Ask me what you want.

[Sereia]

What about color pictures, what are the steps you usually take?

Thank you once again

[ckalephoto]

Subscribing

Chris

[bigarchi]

I have a posing question, I often find that children are not interested in posing,
or sometimes they don't even want to look at the camera because they are so wired up or something.
How do you get such young children to seem to pose, they can't possibly take direction from you can they? do they?
or are you just creating situations where you take pictures of them while they are moving about, let's say,
and pick out the one from the series where they have the best pose?
i'm tempted to tell parents, NO SUGAR before a photoshoot

your work is wonderful btw, always inspiring..

[cbu18]

how often do you use a flash?

do you use reflectors or boxes very often?

[mercersmoments]

What about color pictures, what are the steps you usually take?

I hate white balance, and white balance hates me. I've tried shooting white paper & grey cards, tried the WB functions on the camera, still it hates me. So i have it on auto.
I open my RAW files in Adobe Camera Raw, the first thing I do is adjust the colour temp slider to fix any WB issues.
Then I add some contrast and blacks, if I have shot above 400 ISO (i love to shoot on low ISO if I can) then I use the noise reduction slider.
If needed I use the curves sliders to lighten & darken parts of the photo.
Open the images in CS4 - Fine tune, remove blemishes, crop if I decide I want a tighter frame.
Dodge they eyes if needed. Saturate & shadow parts that I feel need some oomph !

I have a posing question, I often find that children are not interested in posing,
or sometimes they don't even want to look at the camera because they are so wired up or something.
How do you get such young children to seem to pose, they can't possibly take direction from you can they? do they?
or are you just creating situations where you take pictures of them while they are moving about, let's say,
and pick out the one from the series where they have the best pose?
I'm tempted to tell parents, NO SUGAR before a photo shoot

The no sugar before shoots is actually part of what I tell parents. They are coming to me for photos, they have chosen me from hundreds of photographers in my area, they are paying me, therefor I'm paid to give them direction. My contact beforehand involves me suggesting clothing choices etc, i ask parents to make sure their children ( no matter what age) are given a healthy good sized snack, no soft drink or sweets about 40 mins before the shoot. Hungry or hypo kids are hard work & my clients always appreciate the fact that I have given them "tips" to make their photo shoot more pleasant.

When I meet the children, I sit and play for how ever long it takes for them to warm to me, some love me straight away, some take time, some even like to look through the camera & press the button.

I'm silly - I mean I make silly noises & pull silly faces, I have mum or dad bop me on the head with a soft toy, I dance and laugh. I have a toy strapped to my lens !

you have to be patient, and if you have a really hard kid to make smile, you keep at it, you dance and sing & keep snapping until you have the shot.

Some smiles last a millisecond ! keep your finger on the button & pop up from behind the camera with a silly face & be ready to press the button !

I've not had a kid yet who I haven't been able to get to smile or laugh at me.

how often do you use a flash?

do you use reflectors or boxes very often?

Hotshue mounted flashes I use at wedding receptions, I have 2 more weddings booked before I am giving them up, I'm over cranky brides and moody mother in laws.

My kid's assembly hall at school is dark, so I use it while watching them get awards.

Otherwise it sits in my bag, but it's good to know that if I need it, I have it there ready.

I have a $10 round reflector, I sometimes use it to direct my natural light if I want to shoot in a spot that needs the reflector to direct more light onto my subjects & give me even light on their faces. But mostly it gets used for me to kneel down or sit on while shooting so I don't get a dirty bum. lol

I have a studio set up, 2 500watt strobes umbrella and soft box.

I sometimes use a combination of natural window light and one strobe with soft box set on the lowest possible setting to photograph newborns, this lets me shoot on 100 ISO, indoors without my photos looking like i have used heavy lights on the baby - with this as the result. I do love plain old natural light though, so try to do as much of it as possible

[bigarchi]

Thank you Seona, very helpful

[JoShAdKa4]

Originally Posted by mercersmoments

lol, my name = see oh nah - Seona!

ACR - Adobe Camera Raw

I knew it! That's exactly how I was pronouncing it! I had a childhood friend named Leona. Great place to start your business is with a beautiful name that sings.


ACR- Adobe... aah... gotta get me one!
I use DPP and Coral Paint Shop Pro x2, sigh... one day.

Thanks for starting this thread, I'm sure I will benefit from it greatly. Take care...

[Justiss]

Thanks for the tips, these are great

[Stacey8221]

This is so awesome of you!
I am wanting to buy a strobe/softobox right now and I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction? I would love to have the same results as you with newborns. I will be making a big trip soon to Phoenix to photograph twin newborns and if the natural light isn't good that day I would love to have a good backup. I would really apprectiate any brand names or specifics as I have NO clue when it comes to lighting! Can you tell me what size your softbox is?
Thank you!

[mercersmoments]

This is so awesome of you!
I am wanting to buy a strobe/softobox right now and I was wondering if you could point me in the right direction? I would love to have the same results as you with newborns. I will be making a big trip soon to Phoenix to photograph twin newborns and if the natural light isn't good that day I would love to have a good backup. I would really apprectiate any brand names or specifics as I have NO clue when it comes to lighting! Can you tell me what size your softbox is?
Thank you!

My studio set up was bought from www.dragonimage.com.au

this is the exact set up I have here :

http://www.dragonimage.com.au/Lighti...e2b5a1e43fd625

this is the softbox I have, I use it with the honeycomb on the front
http://www.dragonimage.com.au/p12/Li...64a6b37e9dbcf1

This is my studio set up, it's never the same, it gets moved around to suit what I am shooting !

[lookingforaname]

Wow - thanks so much! The set up shots are especially interesting.

[delmama]

thank you for being so kind and sharing with us!

[Organic Treats]

I love seeing studio set-ups. Thank you for that!

[sma1mom]

I've always admired your work! thanks for the thread

[davis909]

subscribing. thank you very much for doing this.