add pictures as a side benefit of our friendship (At least I do)
but we  don’t always want it to be the main focus of a friendship… that would instead be like a business-friend relationship,
(which is fine but we got plenty of those where the side benefit is a friendship, and i tend to like business-friend relations because those are the relationships that pay my bills.)

It’s kind of like the game nights … every so often I’ll pull out the camera… but no one that comes expects it to happen.

It’s funny how it just takes some time and the right approach.

At first she was shy and played around about how she didn’t want pictures.
You can kinda tell when it’s a facade and sometimes the best approach is just to wait and try not to perpetuate the game too much.

When I was leaving she was sticking her face in front of the camera and asking for pictures.

I think one safe rule is that if they feel getting pictures taken is a huge chore they won’t want to do it… if it’s accompanied by lots of nagging and directions they’ll probably not want to continue with it.

Do you think that’s safe to say?

I think this is another reason I just enjoyed capturing them while they were unaware playing in the room as the adults talked… or on a walk.
Kids get lost in what they’re doing so easy it’s easy for them to forget someone has a camera

Aren’t her kids terribly cute?
It was fun to take pictures of them.

I like just visiting and having a camera in hand as life just happens.
Kids don’t need a lot of encouragment to get them in fun situations.

I certainly didn’t pose any of these pictures… this all just happened as I ate or sat on the couch like any other visitor.