Family Portraits didn't turn out- Tips Please

<p>I took about 800 pictures on Sat. of my brother and his family( I kept wanting to stop but they kept wanting me to take more pictures). He said he didn't like the pictures because the baby kept drooling( the baby is teething) He was also upset because my niece kept looking everywhere but the camera. I kept telling her to look at the camera but she would not listen... It was hard posing Two adults, two children and a 5 month old baby. Do you have any tips or suggestions for me. This was the first family portrait that I did. I am very bummed out.<br>

Thank you,<br>

Amy</p>

<p>You did not know it but you were attempting one of the more difficult things in photography, child and baby pictures. I used to do them for a living (thankfully it was briefly and a long time ago), and I did not always get good stuff either. Do not be discouraged, Amy. Sometimes it works out with kids, sometimes it does not.</p>

<p>Well said Bruce. I think that your brother has faulty expectations. Kids and animals are doable if they are on their own. In a family situation with all sorts going on......ever seen the mission impossible films? </p>

<p>One trick I have learned over the years that may help is to get someone all the people in the group know and stand them directly behind you. Get them to do something funny and most people will look your way some of the time. And they may even give you a real smile if you are lucky.</p>

<p>Cheers, JJ</p>

<p>Amy,</p>

<p>The other negative half of this equation is that you were doing portraits for your own family and a brother who seems like thinks he know more than you and stresses out his own kids. It's a situation that is almost always a nightmare because family members are too close emotionally and often don't take you seriously as a professional. It can be done, but it is tough.</p>

<p>As Bruce said, kids and babies are tough to work with and when mom and dad are in the picture, even tougher because they usually scold the kids or tend to glance down to see what the kids are doing so that on the rare occasion that the kids are all in sync and smiling at the camera, the parents may be looking at the kids to check their expressions, so the parents are screwing it up. In every family portrait I ever made with kids under ten, I made sure to give instructions to the parents that I would be watching the kids for best expression and for the parents to keep their attention focused on the camera only so they would also look good when the kids were responsive. I also stressed that they NEVER scold the kids or react negatively, but to let me have free rein in keeping their attention on positive things. Of course, this is done in private at a pre-session conference rather than on the day of the shoot.</p>

<p>Jeremy is right. Another familiar party who can help center the attention of the people in the portrait is your best ally. That way you can concentrate on waiting for the moment when all the expressions are good and make that exposure.</p>

<p>If you work it alone, be ready to talk to the children during the shoot. They have to believe that they are important or their attention drifts. Learn about what they are interested in before the shoot and talk to them about that. </p>

<p>Example: I did images of a ten year old girl this week whose grandmother kept telling her that her smile was fake and to smile a "real smile". (What the heck does that mean to an adult, much less a child???!!!!!!)</p>

<p>Easy solution, I sent the grandmother into the next room while the child and I talked about school and if there was any special boy that she had her eye on yet. The grandmother peeked in the open door to try to find out why this kid was so happy and what she was giggling about. It only took about fifteen quick shots and the kid and grandma both went nuts over the portraits. </p>

<p>Grandma got the real smile she wanted because the situation was happy.</p>

<p>Scale that down for little kids and talk about what they want for their birthday, or about their pets, their best friends, trips to the zoo, etc. and let the adults play follow the leader.</p>

<p>Another thing, 800 exposures is ridiculous in terms of expecting little kids to hold still or hold interest. At worst, you should be done in ten to fifteen minutes. By then, everybody is ready to run out of the studio and jump back into jeans and have some fun. If you go much longer, expressions turn into pain!!!!!! The only time you can likely go longer is in an outdoor shoot where it's an adventure and you can move from one spot to another to keep their interest.</p>

<p>Good luck the next time you try this and give your brother detailed instructions to keep still and let you have fun with the kids while he and his wife enjoy what is happening.</p>

<p>Just did a session with 2 adults and 12 children, 4 months to 4 years old. Okay... it was a daycare center and the 2 adults are "babysitters", they helped controlling the kids. Did group photo and individuals.</p>

<p>Anyway, tell the adults to look at the camera and not trying to pay attention to the children. Otherwise you get a good shot from the kids but the parent is not looking at the lens. You or a assistant need to get the attention from the kids. I use a plush animal, I have a small monkey, that I fit right under the lens attached to the tripod. I tell them to look at this monkey and with the remote I fire when I look over the kids as they all look in the right direction.</p>

<p>Also take more shots so in photo shop you can copy and paste heads, if needed. You only have a small amount of time before the kids get bored and start to act up. So have your camera and lights and anything else ready before they come in and pose.</p>

<p>Don't have something distracting standing next to you as that will make the kids look that way instead of the lens. Especially a family member that is not going to be in the picture.</p>

<p>"The baby is drooling"... You are memorizing a moment in time, is that a problem? Teething is one of the stages a baby goes trough, I think well worth having a photo from. Have some toys near by to renew the attention from the Young ones, after they get tired.</p>

<p>And sometimes it just don't work to get all the kids to work with you. Stop and do the session later, or make individual photos from one kid that work with you, making the other kid wanting to do the same, and then get the family photo back in session.</p>

<p>BTW, on the 12 kids session, I shoot about 10 photos each kid. One group photo, one sitting and one standing pose individual photo. From the 10 parents (there were siblings) there was one that did not like the kid's smile. In all shots I have from the girl, she smiles the same, and it is a natural smile.</p>

<p>Jeremy, I have to say you made me laugh so hard at the "Mission Impossible" reference. Isn't that the truth!?<br>

