On Saturday my friend Ned and I got together to explore an idea I’ve been kicking around for a while. ‘Wouldn’t it be great,’ I thought, ‘to help photo enthusiast parents take better photos of their kids?’
I’d bring my stuff over as if it was a shoot I was hired for, but as well as taking photos myself, I’d also help Ned with his images.
So we tried it. The rough plan was this:
- Talk through some of Ned’s photos that he’d sent me in advance to get a base level and establish what sort of help he was looking for.
- Shoot some photos – using Ned’s current camera and the two I’d brought along with me. I’d be offering a running commentary on what I was doing and why, and some pointers for Ned.
- Look at all the photos and talk through which ones worked (and why) and which didn’t.
- Have a lot of fun doing it.
It was barely a plan, but it all worked really well, with the good-natured assistance of his five-year-old daughter Alex.
Some of the help was technical – even on Portrait mode, Ned’s camera wanted to fire the flash too readily, so we moved him to Aperture Priority mode to give him more control.
But a lot more of it was thinking more about what makes a good photograph – watching the light, the background, the subject’s expression (the sort of things I talked about in this post).
We also found places in their house and yard that would be good for future portraits.
Here’s one of Ned’s shots from the session – we were both really happy with it.
I think it’s a great way to give parents some of the skills they need to take great pictures of their kids themselves. I don’t believe in pretending there’s some magic that only pro photographers can conjure to create good images, and I’m keen to share what I’ve learned.
So drop me a line if you’d like to do something similar and you’re in Santa Fe, Albuquerque or thereabouts – I’m still working out the details of how to offer this in the future as a formal alternative to my portrait sessions, but we can definitely sort something out.
Finally, here are couple that I took on the shoot, just to show that Ned wasn’t the only one doing some work.
If you liked this, you might also like to follow me on twitter, or read these related posts: