Beach Blanket Bingo- Behind the Scenes

Photographing Children.. You can do it!

It is in our nature as nurturing parents to love love our offspring and get all googly eyed and joyous when we see them. Hence, taking images of children is a breeze when compared to getting that perfect image of the CEO of a major company that has given you less than 10 minutes of his or her time to get the shot.

From my experiences, keys to capturing amazing shots of children include the following:
-Shoot them when they are most awake, fed, and not in an unusual place
-Get down low... I mean really low... At their level or even lower. Our normal perspective of kids is from up high. Give the viewer a different angle. Get low and make the subject appear larger than life.
-Light the eyes. Make sure their eyes are lit.
-Again, nap time isn't a great time to take photos.
-Have the parent stand behind or next to the camera so the subject will look toward camera and not the parent that is standing 6 feet to the right.
-Do something different. Go in your backyard, school, or park. The same tin wash tub with the cute baby in it has been exhausted by nearly every crappy Box Store portrait studio there is. Do something original. Let kids roam around and be themselves in their natural environment is great place to start.

New Behind the Scenes Video

A simple and short Behind the Scenes Video of the recent Geisha photoshoot I collaborated with Kelsey of Kel-Z Photography. Unlike most of my tutorials that delve into off camera lighting and Strobist techniques, this one focuses on Natural Light and plainly getting out of the house with a concept in mind and shoot away.

Beach Blanket Bingo?

The longer I live, the more I tend to believe I was born in the wrong decade. For this week's blog, I'm sharing the latest Pinup concept I photographed. I went back to Crystal for this one because she has the "look" and true form of what the vintage pinups used to be back in the day.

We headed out once again to the shores of the Great Salt Lake and started shooting away as the sun dropped behind the mountains and eastern shores of the lake. Lighting was minimal and included only a small Flash coupled to a silver reflective umbrella mounted to a boom arm and light stand. Some behind the scenes video was captured and another Strobist Lighting Tutorial should be done soon. As always, stay tuned.

-Ben