My first toddler photo shoot

So I've only done one photo shoot (my niece's senior pics) before and ever since I've been jonesing to do another...especially jonesing to do a baby or a younger child. I just love love love all the great baby/infant/toddler shots I see online and so so wish I could've had pictures like them of my kids...but sigh...weep...sigh...I don't...oh if only digital cameras were around 18 years ago...sigh. Anyways since mine are far beyond the toddling stage I had to find a willing subject (ahem...victim) to allow me to chase after them with camera in hand. Luckily for me my neighbor agreed to let her son be my guinea pig so after weeks and weeks of back and forth with my neighbor trying to pick a date that would work for 2 busy working moms we finally decided last night would be the big night for my very first toddler shoot! I was super excited and super nervous ...after all my camera skills are still pretty weak and toddlers well...well they toddle...so having a moving object for a photo subject was definitely going to be a challenge. I prepared best of could...made sure battery had full charge, had multiple empty memory cards and then after careful consideration pre-selected the site that would work best for a one year old on full speed ahead mode. Packed the few props and accessories I had...camera remote, tripod (not that I thought I would need either but just in case), packed my not-so-trusty ladder for those shots where I need to be way taller than my usual 5'7, a tiny chair borrowed (ahem...stolen) from my daughters room), a larger painted green chair that I love (salvaged from my neighbors garage), a blanket (since I'd be at ground level alot) and a couple of white boards to use as reflectors. I also packed my one and only prop...a giant letter J...since my subject's name is Jake (Jacob). Super funny story about that J...I knew I wanted a J for the shoot so the plan was to cut one out of white matboard...because I was kind of rushing the first two I cut were backwards...which both times my son thought was hugely amusing...finally on the 3rd try I got it just right...cut exactly the way I wanted...spent a couple minutes sanding down the rough curves and corners with my handy dandy Basic Grey file set and voila...done! 5 minutes later I realized I already owned a giant J and it had been 2 feet above my head the whole time while I cursed at the one I was working on...see as it turns out J also stands for Jennifer...laugh..laugh big...I did...it's funny. So anyways after my major duh moment I checked and rechecked everything was packed. All I needed now was an assistant...plan was to enlist my daughter but she had taken off to Six Flags so that left my son...since he had no plans I amped up my best momma guilt skills and asked (AKA begged) him to help me...of course he said yes. So with car pack and assistant in tow we were off.
Got to our location and was immediately a little concerned...the lighting was not going to be as good as I would have liked because the sun was just too bright in the spot I planned to work so we had to change things up a bit...no biggie. I explained to mom and dad where I'd like to shoot specifically and what kind of poses/shots I was going to try...once we were all on the same page I got set up for my first shots and they let the little toddler loose! For such tiny feet that little boy sure could hustle! Since the whole place was new for this little guy he really just wanted to explore so I worked with that as much as possible...which meant I had to be quicker than him...totally not an easy feat. Unfortunately he had very little interest in me, my camera, mom or dad so getting to look towards the camera was not an easy task and getting him to look and smile at the same time was darn near impossible. But after lots of ups and downs, adjusting, readjusting, bouncing from here and there I finally got some decent shots. I probably would've tried to re-do a few shots but mom and dad had their fill of excitement for the evening and called it a day.
Naturally as soon as I got home I couldn't wait to look through all the pics and get to some editing...unfortunately there were not as many good shots as I had hoped which bummed me out but I found a handful of favorites and worked on editing them. My computer was being uber-difficult last night and I was totally fighting an uphill battle trying to get them edited but after a few hours I finally had them done ...although a few I think I will re-edit...what looked really good late last night did not look so good with fresh eyes this morning.
So here's my faves from the shoot....would really really love to hear from fellow photogs what they think of the shots and/or editing.
[slideshow]