Reflection part 6: Where are the kids? #whatsthestory #magicmoments #mammarazzi

Continuing my series of looking at some of my favourite images from the last year. You can see some of my other posts by following the link ‘ishoot’ in the menu bar. They are all in there! 🙂

So this week i thought i would look at that elusive model..nope not the toddler but the teen!! *gasp*

Yes i do occasionally get asked to photograph older kids, young adults. Generally they are as part of family group! But they aren’t toddlers and they are certainly not kids..and would never want to be considered one of the old adults. I do really enjoy working with this sort of age though, they really stretch me and i have to put some thought into how to make them feel at ease and relax into the shoot. Some of my favourite images have come about from having a older kid in the family. They are particularly good at getting younger kids to do as you are asking them.

Here are a selection of some of my favourites and some of my ideas about how I got there:

This shoot was for two teenage sisters and we were in a large warehouse type building. I have found that walls are great for teens. Often they are a bit at a loss with what to do with themselves, what to do with their hands, etc. If you give them something to lean against. In this shot she was standing under a hole in the ceiling that was letting some sunlight in! Which was so ideal for the shot as it threw light in such a directional quality that we just had to use it! We got her to stand in the light and put some HUGE shades on and look up to it like a movie star. I love the texture of this shot!

I shot this image using flash! Yes really! It gives a little bit more of a edgey feel to the shot i think. Shot using high speed synch flash at a fast aperture to blur the background.

Adding a dramatic background and using some leading lines for this shot. Again getting a young lad to lean against a wall means that he doesn’t have to think about what to do with his limbs!

Leaning on something is another go to pose i have found that works. It looks natural and you can slap them straight in the middle of the shot, commanding the stage! I was asking this young man about his girlfriends which his family thought was hilarious..he was quite dignified in telling me though, it was serious stuff!

This is a great shot for a teen and also for anyone else really as it is really flattering. Lean yourself and your model against a wall or something similar and shoot along it, you can see how it gives a real depth to the shot leads the viewer exactly where you want them to look. Just remember to focus on the right point!

Always good to give them a chance to ‘cuddle’ their siblings!

Up close. Super sweet portrait shot, in soft sidelighting, i had mum holding a reflector to the right (being really picky i should have asked him to turn his head slightly). I really love this quiet seeming stillness, at the beginning of growing up!

That POSE. that all girls do 😉 But it works really well and again is a good way of getting your model to do something with their hands. For boys have them stand with their feet about shoulder width apart with their thumbs tucked in their pockets.

Another portrait shot, this time with a slight angle on the shot as i took it and ive also added some texture in post processing which adds something. Plus this guy had incredible eyes! I have found as well that teens like the serious look, brooding with attiude. I think its great to let them do that. This guy also cocked his eyebrow in a really cool way, something which probably makes him..him if you know what i mean! lol,

Actually one of my favourite shots! Three brothers. Look at how the littlest one is trying to copy the cool older bro! Priceless!

Motivational Monday

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Reflecting part 2 #magicmoment #whatsthestory #mamarrazi

I mentioned in one of my previous posts that as i was approaching the end of the year I felt that it would be good to reflect on some of my professional work with portraiture. Took a bit of a break from that over the holiday period but now i am going to continue it a little bit. 🙂

One of the most frequent things i get asked is how do you get toddlers to stay still? Those children that are aged say between 18 months – 3 years old. Mums and Dads will always come to me and say ‘i just cannot get them to stay still for a decent picture’ and yes those blurry action shots are fun for depicting the energy of your child but what about getting a good clear shot of their faces that is in focus!!

Well i thought i would share some of my methods for getting that age group to stay still and some of my favourite little toddlers that i have met this year.

Okay so first up you have to accept that generally saying ‘just sit still a minute’ isnt going to work. That age group cannot follow instruction really. I have had a few that have and i have been totally blown away. But in general a child who is less than 2 cannot follow a direction. All their goal in life is to get going. They have usually been sat on their backside for a good number of months watching life happen and now they have found a way to interact with the world, and fast, they have NO intention whatsoever of being made to sit still.

and yes…you might say ‘oh but i love those natural shots of them playing etc etc’ = well yes they are great but if you have another sibling or anyone else you would like to be in focus in the shot..then a fast moving kid is going to make that pretty hard. Yes i know those shots are lovely but generally (and im only speaking from experience) people want the family portrait to put on the wall and not the one with little johnny tearing off into the bushes while mum and dad look on. generally. 😉

