Photographing Jamie – by Riani

Have you ever spent some time with a two year old in a confined space?  If you have you will know that this is when they become a lot more independent and insist on doing everything themselves.  Little Jamie was no exception.  Let me tell you, small kids always have something better to do than sit on your lap, smile at a camera and pose for your family pic.  So the key as a professional photographer is to make it fun for them so that they will enjoy the photoshoot (if not you will end up for very unhappy children in your family portrait albums and we wouldn’t want that…..) So we did what we love to do – play….. And boy did we play with li’l Jamie!!!!

We had him kicking up a storm in the coloured balls, jumping on dad’s tummy (which I wouldn’t recommend to any dad) but Jamie seemed to be enjoying himself.  You can play any music to this little guy and he starts to jiggle and dance to it (supercute)  I would say it went quite well for his first studio photoshoot and all in all the photos were cute and I can’t wait to do more! 

He had us singing old mcdonald, baa-baa black sheep, incy wincy spider and loads more…  (At least I’ve got a good singing voice ha ha)  Hope you like the pics!!  Riani

I had the pleasure of photographing lots of smalll kiddies over the weekend.  Little Amie is 1yr 3months old and is she busy?! I really learnt a lot from this family photoshoot.

I was prepared with everything from coloured ostrich feathers to  sellotape which we stuck to her fingers to get her to sit still for a few seconds.  In the end it was the coloured plastic balls that held her interest.  She absolutely loved throwing them out of the plastic shell and then packing them all back inside again! This is another little girl who just adores her dad. She also absolutely adores music, so we used mom’s phone and had her jiggling to the music (so cute!)  Anything to get a good, fun and natural photo of your children…

Amie knows exactly what she wants and made sure we knew as well.  We decided to take her outside to play with mom and dad, and a bit of water in a crate and boy did she enjoy the freedom   Often the best thing is just to have mom and dad playing with their little one and then being quick enough to catch those special moments! After all fgood amily portraits last a lifetime….. 

No-one said photographing babies or small children is easy but once you know how to connect with them, it is very rewarding. When it comes to photographing small kids, it’s all about patience and allowing them to just be themselves…

There are many things to consider when photographing children – the most important being the lighting and getting those catchlights in the eyes (in fact this applies to all portraiture) The eyes are the life and soul of a person and if you don’t get the catchlights in the eyes, the image will be dead.

Other things to consider when photographing children:

- props can help to get the children interacting and having fun

- make sure children are dressed in comfortable clothing

- be quick – children get bored very quickly so have the lights set up beforehand and get the shoot over with as soon as possible

- play with the lights when small children first enter the studio so that they get used the flashes going on and off before you start photographing

- try to make everything a game – play peek-a-boo behind the camera or play some fun kiddies music to set the mood

- Soft light works well on babies

- High key lighting is also really noce for children, especially in bright coloured clothing

- try to limit the amount of people you are photographing together as big groups make it more difficult and again children will get easily bored

- don’t force them to smile at the camera all the time – aim to get some natural, candid photographs of the children showing off thier unique personalities

- try photographing form low angles – get down to their level

- talk to them and make it fun!