Need your help/advice shooting for a 2 yr old

[nikki_kem]

I"m no expert and don't pretend to be but my daughter is just 3. I have given up posing her but rather plan where to go carefully and let her do her own thing, I talk to her a lot while taking pictures and suggest she tries to climb a log or ask a question to try and get some eye contact.

Allow plenty of time.

Nikki

[canalero]

Here are a few pictures that I took. It went fine, however what was a nice sunny day quickly turned cloudy and gloomy. I ended up shooting these with my new Canon 28-300 mm. I was able to get a few good ones, but some didn't come out as I expected. Need to keep practicing and learn how to tweak the settings. Anyways, thanks for all who replied and the advice.

[whuband]

You had a good model and good technique. The bright rectangle in the second photo is kind of distracting, but these look just fine.You should pray for cloudy, overcast days which are often referred to as "nature's softbox".

[AvailableLight]

Originally Posted by whuband

You should pray for cloudy, overcast days which are often referred to as "nature's softbox".

Exactly! When the OP wrote that the day turned "quickly turned cloudy and gloomy" I was saying to myself "perfect weather!"

To the OP: Your pictures turned out fine. I agree with Whuband regarding the bright rectangle on the background of #2. If you could clone it out the image will improve dramatically.

[canalero]

Originally Posted by AvailableLight

Exactly! When the OP wrote that the day turned "quickly turned cloudy and gloomy" I was saying to myself "perfect weather!"

To the OP: Your pictures turned out fine. I agree with Whuband regarding the bright rectangle on the background of #2. If you could clone it out the image will improve dramatically.

Some of the other pics just didn't turn out that good, but most of them did. Thanks for the tips guys.

[Ursie]

the hardest thing, in my experience, is to get parents, siblings, aunts or whoever is in charge of the child to stay out it. When I'm shooting a child, I want to be the only one talking to her or else she's distracted by everyone else and will never look my way.

I recommend letting her get comfortable in her surroundings and just shoot her doing her thing, then, occasionally, call her name, talk with her, bring a toy that will get her attention and cause her to come and see me. Bribery with candy often helps. Bubbles can be a great fascination.

Good coaching of what you want, exactly, for those caregivers is the most important thing. Well, and shooting her at a time of day that she's happy at. If golden hour is good for her then great, if it's not, no amount of sweet light will give you a good shot.

But the main thing is to get the parents to shut up! Good luck!

[trythis]

When I shot a two year old I brought an assistant...my 12 year old! She loves kids and they love her. The parents have told me that their little one will NEVER smile for a camera. But we got her to!!

I brought with me: helium balloons in the colors that her mom said her dress was, bubbles - 12 year old blew them and the little girl chased them, and a story book- got a nice photo of the family reading on a blanket.






The big thing I think is don't try to make them be still for you to get the shot...shoot and keep shooting, and you miss what you miss. but you don't want to be the stranger trying to get them to do something they don't want to do.

[gehjl]

I second the AI Servo and just keep the focus on them following them, calling their names when you have an interesting shot. I did a kids shoot for a friend (my first kids shoot) and I learned a few thing. Bring props or toys, otherwise they'll start playing with random things, like in my case they picked up big sticks and started playing with rocks...not the most photogenic of things. Getting down to their level helps and I was on my stomach on the floor for a few shots. Also, I think the 70-200 lens would be perfect for it. I used an 85mm which gives great portraits pictures, but with the kids running back and forth, a zoom would've definitely helped. Here's a few pics for example:


_MG_9141 by Acioara, on Flickr

This one was following on AI Servo while she was running, so there's a bit of motion blur in the background which I like.

_MG_9024-Edit by Acioara, on Flickr

[RDKirk]

If you plan to do a lot of this, especially professionally, a trick a friend of my gave me (he has been the primary photographer contracted by "Kids R Us" for years) is to get from behind the camera, get close to the kids, and engage them face to face.

He says a primary problem is that small children relate to our faces as much or more than to our words. When our faces are obscured by the camera, and often our voices are also muffled by the camera, we've lost most of our ability to communicate with the child.

So his method is to put the camera with a medium telephone on a tripod, focus on a spot, put the child on the spot, and then use wireless remote control to get away from the camera and close to the child (just out of view of the camera). Directly engaged at close range, even most toddlers will sit in one spot and socialize for a fair amount of time.

You can actually test this. Put the camera down, sit next to the child, and interact directly with her. If you can get the child to sit still and interact with you that way, it means the problem occurs because you have put the camera in front of you and the child no longer sees you as a "person."