So when i get an enquiry and it has the word ‘2 year old’ somewhere in it. These are some of the things that i will try…

  • Older siblings – they are awesome and all little toddlers love to copy big bro or sis. If you have a school age child then you have an ally. School age children are used to following directions from people they don’t really know that well…(ie a teacher) and so when you ask them to sit down for you they will probably do it. They can be used to tempt a toddler into a shot and also as an anchor. Get the toddler sat on the older siblings lap and hold on to that toddler! Or get the toddler to lie on the back of the older sibling. There are loads of ways you can get them interacting together to make a great portrait. Here little boy didn’t want to stay still so we got very patient big sister to lay on the floor and told him to jump on her back!! If i was being really picky i dont like that her hair is covering one of her eyes but its a very cute natural expression. 
  • Give them something to sit on – toddlers love chairs, they have spent a long time trying to get on chairs and so when they are old enough and able enough to get on one. They love to. Pop one where you want to take a shot and wait, your toddler will come and sit on it. You can suggest it as well. I have a range of things to sit on, ranging from a chair to a fire engine truck. It keeps them still and in one place for a moment and you can get your shot. Or put them in something, i use a little red trolley radio flyer that the sit in which is usually pretty successful. the little girl in the middle would not sit down at ALL. so we improvised and got some cute shots of her actually standing on the stool. One of the great family shots from this shoot she is standing on a chair, i just got mum and dad in around her and then zoomed in for a portrait shot so you couldnt see the chair. 🙂 
  • Lens buddies – these are cool little things that you can put on your lens to make it look more like an animal. Now, i am a big advocate but they don’t work for long. Toddlers aren’t silly and once they realize that Tommy the turtle really doesn’t burp when they look at him or whatever it looses all its appeal.
  • Try to avoid too much stuff on the floor for them to play with. This is something we all do. Put something they want in the middle of the floor and they go and get it and sit down to play. Yes? well..yes and then unless they lift it to show you they are going to be looking at thing on the floor and you will generally be looking at the top of their head. Perfect example of this here, this little boy loved my toy camera but he either was looking through it which whilst cute blocked his face or he sat down and looked at the floor to fiddle with it. Mum was in the process of asking him to give it to me when he looked straight at me..probably thinking you are NEVER getting this thing off me lady! 😉
  • Get mum and dad involved. Or get involved yourself and set on a timer. Btw all kids think the running to the shot from the camera is hilarious! But seriously the parents are such great tools. Either from the point of view of sitting and holding or tickling or singing to the kids…or standing behind you at your height and getting the kids to laugh. This lovely family were just doing the swinging through the arms thing with their toddler which he was loving hence the smile and so i just captured him before he went up and over. The second shot was a family lifestyle session at home with new baby and whilst mum and dad are not in focus in the shot, the toddler looking straight at me is being watched by all the others in the shot and it brings a real symmetry to the image. Also they were in between ‘all the monkeys jumping on the bed!!” 
  • Reflectors. If you are using a camera you need to understand about these..i wrote a post here demonstrating it. Reflectors are great. They reflect the light but they are also really useful as space ships, flying carpets, tunnels…let their imagination tell you where they want to go and you will see that their face will light up. These kids were sitting ‘on’ the reflector that way it gives them a cool thing to play on and also bounces some light up into their faces! You can also use your person who is holding it. Get the kids to look at them and chat to them or get them to pull funny faces, chances are they will be someone they know. Looking away from the camera is okay!! Obviously i would have cropped this image to get rid of the actual reflector!
  • If you have a couple of toddlers or twins..and can’t get them together..try for the same image of each of them and make a montage. Just because they aren’t physically standing together doesn’t mean you can’t make a great family shot. This dad was keen to get shots of him with his three toddlers, they weren’t keen on being in a shot all together so i shot the same image of them and put them together in a montage. Being on daddy’s shoulders is also a good way of keeping them still.
  • Capture the mess as well. Life with toddlers is messy right? haphazard, up and down, smiles and tantrums. Capture it all. Dont wait for the perfect moment. This image is actually one of my favourite shots. This lovely family have a 3 year old and 2 year old twins and we were trying for a family shot and we thought we had the girls sorted with a toy that suited each of them as they were squabbling a lot. They sat down and almost immediately the other one wanted what the other one had…and in that moment the exasperated laugh and expression of the parents spoke volumes.
  • Props – sometimes these work and sometimes they don’t. But if it works you will have the interest of your little person for a good while.
  • Get above them and get them to look up. Makes those lovely baby eyes come out.
  • Make noise, farting, sneezing, whistling. Anything that makes them look at you
  • Bring a toy to life – this is one of my favourite things to do. Get them talking to the toy! Its endless the possiblities.
  • Lastly and perhaps more importantly is give your camera a fighting chance. Aim for a lovely bright, overcast, time of the day and your camera will be able to work at a fast shutter and wide aperture and produce some lovely effects.

