First Child Shoot - Lessons Learned

[nowaydown1]

Hello all,



I've been wanting to push myself out of my comfort zone recently, and I had the privilege of taking pictures of a this little guy for one of my wife's friends on Sunday. I'm an amatuer photographer and up until this point I've only taken pictures of people that I really know well and all of those sessions have been very informal. This was my first try at something more structured, and one of the youngest subjects I've taken photos of.

My experience was much different than what I expected it to be, and I thought it might be fun to share some things that I learned from the experience. I would love to hear some experiences from other DPS members on taking pictures of children.

So here's what I learned:

-Little kids can run really fast - I guess because of his age I was expecting a little less activity. We ran clear up and down a soccer field about 5 times. I actually had a hard time keeping up and staying in front of him. I had to sprint sometimes and get way ahead of him to have enough time to get down on his level and try to focus and get a few frames off.

-I need to shoot in a priority mode, I'm not fast enough for full manual. - It was important to me that the little one was having fun, so we let him run around. I typically shoot in all manual mode. After about 6 frames I figured out that I couldn't make my adjustments fast enough, so I switched to aperture priority mode.

-Focusing is slower than expected - I had a lot of frames had focusing problems. I think the problem I ran into is that the focus was locked for a certain distance, and he was moving constantly (normally running towards or away from me), so a lot of my shots wound up being out of focus.

-Worry less about noise next time - Some of my shots didn't come out as I had hoped due to shutter speed problems (too low for how much movement was going on). I was initially worried about grain, so I shot at ISO 125. In retrospect I think I should have bumped the ISO for some excess shutter speed.

-I should have brought something to play with - He was very interested in different things around the park (most of which didn't belong to us unfortunately, balls, wagons, bags of chips). Thankfully mom and dad had a few things in the car for him to play with which helped get his attention.

-Try to keep mom and dad behind the lens if possible - Mom and dad did a great job of getting his attention, but I noticed most in most of my exposures he wasn't looking at the camera. The few shots I did manage to get eye contact on were the ones where mom or dad was talking to him from over my shoulder.

Overall, everyone involved had a good time and I sure learned a lot from it. What kinds of things have you learned from working with kids?

[castman]

I have 2 kids and my 4yld is hard to photo if he isn't playing with something doing something. My 2yld is alot slower so I get he beter and she likes her photo taken. Both want to see the photo after it has been taken. They love to see them self on the camera or when I put it on the TV. I try to use what ever they like to get them to take a photo even food.

Welcome to DPS!