A little over two years ago I was fortunate enough to spend a week visiting Lake Manyara, the Serengeti Plain and Ngorongoro Crater in Tanzania. An out-of-this-world photographic experience and on my top-2 of beautiful places in the world (on that list is also Ilulissat in Greenland). Back then I was huge into wildlife and nature photography and never (as in never-ever) did I image I would enjoy portrait photography.

And look at me now, having sold my wildlife lens (my beloved Canon 100-400mm L), upgraded to portrait-oriented full frame camera and even gone to the extent of spending my weekends shooting portraits. Go figure.

So what is it about portrait photography, and especially kids' photography, that now gets my photographic blood rolling? It's the expressions. You gotta love the expressions.

That moment people in front of my camera becomes unaware of it and let themselves be themselves, that's when the shutter goes click-click-click. Their true, genuine expressions show their true beauty. A beauty I believe everyone possesses, and that's what I am after. That is what is drawing me to portrait photography. Somehow kids (at least up to a certain age) just seem to have a nack for becoming unaware of the camera more quickly than us adults, initially making it easier to work with them.

Part of my endeavor is also to capture bodily expressions along side the facial ones. How do the child and mother interact, child and father, and what about both parents with the toddler? Love, affection and happiness are genuine, cardinal feelings that cannot be faked. Fake happiness is not really happiness, right? The trick (and my task) is to capture and digitalize them so we can cherish the moments through pictures for years to come.

For the non-the technically interested: I usually end my posts with listing the various camera gear, settings and technical considerations that was used to make a shoot possible. But in this instance, I am ending on a non-technical note.

Sure, some of these shots were captured with a full frame camera costing 40 times more than the least expensive camera at Future Shop. Does that mean you can capture expressions that are 40 times more genuine? No, not at all. Any camera will do that. Capturing the expressions and showing true beauty is all about being in-tune and in proximity with your subjects, to better sense when they are unaware of the camera just being themselves. Of course knowing your camera and having it ready helps you capture these fleeting moments.

Next time you pick up the camera to grab shots of your significant other, child, family or just about anyone, wait for them to become unaware of the camera and naturally expressive. Then click-click-click. With a little practice you will see the difference. Guaranteed.

For the technically interested: Ahhh, ok. I am just too much of a camera aficionado to not share the technical details with you. The shooting session was divided into two. One half was shot with the Nikon D300 coupled with the Nikkor 17-55mm f2.8 (mostly set to f4) and the Nikkor 105mm f2.8 VR Micro. Extra light was added using the Nikon SB900 attached to a ring flash adapter. The second half was shot with the Nikon D700 and Nikkor 50mm f1.4 AfS G and 105mm f2.8 VR Micro lenses. That was my first session using the D700, and I only have one word: wow! OK, maybe two: wow-wow! Extra light was added in some of the shots with the SB600 attached to a small softbox and triggered via Nikon's Creative Lighting System.