If you’ve been keeping up with my articles and videos on ALC and Adorama TV, you’ll know I’ve covered lots of different elements of portrait photography. In this article, I’ll share some insights about photographing children and illustrate with portraits of my son, Jolan.
Being a photographer, I made my son’s “portraits” even before he was born, but I want to concentrate on a bit later stage. Children will start rich interactions and developing a better understanding of what we might want from them at about one year old – which also often coincides with first steps, etc…This is the first time that semi-controlled posing is possible and you can get children into places and positions that will end up with nice photographs. Children’s attention span will be also extended from zilch to zilch+1 and that helps tremendously. There are things that will “always” work (i.e. chocolate) but this is by no means a fool proof recipe. You will have to tailor to your child model as needed because all kids are different.
First of all, I want to encourage you to photograph children at their eye level. Even though we see them from high up (like in the photograph above) and we will take many snaps from that height, you will be surprised how different your photographs will look once you get to their eye level. You will also get their real look – face to face. This will also make many portrait situations easier to control light wise, like in this photograph. Jolan was eating an apple by the window. Strong sunlight was hitting the back of his head, so I quickly grabbed a piece of white paper to use it as a reflector and bounce back some of that golden glow onto his face. You can see it as a highlight in his left eye.
This portrait with an apple leads me directly to another vague technique you can easily use – photographing children directly after food. Little homo sapiens are not the cleanest creatures and they will often look colorful, and possibly even funny. Children are also very often quite content after food, and so their patience is extended as well. This opens a window for us to grab their attention for a little bit longer, grab our camera, and click away…
Another way to photograph a child is to use the same technique I use when making candid portraits on the street. Once Jolan is occupied by something and I sense the potential for a nice photograph, I position myself, frame the photograph and wait for him to look in a way that I find interesting. Naturally, it won’t always work but it’s quite reliable, especially with longer focal lengths when we can observe from a bit further back.
In a more confined environment of your homes and once your child gets used to the idea of the camera and being photographed, try the “shoot ‘n’ show” trick. Basically, you pose your child for the reward of showing them the photograph. If Jolan is particularly helpful, or I really want to make the shot, I might even let him press few buttons, it’s just a matter of finding the right balance as children tend to become possessive and interested in the camera much more that the posing itself.
From my own experience, the above tricks work with all children and I used them on assignments as well. Even though your child is unique, in the end, all children are small humans that have their own personalities. The more we understand them, the better photographs we can make. Photographing children is a little bit like a condensed course in portrait photography where we need to find the balance between feeling and technique, so if you get this right, everything else might look that much simpler. Just keep trying and remember that not every photograph will be great and special, but if you keep at it, your family album will fill faster that you can imagine.
Many thanks for reading and please check back next month for another installment of me pondering different aspects of portrait photography.
