I took Miss M out a few days ago to shoot her 8 year old portraits. First, she wanted to do some jumping shots like we did a few years ago for our family portraits.

It was late afternoon, and the sun was still pretty high in the sky, but this location was in the shade, and the lighting was nice.

As we were walking over to our next location, we got waylaid by some small creatures.

Miss M just LOVES searching for bugs in plants.

As we passed by a group of bushes, she discovered some baby caterpillars.

This pretty much sabatoged the rest of our photo shoot.

Out of the thirty minutes we spent together, twenty were spent in the bushes or with the caterpillars. Not exactly what I had in mind, but okay.

I got about five minutes in the field, then it was back to the caterpillars.

The sun was still pretty high in the sky. Not ideal lighting for portraits, but I wanted to try anyway.

I made sure the sun was over my right shoulder, and placed Miss M so that the side of her face was lit, so that she wouldn't be squinting at the camera.

Overall, I'm pretty pleased with the effect.

Making an "8" with the rocks was M's idea. She's got a mind of her own. Can you guess what she's looking at on the leaf? Yep, it's a caterpillar.