Golden rules of what NOT to do...

a) force them to be in a shot. it doesnt work and they just get upset

b) Get stressed with them. I am always telling parents to stay calm and let little chloe run off into a different room or down the park. Its fine. Let them be their own person. Toddlers will never perform if someone is saying ‘do what the photographer is telling you now!’ through gritted teeth and with all an army load of tension. They aren’t silly!

You will notice that i don’t mention bribes as in sweets, treats or things. Its a common thing you hear ‘just have this one picture and then we will give you sweets!’ Whilst this might get a kid to do what you say for one shot, when you then ask them to do something else they clock that they haven’t gone for lunch or been given a sweet and they think you are a liar….taking photographs of little kids is about building as much of a trust relationship as possible and if, in their eyes, you are just fibbing to them then they won’t trust you. However sometimes you have to resort to a little bribe and i often have those little fizzy sweets in my pocket. You can give them one of them, they know you are not a liar and it dissolves in their mouth fast without making a mess…one parent i had continued to give his toddler daughter wine gums!! It took ages to chew and the drool down her mouth!! You can see what i mean!!

My last thought would be have reasonably expectations…like i said, i have had a few very young toddlers who have done exactly as i have asked. It is, i think, one of the hardest ages to photograph because the window of when they are actually cool with being followed around by a smiling maniac with a big black box  is very small.

It is good to be realistic. Aim for a good ‘happy’ time of day. Make sure they aren’t hungry, dirty, need a wee, need a change. give it a go..and don’t keep on and on if its isnt working…

If they are up for it…GREAT. If not, you will live to fight another day and go and have a cuddle on the sofa instead!

Motivational Mondaythe ordinary moments

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is that Bokeh season #mamarazzi

Before you think i have gone mad. Bokeh is a technical term. yes it is.

Bokeh :

In photography, bokeh (Originally /ˈboʊkɛ/,[1] /ˈboʊkeɪ/ boh-kay — also sometimes heard as /ˈboʊkə/ boh-kə,[2] Japanese: [boke]) is the blur,[3][4] or the aesthetic quality of the blur,[5][6][7] in out-of-focus areas of an image. 

Bokeh is a portrait photographers dream. Yes it is. Bokeh means that I can take a photograph of my gorgeous daughter on a park bench when there is a herd of people doing a welly walk in the background (yes there is) and all you will see is a blur of colour…

So thats what Bokeh is, that blurry buttery background that we all know and love. Now this season coming up… *whispers* the christmasy one is the PERFECT time for using a bit of bokeh. Those lovely christmas lights make great bokeh backdrops for your festive images.

Here is how you go about it.

SO..

essentially your basic bit of equipment is a FAST lens…what does that mean?  You can find out here or here a bit about aperture…You need wide, open, (low numbers) FAST aperture settings.

You can make the little balls of light bigger by increasing the distance between your in focus subject and the out of focus lights in the background.

Helps to have your subject in the foreground and set your AF point on them. You can half depress the shutter and re-compose as well to get that extra dimension and composition to your shot.

KA-POW!

Christmas in a neat little JPG package.

All done.

 

Here are a fabulous selection from the wonder that is pinterest!

this is a partnered post

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Growing and learning #photography101 #mamarazzi

Firstly I wanted to say in this weeks mamarazzi how stoked i am to be included in the TOTS100 top 20 photography blogs. I have that wee little badge displayed over to the left and you can click there to see some of the other wonderful photographers that are included in the list. Thank you again Madame Tot.

So onwards…

This post is going to be a little bit different to others than i have done in the past as it is a little self indulgent and a lot about me and what i have learned recently. Which may not be something you are interested in or it may be, so please bear with me. At least enjoy the images.

As a bit of background…about 3 years ago when i was very heavily pregnant with my last baby I was flicking through a photography magazine when i noticed a small advert for photographers to go on workshops for editorial purposes. I sent them a quick email and 5 minutes later the phone rang and a journalist was asking me if i could be in manchester in 7 days time.

