photo shoot disaster

I tried to take a pic of two one year old twins and a 3 year old together, and found the task nearly impossible.

 

Granted, i got a lot of great individual shots of the kids, but not one turned out good where all 3 were in it together. aahhH!!!

 

Being in my second year of biz, My prices are cheap , and i do great work. I did everything in my power to get these kids to look at the

camera (including singing and dancing)..to no avail. Do i re-schedule and try again, or is it sometimes right to assume its just luck of the

draw at a shoot like that?

 

My packages have generally included a flat fee with however many kids the family happens to have. Do you guys charge per person? per

additional person after a certain number?

 

Thanks in advance for your response, Lori<div></div>

To get the attention of all three at the same time, have you tried surprisingly pulling out an eye-catching stuff animal and put it right next to your lens? Their eyes should focus and light up for your shot for at least a few seconds.

First, I don't think that every portrait of a child HAS to have that child looking into the camera. I've seen some

wonderful shots of babies and toddlers reacting to or gazing off-camera at something interesting... and that shot

created a sense of narrative, and of youthful interest in the world. It's OK for the kids to be interested in something

besides you - especially since a lot of shots that clearly have that as the goal end up looking forced and contrived.

When you've got three of them together, it's more about the social dynamic between them, not a contest to see if

you can get them all to do the same thing on cue.

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Now, if the parents are absolutely obsessed about a 3-X-Deer-In-The-Headlights portrait, it might help if THEY were

the ones to get the kids to look at the camera. Have them do their own dance just over your shoulder. If they

themselves are at a loss on how to make that happen, they certainly won't hold it against you. I can't imagine

anyone would consider you to be on the hook for an endless attempt, over multiple sessions, to get a specific

behavior from three such young and wiggly subjects. Catching them being themselves, and being delightful, doesn't

mean hypnotizing them into look at the lens... I hope!

<br><br>

Of course, I'm one to talk. When I'm asked to shoot a brace of hunting dogs with their handler, nobody's happy

unless I can get everyone looking the same direction at once. The good news is that all I ever have to do is throw a

dead pheasant up in the air, and get the shot just as it lands on the ground next to me. I don't know if that would

work with 1-year-old primates. Maybe in South Dakota - it's the state bird.

<br><br>

So, no joking... I'd go instead for the best interaction <i>between</i> those subjects that you can capture. That

seems more likely, and in many ways more endearing. Good luck!<div></div>

Lori,

 

Try to get what ad people call a "baby wrangler." Usually, this is a young person who loves kids and is funny. Get the a few

props, and let hem at it. Young cousins, nephews, nieces, siblings, etc. re usually cheap (or free). They can get the

children's attention while you shoot hundreds of images...you might get a couple you like.

oh! thats a great idea! (the baby wrangler) and the dead pheasant ! ha ha! i would have done anything to get these kids to

look at me! seriously.

The parents were doing all they could too!

and , yes , its not me who loves the shot where all the kids are looking, but im sure the parents would want just one!

Lori, There is a shot on my page of my boys with their cousins. See if you can identify it. There are five different emotions

on five different kids. In my opinion (admittedly biased) that is waht makes the photo special.

thanks david! thats a great shot btw! awesome! i love it.

heres my favorite from my shoot. LOL!<div></div>

by the time i jumped back (w my 50mm crop factor) to get their faces in looking up;...i couldnt focus fast enough.. but i like

it anyways...what do you think?

by the time i jumped back (w my 50mm crop factor) to get their faces in looking up;...i couldnt focus fast enough.. but i like

it anyways...what do you think?

Yes, I agree that the second slightly out-of-focus shot is also great as they all have great facial expressions. Why don't you do some creative post-editing tweaking on this second shot to create an "artistically blurred out" look?

Couple of things. The kid wrangler is good, but you have to control when they start trying to wrangle. The element of surprise is wasted if you aren't ready to hit that shutter button. And don't expect it to work over any period of time. So pre focus, pre everything, then tell the wrangler to go, and be ready to shoot. The best thing that worked for me was to have grandma standing behind my shoulder with balloons and a pin. And when you have toddlers, you will be hard pressed to keep them in one spot for anything more than half a second. You just keep putting them back into position--actually have someone else do that. You should be waiting with finger on the shutter button. Also, have only one wrangler present and no one else. Multiple people yammering at the kids is a recipe for disaster. You should control parent expectations too. And realize that it will all be over in about 10 minutes. Actually, anything over 20 minutes is lucky.

I'd agree with just about everyone has said. There are plenty of times you are going to have to go for the really nice shoot of no one paying attention to the camera. It is also fin to sometimes get a great picture of them looking at the camera. I know it is hard enough to sometimes get my son to keep his attention on me long enough and with a smile to capture it with my SLR pressed against my eye. I am learning to focus, compose and hold my camera steady without my eye anywhere near it and without changing the composition and hit the shutter release while getting him to smile by making silly faces at him. That or I get my wife to get his attention and get him smiling and laughing.

