Never Work with Children . . . Part 1

I'm lucky enough to chat to a couple of professional photographers occasionally, and on the subject of studio portraiture, I'd heard it said that photographing children is an area that is not as easy as it looks. Being as over the first year at uni, I'd really enjoyed getting to grips with studio work, I decided to see if I could book the uni studio, for a few days, over the Summer break, and see if I could get some experience in this area of photography. Five whole days booked, and I put the word out amongst fellow 'Mums', that if they would spare me a couple of hours, use of their kids and permission to use any resultant photographs in this blog and maybe a portfolio, I'd provide them with however many good digital images I could get out of the sessions.  Very quickly, the 5 days were filled with a minimum of two sessions a day, with my friend and fellow student, Dawn, taking two of the sessions so she could also practise studio work.  First lesson learned, however - the fact that the studio was booked from a Monday to Friday, during term time, meant that an awful lot of parents who were more than willing to be my 'guinea pigs' were unable to take part, due to school hours - those that could, were restricted to very short sessions, from 3.45pm onwards.

Second lesson - with kids, arrangements can change at the very last minute - the two sessions booked for the first day had to be cancelled, at very short notice, in one instance due to the child in question being poorly - one of the pitfalls to be noted and accepted as part and parcel of children's portraiture.

Rather than waste the sessions, I spent the time taking some photographs of Dawn . . .

. . . Then, for the afternoon, phoned my oldest daughter - who volunteered her friend Abbey as a model !

 

I'd used a high key light set up, and on reviewing the photographs when I got home was a bit disappointed. Checking the images on the actual camera, the background looked as 'white' as I wanted - on Colins advice, had set wb to flash - looking at them on the pc screen at home, there was a definite 'blue' tint to the background. Easy enough to put right, either with curves, levels or dodge - but annoying! Once I had edited them, I was fairly pleased with the images, however, and very much looking forward to the next days sessions.

The first 'session' was booked to Dawn, and her models were Becky and her 18 month old daughter, Sophie.  This being Dawns session, I stuck to helping with the lights and observing - and still learnt a lot!  Sophie is the cutest little girl imaginable, with a mile wide smile - but, like most babes of that age, she was also the definition of perpetual motion!  We had a bubble machine going, a selection of hats and Becky had brought some of Sophies toys - but OH boy - when in a nice new place, with lots of bright lights and things to explore - what 18 month old is going to sit nice for a photograph? Lol - not Sophie, and not I suspect, many others.  The session was hard work, though definitely fun, and I was impressed at the number of good images Dawn managed to get.

The next session was mine - a fellow student from Applied arts, Claire, had very kindly volunteered her 9 year old son, Callum.  Now, as the mother of a 15 year old boy, I thought in advance, that this session would be quiet hard work - my own son acts as though he is allergic to the camera, and the sight of one pointed in his direction usually prompts his hand to cover his face immediately.  What a nice surprise Callum turned out to be.  He turned up, with a big smile, several changes of clothes - and props, by way of shades and a selection of hats. He was completely cooperative, and an absolute pleasure to photograph - many thanx to both him, and Claire - I really enjoyed this session.

A couple of shots I later turned black and white . . .

But one of my favourite shots from the day was taken at the end of the session, Claire joined Cal in front of the camera - by this time, both were relaxed and seemed to be enjoying the session, and this shot I loved because it was so natural and so full of fun .

Once again, at home, despite the images on the camera showing a bright white background - that annoying blue tint!  Hmmmmm - more experimentation with the WB, I think, for the next session!  It also started to gel with me today that the longer you spend getting to know your 'models', and the more effort you put into making them relax, the better the results - as the session with Callum went on, the more 'into' it he got, and the more I was getting natural expressions, smiles and laughs - which made for much better images.

So - coming next  'Never Work with Children - part 2.