It took a HUGE amount of bravery because I was pretty new to it and was paranoid that everyone there would have vastly more knowledge than me. Which being honest they did but i learnt SO much on that day  (and got some of my photos published!) that it was the one of the best learning experiences of my photography journey. Stuff that i learnt on that day changed the way i shoot and i told myself there and then that i wanted to come back and do this sort of workshop.

It took a while for me to get round to deciding what it was that i wanted to do a workshop on. I have always been inspired by the use of light in a photograph…and the use of creative flash. Thats not horrible on camera red eye but off camera stunning light art images.

My goal for 2013 was to understand flash and Brett Harkness is pretty much a grand master at creative flash, both producing it and teaching it. So that was where i went. With three other photographers. A day with Brett, to critique our work (scary) and learn the art of creative flash.

It was such a fabulous day, opening up a huge range of possiblities. You know those amazing shots where the sky is a beautiful deep dark colour and yet the bride and groom are fabulously lit? This is how its done.

After lunch we got to have a go with high speed sync flash and off camera flash, using some real HUGE power packs that give out a huge amount of zap!

I was inspired..so inspired…wanting to go out and buy a tonne of stuff (none of which i can right now) and drag my kids onto the hills and shoot some amazing skies and skylines. So i will get practicing with what i have right now. What i was inspired the most by was that we were in a studio in the middle of a mill, a wood mill, with a fairly grotty carpark and STILL you can use the background to get some amazing images. Even our battered old car came to life as part of an sophisticated, grown up image. Transformed by the master of the light.

As i always say, its all about the light. When there isnt natural light available or that natural light is far too bright and harsh. Step in the most awesome and creative use of flash and you don’t have to worry any more.

Before you check out some of the shots from the day let me just really really recommend doing a workshop, not one of those £19.00 photography days that you get on groupon. A real, proper workshop with a photographer whose work you admire and aspire to. I cannot tell you just how much you learn. Just do it!!

so here are some of the shots from the day. Not my usual subject, the very lovely model Liz, who was incredibly patient and gracious with a baby photographer who faced with a professional model went somewhat quiet!!

 

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Newborn photography at home. part one. #Mamarazzi #photography101

If you have ever happened across my photography page, there is a wee little link thing down there to the right then you would notice that  I have a whole area of my site dedicated to photographing babies. Since i work with newborns and have done ( as a neonatal nurse) for 12 years now, it has seemed like a natural step to newborn photography.

Its sort of a niche area of photography. It is a pleasure to do but can take a long time (which i guess is why so many photographers avoid it!)  and i love meeting these little miracles and getting to know another little person.

I often get asked about how to get lovely images of babies when they are so new. So i thought i would do a few posts with some hints and tips to getting some lovely images of your newborn baby. Easy things that you can do at home.

So part one, i thought i would explain a little about the environment that would be a good place to start if you have a newborn and you want to try and get some cute shots.

  • Newborns have just come out of a very warm environment in the womb. Its very warm in there, about 38degrees. So if you are thinking cute naked baby shots then you need to have your environment warm. Babies cannot regulate their temperature when they are born so its important to make sure you do that for them. My general rule is if you are uncomfortably hot then the baby will be happy 🙂
  • Choose a time when your baby is usually most settled. Often babies are sleepy in the morning and start to crank up the grumps towards the evening. Not always the way, you know your baby the best.
  • When a baby is in utero it is NOISY! Lots of noises! Anyone who has a newborn will marvel at the fact that their new baby will nod off next to the washing machine on full spin. So its a really useful tip to download a white noise phone app and have it playing near your baby. Or you can use a womb noise teddy things you can get to soothe newborns to sleep.
  • Look for signs that indicate when your baby is relaxed and settled. Babies have a way of communicating….honestly! It isnt always all crying.

Signs that they may not be in the best place for being a model…

  • Stretching their hands towards you and up towards their face or splaying their fingers apart in front of the their face, yawning, hiccuping and sneezing excessively, arching their back  or moving their arms and legs frantically.

Signs that they are ready to play model…

  • well fed or just fed, wrapping them up in a blanket or other loose item to feed them and settle them. One thing that will for sure wake your baby up is fumbling a onesie over its head when its asleep.
  • Rock your baby back and forth to imitate the movements that would have settled them in the womb. how many mothers always say that their babies were still as could be when they were on the go and then woke up to party when they lay down. A slow rocking motion copies this and will help lull your baby to sleep.
  • Once they are asleep you can gently pop them on the beanbag or pillow that you want to use to photograph them on.

….and how you go about setting that up will be in my next newborn mamarazzi post!!

 

 

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