Not too long ago I met with author Tim O’Brien at his home in south Austin for the Statesman.
O’Brien’s work is greatly influenced by his experiences as an infantryman in the Vietnam War. His award-winning novels tell war stories and implore readers to focus on peace.
Peacefulness was what I was going for in my photos. I was told to get several portraits of O’Brien, as well as some images of him interacting with his family. Also, Statesman reporter Brad Buchholz described O’Brien as having a certain earnestness in his eyes, so I wanted to capture that as well.
I arrived at O’Brien’s home and was pleasantly surprised. It was beautifully decorated inside and out. We started in his office, but something just wasn’t right about what I was getting, so we moved to the back yard, which backs up to the Onion Creek Golf Course.
I used a 50mm lens set at f2, focused on his eyes for these shots. I wanted a very shallow depth of field. Also, I used a little bit of fill flash, just to counter the uneven light coming through the trees.
While we were shooting, his wife and sons arrived home from school, so we cut our portrait session short and moved in to the kitchen for homework time. I switched back to my 24-70mm f2.8 lens for the rest of the photos, and used ambient light.
They all looked so good at that table that I took a family portrait.
Then I asked if there was another activity that they all did together. The boys have a tree house in the back yard, complete with zip line, so we headed out there for a little bit of fun and another family picture.
It was such a lovely experience to hang out with them and capture a bit of Tim O’Brien’s life.
Statesman reporter Brad Buchholz describes O’Brien’s writing style far more eloquently than I can, so I’ll let you read his story. Click here to view the story and photos.
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