How to Photograph Children

Sian: Okay Ely, so I’m gonna bring in you into these trees now, and we’re gonna do some different things in the trees. We’re gonna get you leaning up against the trees and kinda walking through them and doing something a bit different. Angelina: So what made you choose this spot? Sian: I like the tree with the bark and there’s kinda texture in the thing. So nice close up with sort of roll. And Ely’s head against the tree, but also there’s a clump of trees, so we, we can do different scenarios here. So we can get Ely walking through the trees, looking around them, there’s a quite a lot we can do with the clump, and to stay in one place. Angelina: I noticed you seem to be picking, seeing though, it’s a sunny day, but you, it’s easier is it in the shade? Sian: It is, coz sunny days give you really harsh shadows, sometimes you can't help it, and sometimes, that can be quite funky. If you got some glare, some sunshine glare, but I think that’s something more to play with, you have to have more time for that. Angelina: Yup. Sian: Shadow just makes things easier and quicker. Angelina: You can edit it later. Sian: And poor children don’t get fed up too easily. Angelina: Right. Sian: That’s good for you. Are you ready model? Angelina: Okay, Ely, big smile. That’s good. How about looking just slightly over there? Look at that tree there. Bring your head around, bring your head around. That’s brilliant. That’s nice. Drop in just a little bit. That’s fab, that’s good, we like that. That’s nice. Now bit, now with a smile. That’s fab. Really good. Good stuff. Sian: So what shot are we gonna try now? Angelina: Right, I like these line of trees, so we’re gonna get Ely on a different pose, looking around the end of this tree and then I’m gonna shoot along here and get Ely looking kind of casual down at the end of these row of trees. Sian: Fantastic. Angelina: Okay Ely, can you just come in to the tree here for me. Lean against the tree like you’re looking around it. Brilliant. Bend that leg just a tiny bit, that’s brilliant. Great. Okay Ely, that’s good. Nice and moody. Sian: So you’re now trying to get all three trees into the shot. Angelina: Yeah. We probably won't get much of this tree in, but I’m just trying to get the focal point going in to Ely with some, you know, the tree bark and some texture in the image and stuff. Okay Ely, that’s great. Just drop your hand a tiny bit, so I can see more of your face. Brilliant. Not too much, up a little bit. Brilliant. Now really poke, really peek around, really pick around. Pick on that tree and look at me. That’s good. So we got some of the tree, and then Ely. Sian: Oh, really nice. It’s colored here but really nice in black and white as well. Angelina: Yeah, that’s what I was thinking, coz the texture. Sian: Okay, so we got two images here sent in by one of our viewers and we’re gonna get Angelina to take her expert eye and tell us what you think, firstly about this black and white one here. Angelina: Okay, I love the black and white. It’s definitely my kind of style. It’s very photojournalistic and I like the way it’s very grainy and I love the black and white. What I would say is I would do one of two things, I would either crop in to it or pull out and make it more photojournalistic, coz at the moment it’s kind of a halfway house. She’s got a little bit missing of her feet and quite a lot of sky. But I love the, I love the business, and this is a classic of using aperture priority, because the foreground, the subject is coming out and the background is all blurry, and I love it. Sian: It just helps as well that she’s in white. It really stands out. Angelina: Yeah, and she’s not looking at the camera which is great. I love it. It’s really photojournalistic. I love it. Sian: Okay, so moving on to the color photo. Angelina: Okay, this is really nice. We can't always change our environment. You can't move trees and stuff obviously. So what I would say with this one, my eyes are being drawn to the yellow in here. So, if you, if we could take the shot without the yellow behind her, I think it’s probably a toy, but that would be kind of nice. Coz then you’re focusing right in on the face. Sian: Yeah. Angelina: There’s quite a lot of gray around this, I probably want to crop it in just a tiny bit more. Sian: Yup. Angelina: And you could possibly use flash, coz this looks like a tunnel. You could try little bit of filling flash, that you just lighting up the tunnel there a little bit. But that’s a fine line, coz it could work or not, because you might make her darker for say. Sian: Definitely. I suppose that’s the thing with social photography, you literally snap in the picture, taking it as it is, so it’s hard to criticize really sometimes. Angelina: Yeah, it’s very difficult. Yeah. And obviously, there’s things that you can do in photoshop, or any of the other program. Sian: Yeah with editing. Angelina: You know, that’s the joy of digital. Sian: Absolutely. Right. Great. Thank you very much.