Thursday, 10 July 2008
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Going for the Look
I think we can all sympathize with the struggle to catch the look we are after. Your baby is giggling and laughing away so you run for the camera and come back only to find her staring befuddled at mommy with a camera stuck to her face. I don't think this struggle ever goes away but there is a few tricks us photog's use to get what we are after. As an MWAC (Mom With A Camera) you have the advantage of being able to pick the moment when your child is in "the mood" or is feeling particularly frisky. These are great times to grab your camera and maybe implement some of these tricks.
Over the next few posts I want to talk about "getting the look." And today I want to focus on helping your child relax and interact with the camera. My professional photographer friend, Daniel, from alittledarkershadesofbrown stopped by my site the other day and shared with me some great thoughts on this topic:
Tips and Tricks - Part 1
"I suppose that children are no different then adults in that you have to connect with them on some level in order to capture an image that reveals a piece of them.Most children have the attention span of... well, kids! They are moving around like crazy; jumping, skipping, singing, giggling. Just being kids. Typically an exposure of anything slower then 1/250th of a second will cause your pictures to be blurry if craziness is about to begin (and it is) so I would keep that shutter working fast. You are going to need to be a bit of a kid yourself so get yourself down low to the ground. I usually hand the camera to the child and have them take a few goofy pictures of me so that they become more comfortable with the idea of what I am about to do.
Always, always show them the pictures you are taking as you go. It gets them involved in what you are doing and sets them up for more pictures.
As with any portrait of a person you need to build connection between the two of you. Sometimes this takes 5 minutes and sometimes it takes 30.
The following is the first picture I took after the young girl handed me back my camera after taking a picture of me:
It's one of my favorites from the last couple of weeks.
Have fun! and click that shutter!"Thanks Daniel, for sharing your favorite tips with us!
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Comments (6)
I'm lucky in that my infant son already seems mesmerized by the camera, and when I pull it out his eyes are glued to it, even if I'm holding it far away from my face (he'll look at the camera instead of me lol). That means I've gotten tons of fabulous shots with him looking right at the camera. =)
Mine are right little posers.... even Master 20 months will stop now and say cheese!
If only I could get my camera off them, or get the to run on ahead so I can take the scenery shots as well.
I think involving children in the process is a wonderful tip.
Thank you
x
I think that is a great tip!!! My 19 month old hates the camera though i think LOL. Every now and then i get a few good ones of him haha.
My niece is great. When she was about 24-26 months old, she hated the camera. No smiling, no sitting still. I have one picture of her (out of a set of 7) where she has a tiny smile on, and that's only because her mom bribed her with a piece of chocolate, haha!
Now she's just past three, and when anyone has a camera, she'll walk right over to you and say, "Cheeeeeeessssssssse!" until you take her picture, and it's the cutest thing. I love photographing her now, it's much easier, and she's adorable.
First, I would like to salute Daniel because of his AMAZING shot of that girl. I would like everyone here to take note how she smiled. It's a real, genuine, smile....not like so many of the other shots of kids that we see where they are trying to smile WWWWWAAAAAAYYYYY to hard. Of course I'm not saying that all kids do that...some actually are born with the natural talent of just giving a nice, not-over-done, smile.
If you look at her eyes in the photo....it looks like he brought out the glisten in her eyes....a very nice touch I thought. And on top of that....she's just plain ol' cute!
I've also noticed that it's even harder to find is pictures shot by MWACs where their children or child is posing. Most of the time, getting a little kid to purposefully pose can be like telling a pig to fly. That's why I completely agree that getting a good "posing" shot of a young kid is definitely catching the moment or just taking MANY shots when they're in the right mood.
I guess I just want to leave every photog here with this shout out:
"Keep shooting! Have the patience to wait for that perfect shot. Because it will most definitely pay off in the end."
Great post sis!
Keep em' coming!
Your brother,
Caleb
What if your camera is a heavy piece of equipment, like my Nikon D80, and you don't want to risk handing to a child when it is quite likely that they can't handle such a heavy piece of equipment and will drop it? I'm not sure what type of camera you use.
Overall, great, informative post.