6) Show Them, Don’t Just Tell Them
Personally demonstrate the poses that you want from them and have fun doing it. Don’t worry that it might look silly coming from you; it helps to break the ice and win over your subjects and parents.
7) Keep their hands occupied
Hands are always a challenge in Brisbane portrait photography and it can be difficult to convey the hand positions that you want from your subject, especially young children. Instead of instructing the child how to position their hands, it is easier when you give your younger subjects a prop to hold. It also seems more natural.
Time the Highest Priority Goal
Wait for the right moment for that highest priority goal. Warm-up first, win-over your subject’s confidence, and recognize the peak time to shoot that most important goal before your subject(s) starts losing interest and focus. This typically takes place between 50 to 75% through the session.
9) Bribery Works
As a parent, routine bribery is not a good idea. However, as a Brisbane portrait photographer looking for that difficult portrait, have something on-hand within the set that will attract the child (ex. Stuffed toy, cookies, fun props).
10) Patience
Today’s cameras can shoot 10+ frames/sec, but burst shooting is risky and doesn’t work with strobes. Wait for the shot and train yourself to gently press the button just before the right moment. Repeat two or three times and choose the best if possible.
11) Kick the Parents Out
After you’ve gained the child’s trust and you’ve pre-occupied the child, gently ask the parents to step out-of-sight while you take some shots. Hands-down, the parents agree that the best shots came when the parents were not visible. Kids are seeking to please their parents and keep their guard up. Parents are able to use their own point-n-click camera to get those shots, what they want from you is what they can’t get, which occurs when the parents step away!
Summary
Arrange the session to work up to the most important shots through continuous communications and good workflow, but be flexible and dynamically adapt to your subject’s attention span and interests. You’re a professional because you’ve learned to balance the technical aspects with the creative and the people skills; successful children Brisbane corporate photographer can take you to a new level of professionalism.
Filed under Photography by on Feb 28th, 2010. Comment. 
I’m good at messing up stuff. I’ll admit it. Take for instance the photo above. It is the final shot I took of many while in the Kazumura Cave on the Big Island of Hawaii. And it still needs help. In a recent post here on DPS entitled 14 Tips For Cave Photography, I explained some of the things I learned from a first time attempt at underground photography. In this post I’d like to humbly share my mistakes while researching the topic in hopes that it’ll speed up your learning process. My basic idea was to use the flash off camera and fire it multiple times using the pilot button. In this sense I hoped to gain a more even lighting. Let’s take a look at some of the shots that lead up to the final shot. (All photos are 30 second exposures)
This is the first attempt. I tried having my guide, Jeffery, highlight the tube to the right and attempted to light paint while using the flash. Sometimes I turned around and you can see my light trails. All in all, chaos. I realized I needed to be more methodical. And I needed something in the picture to give it perspective.
I now have Jeffery in the photo but still chaos. You can see my silhouette created when I fired the flash directly in front of me. Bad idea. I should be firing the flash where I’d cause little to no silhouette. Jeffery is still light painting and it’s not working. Plus he was moving. You can still see light trails from my headlamp when I turned around too much. Hmmm…..things have to improve. I know, I’ll turn off my headlamp (and luckily not fall!)
Ok, things are settling down a bit. I had Jeffery remain still. He’s also pointing his flashlight into the right tube so we can see the beam of light. Cool. I still see my silhouette. Bad. But with my headlamp off there is less color difference. I also realize I’m missing some areas of the ceiling with my flash. And there’s a burst on the right caused when I aimed the flash at the camera accidentally. Don’t point the flash at the camera.
I tried switching angles on this one but it didn’t help. Jeffery is covering the most interesting feature and you can’t see his light. And look at all those silhouettes! Actually, they are kinda cool in a spooky way. But not desired in this case. I got a more even coverage with the flash but I left my headlamp on accidentally (the streaks on the upper left and the color cast on the ground). Alright, let’s move back to the original position.
This one looks like a test. Can you spot the multiple things wrong? Yikes! And Jeffery is being so patient and such a great model. Let’s try something new.
Thinking about it, I really liked the single light beam from the flashlight. But I still wanted to see Jeffery. What about one single flash on him alone? DOH! Big mistake. It left a perfect silhouette of the flash including a trail left by the pilot light. I should have held it back a little. While interesting, I still wanted the entire cave lit up.
And now the ‘final’ shot. It still needs help (like my one, spooky silhouette on the left side there), but the lessons learned from the previous shot were applied:
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Don’t point the flash directly in front of you causing a silhouette
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Don’t point the flash at the camera
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If possible, go without a light source for yourself. It will cause hot spots or possible color difference like it did for me.
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Do put a subject in the photo.
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But don’t let them move.
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Cover the pilot or recycle light on the flash so it doesn’t show as a dot in the photo.
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Be methodical with light coverage. I only gave myself 30 seconds, but with more time I could be more complete.
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Have fun and experiment!!
Post from: Digital Photography School – Photography Tips.
Filed under Digital Cameras by on Nov 1st, 2009. Comment.