 

I also go with a 28mm lens (film) and get up close enough so that he is interested in trying to play with/eat the camera and snap away like that.

 

A fun/colorful toy can be good to keep their attention. Have someone standing behind you with it getting the childrens attention (say mommy or daddy maybe). Alternately if you have skills (and strength and coordination) you can either autofocus or manual focus, compose and then hold the camera in the same position while moving your face away from it to talk to the kids and draw their attention. It takes effort to hold even a 1lb camera with a little 50mm lens on it without changing the compostion or distance, but its doable with some practice (my problem is that my almost 6 month old doesn't like holding still for more then about 2s unless sleeping or eating (and then not with solid foods), so its hard to keep focus/composition without your eye to the view finder).

when i am not happy with my results from a shoot (or more to the point, i know the parents wont be happy) i offer to reschedule

I am just off out now to do a second shoot because the mother didnt get a shot of her 2 kids sitting together, looking straight on at the camera & smiling....

it only happens once in a while so i dont mind, like to have happy campers and it just keeps me awake at night if i dont ;)

thanks everyone.

victor, any advice on how to artistically blurr that shot? not quite sure i know what you mean. thank you!

Ages 1 and 3 run at very different clock speeds. Probably the best relaxing agent is food. Try to synch your shoots to their meal schedule at home and have the parents present them shortly after to you.No food or drink at the shoot. Forget the kid wrangler--most I've seen are hyper-active, third-rate b-day clowns who confuse, frighten or pump kids to a manic froth. It's always chancey with those ages and you'll take what you're given. Get down at their level and interact. Slow, deliberate, non-directive interaction usually helps, too.

Gary--wouldn't it then make sense that the kids' digestions run at different clock speeds too? Not arguing--just checking. Not all kid wranglers are manic, and I still think you need someone else because otherwise, you aren't fast enough to get those lightning quick head turns and smiles, if you get any at all--not with 1 year olds. You can't hardly get what one would call a conversation going.

Absolute worst times I've found are around noon and 4-6pm--typically the times kids are running on empty and fractious. Fed kids are calmer and happier. Parents work best as handlers since they're familiar and know the kids' buttons. Wranglers typically stump, frighten, or annoy kids--and frankly tend to piss me off, too. Lori just needs a wee bit of patience--the ideas and flexibility are already there.

I agree about bringing a snack or treat to bribe the kiddos with. As long as the parents are okay with it. I really think this shoot would be cute to give each of them a huge lollypop. I bet that'd hold their attention for a little while =) I'd do that at the end of the session though so they weren't hyper the whole time.

Hmmm. My experiences have been different. If there was any food around, the kids would break formation and want to get their hands on the food immediately, then start crying if they couldn't. I'm still talking about the shot where all kids are looking at the camera and maybe smiling. Anything else, such as interaction shots, it was fine.

Hi Lori,

As for "artistically blurring the shot", there are many ways to do it in PS. From what I can see from your posted second image (relatively small resolution), it appears the kid on the left is slightly more out-of focus than the other two - which is probably something less than desirable. One way to correct that is to blur (under Filter) the other two kids in PS to the same degree so the whole image would appear to be intentionally captured to yield a "soft" look. You can use the lasso tool for each of the two kids before performing the blur to get a consistent level of blur. There are also many built-in filters (again under Filter) in PS that you can experiment to create the slightly distorted "dreamlike or painting" artistic look. The best way to get your own favourite results is to experiment it out in PS. I find increasing the contrast sometimes help achieve the desirable results.

Post editing, in my opinion, is a big part in producing appealing images. It's worth a try as the second image definitely has great potential to be transformed into a great shot.

Here's a 5-minute tweak in PS - I used lasso, blur, lighting effects and angled strokes to bring the relatively

small sample image to this look. But I'm sure you can do a lot more in the full resolution image.<div></div>

thanks victor . that looks cool. Im gonna have to mess around with it in PS.

I like the smarties idea, since they are not messy.

these parents would not have been cool with a lolly pop. I had to convince them to not let their kids wear shoes. they were freaking out about them getting dirty too.

The only kids I shoot are rugrats belonging to friends and family. Shooting kids is beyond difficult.

 

I routinely chop their little heads off and reposition. Do I tell? Ummmm...NOPE! :)

One minute tweak... I loaded a preset levels and preset curves setting, feather lasso'd the face on the left and applied my last used Unsharp mask, but slid down to 90%.<div></div>

If you are going to shoot B&W, I'd suggest playing w/ at least a levels layer-- the curves layer offers more control, but takes a while to get the hang of in comparison. Generally, I also normally apply a color balance (perserve luminosity unchecked) under my desaturation level. Your current B&W's look a little washed out to me. W/ no color to add to the image, your tonage needs to be watched.

 

Oh, and save a curves layer you like... I have about 12 custom ones, b/c it's a pain to recreate them from scratch.