This Is Serious Work, Being a Model

Taken on our hike, at the beginning of the session.  I realize the soccer uniform looks out of place in the woods and I wish he had been wearing jeans when we started, but we had plans to take some shots on the soccer field as soon as the sun got lower, so I didn't want to ask him to change just as we met.  But I do think walking back on the nature trail was a good way to get comfortable with each other and we all enjoyed the hike, so having some kind of an ice-breaker activity to do with kids is something I want to keep in mind for the future.  Does anyone have some things that work for you?

Also, I have been trying a new (for me) method of boosting color by converting to lab mode and then doing a curves adjustment layer on the a and b channels, very slightly moving in the sliders on both ends of the curve, sometimes one end more than the other, to my liking.  I just occasionally want a little more color pop and read that is a way to do it subtly.  Here I masked it off of J's face, but wondered how it looks on others' monitors

--- OK?  Don't bother?

Nikon D700, 70 - 200mm lens at 200mm, f4, 1/125th, ISO 200.

Seven Going on ?

Can you believe this kid is only 7 years old?  And that he really wasn't thrilled about getting his picture taken?  This shot makes me think there are going to be a lot of girls texting him in the near future, I hope his parents have a good cell phone plan.  And he is just as sweet and smart as he is good looking.

Meet J

J is the son of my sister's friend and he agreed to be my model recently.  He did such a great job!  We met at the park and went on a hike down the nature trail where I learned how to look for moss on the trees so I could find my way out if I ever got lost.  He is very smart and interested in all things science or sport-related, especially soccer and basketball.  It was so nice to get a chance to photograph a child who stayed where I directed him, posed fabulously, and had a great attitude while doing so.  I used a softbox and sometimes another flash with the juice-Fong, and I think both were used here as it was almost 5 pm with the light fading. This was my first shoot with my new D700 with the full frame sensor and I was very surprised to see more depth of field at various apertures than when I use that same lens on my D200 with the smaller sensor.  The reason for this was explained to me, but didn't quite compute so I have to just believe it works that way.
Nikon D700, 70 -200mm VR lens at f4 and 1/320th, ISO 200.