Jamie & Isaac's Photo Shoot (23rd Jan 2011)

So I had the one shoot done with no problems whatsoever, ready for day two. In no way did yesterday's photo shoot prepare me for this one.

For the above photo I selected the background area and added some zoom blur, it seems to help bring the attention to the centre where it looks like it's being pinched at, I especially like the expression on Jamie's face on this one, it's a great beaming smile and it shows that he's such a happy chappy.

His brother is a very energetic play machine. This meant trying to capture him in the shots required a) Patience and b) Relying on his parents abilities to distract him with an onset of toys. Some of these meant I was able to take quite a few photos of him being still or prone. I Guess he just looked at this whole session as one big play time! So did I really!

The other added bonus was location, in a conservatory with glass all around so plenty of ambient light, but as it was overcast I still needed to make good use of my lights in the small space, sometimes it meant standing in the ball pit.

Now I'm not very used to children still, as never normally being around them, but being a big kid myself probably helped. I think with it doing this photo shoot at hime with all their toys around them meant the children weren't shy at all and it meant I could try and capture their personalities in the shots if I was quick enough. If that's doesn't work, get the parents to join in so they can hold onto them :)

I changed the set around constantly, using cushions, not using cushions, at an angle, with toys, in a tunnel or playing in the ball pit and it meant I had to make sure the lighting levels were correct with each set up. Because of this I actually took extra time (the session lasted nearly 2 1/2 hours I think), but I did enjoy the challenges this presented to me and the different scenes to create. The ball pit leant itself to make a great border from birds eye shots whilst the kids both wiggled around in the ball pit.

They also had a cool little tunnel, now I've always loved tunnels, but alas, I was too big to get in it without looking like a numpty. But I managed to get some great photos of Isaac playing with a rather large Buzz Lightyear in there, and with it's thin polyester material, it meant it diffused the light further creating a nice illuminative glow.

The whole experience had been a deep learning curve for positioning and props...as well as how to distract a child long enough to look complacent with being sat in front of two big glaring spot lights and a weird man going "ohhh... that's a nice one". I'll also need to practise more with using the lights on people with glasses too as I found I was getting a lot of reflective glare which spoilt a lot of the photos. I was pleased with the end result on the whole, as I managed to get a decent number of decent photos, but a lot of these will require further editing to remove unwanted back ground scenery. Another learning curve for me has been using Photoshop Elements, and I wouldn't have been able to have done this without it's decent cloning tools and selection tools. I'll be a pro in no time!

A big thanks goes to the parents for their co-operation and five stars to the two boys for putting up with me blinding them.

My next project is a Rock Band called IRIS, shooting in some outdoor locations and getting some studio shots for their website. 'til then, rock on :-)

First Photo Shoot (Sat 22nd)

Looks like I got my lights and backdrops just in time, not only did I have my first photo shoot on Saturday but also my first experience with directing a child. Luckily, this child was very well behaved and I prayed they would all be like that. But alas, that would not be the case. The shot below was taken with a white canvas cloth as a backdrop and two diffused lights at slightly varying heights but at roughly 45 degrees from point of focus.

I managed to get some photos of Jack and his father together, at one point even their lovely fat dog called Honey made it onto the scene momentarily after some birbery with a doggie treat (which was then soon spat out and forgotten about)

The beauty of digital cameras is that you can just keep shooting and shooting. This was a one hour session and I managed to accumulate just over 600 images. I did this in mind knowing that the majority would not be usable plus it gave me more chance to get that exact pose or facial expression that would make the picture, in a word, perfect. To help with the white background I had to set the cameras exposure compensation up a couple of stops as it was making the image too dark. This also helps to be able to up the shutter speed a fraction and not loose out too much in the way of light for stopping motion blur.

There came a natural end to this photo shoot, it wasn't timed so there was no rush, but Jack was starting to get slightly bored (primarily because his laptop's battery died) and the lights being on him for so long were making him strain his eyes all the time, but he did really well and I managed to get some fantastic shots which required very little in the way of editing. The only editing that needed doing on some of the white scenes were to crop or clone over the bits I didn't want. (Like my assistant holding the backdrop because the dog likes walking past it quite a bit). I just have to remember that props are fantastic for kids as they divert all their attention away and can make some different scenes for shots.

Sunday's photo shoot was a different story, not as peaceful or sedate! I'll let you know how that one went in a few days, right now I'm still editing the pictures :-)