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Double Exposure Challenge: Children's Portraits
By The Editors of Double Exposure | Double Exposure Challenge |
Mar 1, 2008
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 CLICK HERE TO SEE A GALLERY OF IMAGES BY THE RUNNERS-UP
We had some wonderful images of children submitted to our latest “Challenge.” Congratulations to our top winners whose images illustrate this story, and to the 20 runners-up, whose images appear in an accompanying gallery. The First-place winner, Jaqueline Rinaldini, has won a MountainSmith "Capture AT" Camera bag. Second-place winner, Stan Bouman, has won an ExpoDisc for Pro Digital White Balance. And our Third-place winner, SP Mukherji, has won the book, Scott Kelby's 7-Point System for Adobe Photoshop CS3.
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First Place: 'Bella' © Jaqueline Rinaldini |
Whether they’re your offspring or someone else’s, children are delightful photographic subjects, as they provide an endless source of appealing expressions and poses. Often clownish, charming and completely natural, a child’s activities and moods can be a joy to record. They may be playful in front of the camera, or they may become shy when a camera lens is turned towards them.
Introducing the Camera to Kids
If you’re photographing your own children, it’s a good idea to keep a camera handy and use it often so that your child will learn to accept it as a normal part of life. Keep a camera on hand—you never know when he/she is going to do something you will want to photograph. This way you won’t miss precious moments, and your best photo opportunities will probably occur when the child is unaware of the camera or accustomed to it.
When you shoot pictures of your child, make photo sessions brief but fun, so that he/she associates picture taking with something pleasant. A child’s attention span is rather short, so work with it and shoot at brief intervals over a period of time, rather than one long photo session. Get involved with the children’s activities—play ball with them, participate in whatever games they enjoy and allow them to become accustomed to having you around. You might also want to let them look through the viewfinder of your camera. Show them how much fun photography can be by letting them snap a few pictures themselves and showing them the results on the LCD screen afterward.
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Second Place: 'Impish Elf' © Stan Bouman |
Be Versatile
It’s important when photographing children that you experiment with different camera angles and levels. Get down to the child’s level whenever possible. It’s the best way to reveal their expressions and your images will portray the world from their point of view. If you want to show the child from an adult’s perspective, photograph them from above, or even from a vantage point of standing on steps or a chair. If you want to make them appear to be larger than they are, lie down on the floor and shoot up at them.
And since children are small, you’ll get rewarding images when you move in close so that his/her face fills the frame. This is best achieved when you use a moderate telephoto lens in the 85–105mm range. A zoom lens—perhaps in the 70–200mm range— will give you a lot of versatility in framing subjects. A lens of this length allows you to keep your distance while shooting candids, yet it won’t hamper your mobility in an average room. When you come in close for a tight headshot, this will give you natural-looking, undistorted facial features.
If you’re shooting indoors or outdoors in uneven lighting, consider using flash. This will also freeze the action of subjects that may not be willing to hold still. Bouncing flash off a white surface or positioning the flash unit off-camera with a flash cord will give you the most natural, flattering light. You may want to use an ISO of 400 or faster to photograph active children playing outdoors. This way, you’ll get a smaller aperture for great depth of field as well as a fast shutter speed for freezing action—a combination that will give you a lot of freedom in capturing fast-moving, unpredictable subjects. A fast shutter speed of at least 1/250 or 1/500 will stop action in most cases.
Children at Play
In order to capture a child’s world, use your imagination and keep an eye out for those activities, toys and environments that convey interesting
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Third Place: 'Imitating' © SP Mukherji |
information about him/her. For example, you can photograph children with their artwork, playing with dolls, coming down the slide at the playground, or doing homework on a computer.
To capture a child in its environment or with props, you’ll want to take in more of the scene with a wide-angle lens. On many digital cameras, this means a focal length of about 14–20mm. This will let you capture more of a scene in a small setting where it may be difficult to back up. Wide-angle lenses or zooms have a relatively good depth of field, which enables you to keep most of the scene in sharp focus. This is a good thing if you want to include a lot of elements in a scene, but be careful to avoid getting too much clutter in your photos. A wide-angle lens also gives foreground objects exaggerated prominence, which you can use to make a statement. Perhaps you want to emphasize a child’s playful nature with toys in the foreground, or show the vastness of a baseball field with your son up to bat in the background.
Experiment with points of view when photographing a child with toys or props. You can avoid distracting elements by shooting down at the child from above, or getting down on his/her level and being aware of eliminating clutter from the frame. And finally, remember that children can get bored easily. It’s a good idea to have your photo equipment ready and plan the picture before asking the child to pose or be part of a scene.
Take lots of pictures of your children. Remember that they're only babies, toddlers or teenagers for a very short time.
Take the next Double Exposure Challenge! Our next contest theme is "Photojournalism." Look for the Call for Entries in this issue.
Get ready for the Ultimate Challenge—look for details in Double Exposure and our New & Notable Newsletter later this month.
CLICK HERE TO SEE A GALLERY OF IMAGES BY OUR RUNNERS-UP
Let us know if you found this article useful, and tell us what kinds of articles you'd like to see in upcoming issues. Send your comments and ideas to Lynne Eodice.
© Copyright 2008 by PHOTOWORKSHOP.COM
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Last Updated: Jul 3rd, 2009 - 15:04:15
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Double Exposure Challenge: Additional Articles
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