Never Work with Children . . . Part 3

Today I had one session booked with a family - Lindsey, her husband Dylan (who would join us at the end of the session) and their two boys, Jack and Harri. The session I had arranged for the afternoon had again, fallen through, so I quickly filled that with my daughter and her friend Abbey, rather than waste it - and besides, Abbey is due to spend a year studying in the USA from September, and I thought it would be nice to get some shots of her and Kirsty together, as I knew they would miss each other during the year apart.

Lindsey had contacted me a few days before the session, worried that Jack, who is 2, would be unlikely to cooperate - but, as I explained to her, if I was doing children's photography as a career, typical two year old's would be part and parcel of that, and the experience would be valuable - besides which, having had 3 kids of my own, none of whom were angels at that age, I assured her that as far as I was concerned, there were absolutely no worries.

As it turned out, both Jack and little brother Harri - who was my youngest model of the week, at just 3 months - were both wonderful, and again, I really enjoyed myself working with them.

Lindsey had very thoughtfully brought a selection of Jacks favourite toys with her - and this really brought home to me the importance of having a 'prop' set for this type of photography.  I loved the images I got with his favourite soft toy, with the building blocks and with the brightly coloured cars - all things I now plan to add to a 'prop' box of my own.

Next up was photographing little Harri - and here was hi-lighted the need for even more props, especially for babies this young - I really would need to include maybe a bouncy chair, and perhaps some sort of basket, to support little ones to 'sit up' when they are too young to manage that by themselves.

Now to try for some of the boys together - and again, I was hampered by the lack of a way to sit Harri upright, comfortably and safely, though I did manage several shots I was fairly happy with.

 

Mum then joined the boys for a few shots

 

Again, I found that most of the shots I preferred were pretty 'natural' - let Mum and kids just relax and play around, and snap away- there is something about the way that pictures like that seem to really capture the relationship between Mum and child, that I really like.

Dad, Dylan was able to join us for the last bit of the session - and I think the last couple of pictures in this group were probably my favourite of the day !

I feel I learned an awful lot from this session, so big thanks again to Lindsey and family .

Then in came Kirsty and Abbey                                                                                                               

 

These two have been friends for around 12 years - and I think that the friendship shows in the images

       I also like these two individual photographs I took of  Kirsty .
          

Next up: Never Work with Children . . .  Part 4 .

Never Work with Children . . . Part 2

Day 3 in the studio, and again, I had 2 sessions booked - the first with Charlaine, and her 2 year old daughter, Bless;   And the second with Becca - and her 6 (very nearly 7) year old daughter, Seren.

Charlaine is a friend of an ex-workmate, and we had never met before .  This to me, was a bonus - because in studio work, its not like you spend all your time photographing people you know, and to me, this gave me the opportunity to see how easy I would find it to strike up and develop a relationship with a complete stranger, and be able to make them relax in front of the camera .  I'd already seen for myself that the more relaxed and at ease children especially become, the better images you can get.

However, Bless showed me that no matter how hard you try, sometimes, you just can't raise a smile . Charlaine was lovely, very friendly, and very eager to get Bless to cooperate - and Bless herself is the most beautiful little girl, with amazingly lovely big eyes - she was incredibly well behaved and cooperative, for such a young child - she sat when asked, stood when asked, turned and looked where directed - but not one proper smile did I get over the whole two hours - though she was quite happy to take my hand and even hug me, at her own instigation, so it wasn't as if she was nervous of me - her Mum later told me that from when she had been about 12 month old, Bless as soon as a camera was pointed in her direction, had refused to smile - and there was absolutely nothing that I did that could persuade her to change that habit .  Even so, with such a gorgeous child, it was impossible not to get some images that I was really pleased with, when I looked at them later - so big smiles, though fabulous to have, are not always completely necessary !

This is the nearest I got to a sort of smile  . . .

I also liked the following image, where Bless was leaning against a chair, which provided a much darker background . . .

And there were two images that didn't show Bless' face at all - but they captured something that I thought still made them good images - in this one she was playing with one of the hats I'd bought  as props . . .

 

And in the next, Charlaine had joined Bless in front of the camera, and Bless gave her the biggest hug - and I just love the expression on Charlains face .

 

And again, towards the end of the session, Mum joined little one in front of the camera .

Charlaine also raised the question of providing more than digital images - she picked out, from the previews I showed her at the session, the image of Bless in a hat, and said she would love a huge print of it - but, she was very shocked at the prices that I gave her for having that done - at the A1 size she wanted, the cheapest I could get it printed for was £25 - which Charlaine thought was rather expensive, particularly as that didn't include framing.  But, without access to trade prices, or a printer of my own that could handle images of that size, there was little I could do - so if I do decide to look at studio work in particular as a further career, I really need to find out a cost effective way of producing all sizes of prints, and frames, that offer good value to potential customers - I made no money at all from any of the sessions I did - though I was quite happy with that, because the experience it gave was a valuable reward in itself - but obviously, if I start doing this to earn a living, people are going to want prints, and I also have to factor some sort of profit into what I do - so a lot more research is needed!

Next up were Becca and Seren. Becca is an ex-workmate and a good friend, but this was the first time I had met Seren.  Now, whether I was just lucky with the kids I worked with during this week, or whether I am better with working with kids than I'd thought I'd be, I don't know - but , what a little star I found in Seren (no pun on the name intended :) ), and again, I really enjoyed this session!  

 Again, Mum was persuaded to join Seren in front of the camera, and I was really pleased with the following images . . .

I really liked the last two of those shown above, especially - not really posed, just Mum and Daughter relaxed and laughing and completely natural . . . it sort of captured the relationship and closeness between the two, which I liked a lot.

I also caught, almost by chance, this image of Becca, by herself - she had donned the hat to persuade Seren to give it a go -

 

And I was really pleased with the result !

Then, Seren changed into a 'fairy princess - and boy, did she look the part!

I had again found, on reviewing the pictures that despite setting custom white balance, the background was not completely white - this was really frustrating and I edited a lot of the photographs from this session to get the bright white background I wanted. 

I used a bubble machine for quite a lot of the portraits during this week - there is no doubt that it was a big hit with the kids, but with the problems I was having getting the bright white background, without resorting to photoshop, it was really difficult to not lose the 'bubbles' during editing .

In photoshop, I also chose to add some soft coloured borders to some of the images               

I also deliberately persuaded Seren into one or two poses that I knew I could have fun with, later, when it came to editing . . . 

 

Becca told me afterwards that Seren was really thrilled with the addition of the 'fairy' to the pictures.

I really enjoyed both of today's sessions - although the issue with the background coming out with a tint was frustrating, the further into the week I got, the more confident I was getting about suggesting and setting up poses and encouraging the children to relax and enjoy the sessions .  

Next up: Never Work with children . . .  Part 3

 

 

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.