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It was a foggy day in Baltimore, but we certainly made the most of it up at Federal Hill Park and the surrounding streets. We've known this beautiful family for a couple years now and I can't say enough good things about them. They've played a key role in helping us coming to love this spectacular city. It's hard not to fall in love with 'Charm City' when you see how much they love it.
I took the headshots of Ann (mom) a few weeks ago, but felt it wrong to leave them out.
p.s. This feels kind of like an "uh-duh" moment, but I'm quickly learning I need to find some tricks to put up my sleeve for shoots with young kids! Oh my goodness they don't sit still long...
Love these people! Cute!
ReplyDeleteNot to fire hose you with unsolicited advice, but since you brought up working with toddlers...the key with toddlers is that they're squirmy, but super predictable in their squirminess. When you ask a squirmy toddler to pose with mom and dad, all they want to do is get out of their arms and run around right? So schedule the shoot for a space where they'd be safe running a reasonable distance on their own, then set mom and dad wherever and start taking pictures of just them. After not that long, the kid will figure out something is happening without them and they want to come back, and then you have a brief window to take a few shots. With everything you do, you have to find ways to make them want it - and the only way to make them want to be in mom's arms is sometimes to make it look like something special is happening with mom and dad that they aren't a part of - then you can't keep them away!
They do hold attention, just for extremely brief windows, so you have to create as many brief windows as possible and take advantage of them. One way to do this is to suddenly start speaking very softly and lean forward. They notice changes like this and will usually stop squirming/being loud for a second to listen, and boom, you have 1.5 seconds to get something. Use it judiciously, like once or twice per shoot. That's the other key - have a fistful of tricks and only use them each once or twice, and have the camera ready and settings set right before.
Another general rule for kids is to keep your shutter speed at 1/125 or faster, preferably 1/250 or faster, even if you have to sacrifice aperture and ISO along the way. You hear the rule of thumb about not letting your shutter speed drop below focal length (e.g. if you're shooting at 100mm, don't let your shutter speed drop below 1/100), but I've found that for me, keeping things at 1/125 and above is a good idea.
Anyhow. You'll figure a lot of awesome things out all on your own too, especially with two cutie test subjects of your own at home! Happy shooting!
Thanks Jenika! All great things to remember. Your advice is always welcome :)
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