Amy, I just notified my clients, after having another shoot not meet expectations, that I was no longer doing family portraits. For that very reason. It is SO much harder than it looks. Even ones where the client thought they turned out were the result of photoshop head-swapping like Erwin mentioned before they even saw them. Kids are kids, and the best shots I have of them are NOT forced. Interaction ones are joyous and real. You need to explain to anyone before the shoot, that there may be a re-shoot because kids don't always cooperate, and you can't make them look forward and look happy. It's hard for us all.</p>

<p>I did family pictures for my sister this past weekend. I've tried it by myself with bad results. Now I always put someone behind me to attract their attention towards the camera. I took 68 shots and got about 25 good ones. Half of them I deleted immediately because they weren't looking at the camera, strange faces, etc. It took about 20 minutes. The first time it took me about an hour to get about 10 usable shots. Perhaps I am a bad photographer but everyone was happy with the end results even though it took a long time and everyone was frustrated.</p>

<p>I don't see where anyone suggested CHEATING, so I will! Find a pic where the adults look good and one where the kid looks good...then combine them! Photoshop is a wonderful thing!!! :-)</p>

<p>Been there and done that. As one of posters above said, a big key is getting the adults to put their smiles on and keep looking at the camera until you tell them otherwise. That eliminates one variable. Baby drooling is not a problem at all -- that's why Adobe invented Photoshop. Tell your brother not to worry about it. If you can't go the retouching yourself, get your lab to do it. The right family member behind the camera can be a help to get the little kids to look the right direction. But otherwise get everybody who's not in the picture out of the room. It's often somebody off-camera that the kid will keep looking at. As Vick suggests, the solution today can easily be to combine multiple exposures with the best expression from each. Lock the camera down on a tripod and get all the adults holding still so that you have a many number of variables from shot to shot. Again if you don't have the Photoshop skills to do it yourself, a good lab can do it for you.</p>

<p>You guys are amazing!! I feel so much better about the situation!! Thank you very much!!<br>

xoxoxoxo<br>

Amy</p>

<p>I do those kinds of shoots all the time. A few suggestions:<br>

If a child is having a real bad day then re-schedule. I don't even attempt shooting and most parents will contact you ahead to let you know the problem. Always, always book the sitting according to the best, happiest part of the day for the youngest in the family. It's their schedule you have to abide by, everyone else is secondary.</p>

<p>800 photos is way, way overkill. I don't shoot that many for a full day wedding. Stop, slow down and take your finger off the button. It's digital's worst nightmare - fill the card. Take the time to see the shot, then take a dozen, re-evaluate, let the family take a breather, then take another dozen, then change groupings.</p>

<p>Show ONLY the best dozen of each pose or each grouping. Anything more is overkill. Even if you have lots of perfect shots, they will zero in on a handful of bad ones. Even one bad shot that they see will set off a chain reaction you can't stop.</p>

<p>Take noisy bright toys, especially ones that the smallest child is familiar with. Simply ask the parents to bring a bag of the child's favorite squeaky toys. After a shoot like that I'll be out of breath and sweating - it's hard work acting like a clown and taking great shots at the same time.</p>

<p>Finally, the last resort is Photoshop. If you have nothing good, create it. Just make sure that your PS skills are excellent, there's nothing worse than a bad PS job. If it's good, no one will ever know that you switched heads. BTW, a bit of drool is super easy to fix and should have been done prior to showing the photos.</p>

<p>good luck - last advice, don't photograph family, they're always the worst. The only person I ever kicked out of a graduation sitting (I've done many thousands) was my own daughter - she couldn't stop giggling.</p>

<p>I agree that families look SO much easier to shoot than they are!! Im so glad that Im not the only one struggling with this aspect of photography!<br>

I took portraits last weekend for a Christmas card of 15 ppeople and in almost everyone of the pictures someone is looking away(This was family)... VICK- you talked about switching heads... how do you do that??</p>

<p>Nevermind, i just watched a tutorial on it on youtube... That is amazing and will definatly be using it to "fix" my family photos! ha ha</p>

<p>My wife keeps talking about switching my head with those of several of her favorite actors...hope she's talking about Photoshop! :-(</p>

<p>The trick with swapping heads is, as Craig says, using a tripod and keeping everyone in one spot. Don't "zoom", change lenses, apertures or move the tripod head/camera... t</p>

<p>Great thread... Theres a good chance i'll be doing portraits of kids soon, so this was a great read... Anyone consider putting a small tv right above the monitor? maybe put up funny images to get the kids laughing? A short youtube video of 3 little pigs or something similar depending on age, sex, and most importantly interest?</p>

<p>But wow, this has been great, i did a shoot a short while ago at my highschool (stantas breakfast). THe high school kids were great, but the smaller kids were hard. I wanted to wait, play around with them and get that "perfect" shot, but I had about 10 seconds for every group of kids. Sometimes i got up to 20, which was great...</p>

<p>Another horrible thing was that my big flash went off when ever a parent used a flash, so i had to wait 2 seconds for it to charge up again.. I ended up telling the parents to give me a small 5 second window first, so i could take 2 quick shots..</p>

<p>Amy,<br>

A lot of great advice so far. I'll simple add this: don't work for family! Just joking...well, not really.</p>

<p>Happy New Year!</p>

<p>Thank you for all of the responses!!!</p>

<p>I've not tried this myself but it might work -- <a href="http://www.instructables.com/id/PEZ-Attachment-for-Camera-with-%22Hot-Shoe%22/">http://www.instructables.com/id/PEZ-Attachment-for-Camera-with-%22Hot-Shoe%22/</a> </p>