Eye Contact Smiles and More [What I Learned from Shooting with Film: Part 5]

In this post Rachel Devine (author of our new kids photography eBook Click) ends her series on reasons learning photography on film cameras made her the digital photographer that she is today. Also Read previous posts on Shooting with Burst Mode, Natural vs Artificial Light, Embracing the Grain and Taking Cameras Everywhere.

One last thought to wrap up this little series of blog posts. With film, the shoots always had a limit. I needed to get my shots in a certain number of frames so I had to be pretty organized. I went in with a game plan. I would always try to get the sitting still and smiling at the camera shots first and out of the way for no other reason than I wanted to have as much film left over as possible to capture the real photos. Everyone asks for those eye contact / natural smile shots, so I do my best to get a great one, but for me, that is not what kid photography is about.

Especially if the children I am shooting are pensive or active or anything other than prone to sitting still and looking at the camera. I want to document the real childhood of that child.

Looking back on my own family photos from childhood, there are very few where we are all lined up and smiling for the camera. About one of those semi-formal posed ones a year. Usually it was shot in the summer outside the beach house with my dad’s camera on a tripod and with the self timer.

It is neat to watch the family grow up through those photos, but they are not the ones I hunger for digging through all the old slide albums. I am looking for more moments to spark a memory other than my father yelling for us to all smile and look at the camera while he did the mad dash back from pushing the shutter to join us in the line.

I want to find the images that tell a story within the confines of that little paper Kodak frame. Those images that as soon as I hold up the slide to the light suck me right back in time through those locked doors of fading memories.

And I want to leave those little future keys for my children to find in the images I am making of them as they grow. So I occasionally get the eye contact and the smiles, but often I get so much more.

The photos in this post are of my daughter were taken just a few days apart on this trip back to Virginia to visit family. I am thrilled to have the smiling shot and I will probably frame it, but the other two show how she really is on this journey. She is more pensive than the big grin would have you think.

Gemma has always been a great traveler. She has been many places in the world with us and always up for an adventure. The last time we came to the states she did not waste a minute of her thoughts on Australia. I will always remember this trip back to the states as the first one where she had been in Australia long enough to start missing her home and friends. I can see it in her face in the other photos and it is one little thing that I will remember about her growing up…a milestone captured.  

For more on the topic of Kids Photogrpahy – Check out Rachel’s new eBook Click! How to Take Gorgeous Photos of Your Kids.