Bulloch Hall Plantation is in Historic Roswell, GA

Location, Location, Location

Like real estate, your photos will look better when you choose your location. Springtime is the time of year for holiday parties, school dances, and even weddings. So while going into your yard and finding a clean background is a great idea, picking a location in your town that stands out may be a better idea.

Here you can see all the parents watching as I take the group and a couple of pictures. Looking closely, you will see my one Alienbees B1600 with the original vagabond battery by Pau  Buff. It is to the far right in back [yellow head].

Another tip is to use a  tripod. There are a couple of good reasons to d  this. First, your photos are sharper when the camera is rock steady still. Second, if one person in a group photo blinks and another person in another photo, you can always copy and paste one person into the other image using Pho Shop.  This way, everyone will look good in one shot.

Fill Flash

The subjects are all backlighted by the sun in all these photos. Unless you use a flash, you will have difficulty holding the background and their faces to get a good exposure.  I metered the scene: ISO 100, ƒ/8, and 1/50.  I then set the flash to ƒ/5.6 or one-stop under whatever I would have metered for the overall scene.

Here I composed a wider shot to show Bulloch Hall, where the grandparents of President Theodore Roosevelt, the 26th President of the United States, and great grandmother of Eleanor Roosevelt, First Lady from 1934-1945, lived.

I like the closer composition over the wide shot.  But I did both in case couples preferred one over the other.

Whenever my family is with me, and I have gone to this much trouble for photos, I always get a picture of them.