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Neil picked up his first camera at the age of 15 - and never looked back.
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How to photograph children (and animals!)
Wednesday, June 08, 2011
With the demise of high key photography, it's important to remember the basics.
Let's face it - high key was a lot of fun - sit a family in front of some very bright lights, press the button, and the light did the rest. It didn't really matter what the children were up to - as long as they appeared in the shot, then there were fairly high odds that you'd capture something magical.
The move to low-key black and white images (we term these photo noir) has changed all of that. Light is still instrumental to producing a great picture, but there is a lot less of it around. This changes the mood, and makes simple things that we took for granted in high key like composition and exposure that much more important.
Natural light
When you spend so many hours in the studio, it's easy to forget that light is, in fact, all around us. Herein lies one of the biggest advantages of moving our of the studio - far less clutter! Children are free to play in a natural environment rather than a rather limited space with a limited selection of props. All you need is the right light, the right angle, and a little patience.
One of the great advantages of low-key shots is that they don't require props, other than this tree, perhaps!
Composition counts
The rules of composition haven't changed, so it's important keep things simple. Moving in close means that there are fewer distractions, meanwhile sticking to black and white prevents the background competing for attention.
Keep it simple - close shots, with a shallow depth of field
Bend the rules
In colour, the image below would never have worked. All this image needed was a little dodging and burning to bring out a halo effect. The limitations of the fully-open lens at full zoom may well have detracted from a colour version, but in this case have actually added to the impact of the picture.
This image has had little re-touching - the rest are a feature of the lens
