Chapter 6: What's Your Style?

Classic and Romantic

Contemporary

Lifestyle Photography

Preparing Parents for Their Child’s Portrait

Portrait Planning

If you asked ten different photographers to photograph the same child in the same setting, you would have ten different interpretations of that same child. Just like the children you photograph, each photographer is unique in his or her view of the world. Some bring a fresh, hip perspective to their work with children, while others prefer to capture childhood in a more timeless, less trendy fashion.

What is your style? Do you have one yet? While most photographic work can’t simply be slotted into one category or another, it is helpful to make some broad generalizations when you’re starting out to give you a point of departure for your own work.

No matter what style of photography inspires you, it’s a good idea to try a little bit of everything when you start out. Learning to experiment with different locations and settings can give your inspiration a boost. This chapter shows you some ways to expand your skills and try some new styles.

Start an idea file or bulletin board of photos that you’ve clipped from magazines and/or bookmark your favorite websites that show photography that inspires you. As your skill level increases, these references give you inspiration for your own work.

Classic and Romantic

Many parents appreciate portraits that reveal a sense of timelessness. The classic style of child photography has its roots in the paintings of the old masters. Drawing on the style of painters such as Rembrandt, Vermeer, and others, the classic and romantic style of children’s portraiture can often be seen as an idealized version of childhood.

In the studio

When shooting in the studio, a classic portrait becomes a study of the child you are photographing. There are no distracting elements to take your attention away from the child, leaving only their expressions and gestures to tell the story. In many ways, capturing a storytelling image in the studio can be much more challenging than shooting on location, where you can rely on the environment to render part of the story.

In a photograph that is low key, the background is darker and perhaps more colorful, as it would be in a garden or forest. If the clothing is darker as well, your attention again is drawn to the skin tones, or the lightest thing in the photograph, as in 6-1. Classic and romantic styles work well with painted muslin or canvas backgrounds that give a painterly feel to the image.

A simple chair and pillow and window light can provide all you need for a portrait, without any worry about wall backdrops (see 6-2). Just be sure to crop in close and avoid any clutter in the background.

On location

For classic and romantic portrait styles, seek soft light and a quiet, peaceful location, as in 6-3.

When children are quiet and wistful, their eyes are often open wide, and their cheeks are soft and full. On the other hand, never let a spontaneous, energetic, or spunky moment, as in 6-4, go unphotographed. Capturing these moments on location allows you to tell a more layered, romantic story.

Photographing on the family’s property or at a favorite place adds meaning to the photograph that just isn’t possible in a studio environment.

Talk to parents about your desire to work in the best and most dramatic lighting situations you can find, as in 6-5. Usually they aren’t as aware as you are of what that actually means, so you need to help them understand so they are cooperative. You are the professional, and they should look to you for guidance.

As you now know, choosing the best location is dependent on high-quality available light. You can’t always count on the very best, but you can surely try. Let parents know that late afternoons, when the sun is at an angle, provide beautiful and luminous warm light. Foggy days work really well at the beach.

Visit the location ahead of time to see what you can expect the day of the session. Maybe the parents can go along with you to see what you are looking for and, thus, further collaborate to make a better portrait. Whatever it is you personally want to convey, share it with the parents so you all are in accord with what is going to be created.

In almost every major metropolitan area there are botanical and historical gardens and parks. These are good places if you live in an urban area and want to add the feel of nature in your work. Don’t overlook buildings or areas with classic architecture to enhance your images. If you live in rural areas, meadows, orchards, and fields are at your disposal. Take advantage! If you are lucky enough to live near the ocean, beaches are a lovely place to photograph children.

Clothing

For a classic portrait, you want the clothing to be as timeless and traditional as possible. Distracting logos, plaids, and large stripes can often distract from the child. Solid colors and timeless clothing designs such as white dresses for girls and button-down shirts and jeans for boys leave the emphasis on the child. Avoid huge hair bows and uncomfortable clothing for babies. Babies are often best photographed au naturel (with no clothes at all)!

Watch out for shoes as well. Nothing dates a photo faster than ever-changing shoe styles, so when in doubt, have your subjects go barefoot. Children’s feet are usually so perfectly round and sweet, but be sure to get the parents’ permission first!

In 6-6 you can see that the siblings are dressed in light-colored vintage clothing to add to the timelessness of this photograph. All the decisions in light, composition, and clothing were intentional to create a timeless, enduring photograph.

“When the first baby laughed for the first time, the laugh broke into a thousand pieces, and they all went skipping about, and that was the beginning of the fairies.” ~Sir James M. Barrie, in Peter Pan

Clothing should not overwhelm or distract from your subject. In both 6-7 and 6-8 you pay attention to the children, not so much their clothing. If either had been wearing a T-shirt with a big logo or stripes, these images would have had a completely different look.

All the decisions you make, whether it’s the location, the lighting, or the clothing you’ve selected, add or detract from the mood you are trying to convey. Deciding ahead of time what mood you would like to convey in your image is the key.

What are you trying to convey about this child and her personality? What elements in the surrounding environment can you use to support your vision? Do you want an image full of energy and whimsy or is the child more thoughtful and shy?

For example, the soft, contouring light that surrounds this young girl’s peaceful countenance in 6-9 causes the viewer to ponder what she might have been thinking when this photo was captured. The mood is serene and thoughtful.

A tranquil, otherworldly feeling permeates the image of a little explorer at the beach in 6-10. An entirely different mood would have been captured had she been dressed in contemporary colorful clothing. Her gesture with the walking stick suggests that something as formal as a white dress would hardly have been appropriate for this session.

Contemporary

Contemporary children’s portraiture is whatever is trendy and cool at the moment, but even within current trends there is often a strong thread of timelessness. A contemporary style tends to break with tradition. Instead of stylized posing, the idea is to encourage the real, often more animated, personality of the child to come to the forefront. Cropped-off heads and full-out belly laughs are just right for this style of portraiture.

In the studio

Studio photography lends itself very well to contemporary portraiture, as much of this style is inspired by magazine advertising. Seamless paper backgrounds work well for a contemporary feel. Inexpensive and available in a wide variety of colors, seamless backgrounds can give you many background choices for much less money than canvas or muslin backdrops.

When attempting a contemporary style in the studio, the idea is to set up the lighting so that a fairly wide area is well lit, allowing the subject a bit of room to move around. As in the photo of two sisters in 6-11, the background doesn’t compete for attention, and a fan blows their hair, giving movement to the image.

Sometimes, extreme cropping can give an edgy, contemporary feel to your images. The images in 6-12 and 6-13 both take advantage of negative space, allowing all the focus to fall on the subject. Who says your subject’s head has to be in the photo? In 6-13 you get a good sense of these little boys without ever seeing their faces.

Sometimes contemporary style consists of turning the traditional style on its head, as in 6-14. The lighting and background just scream classic and romantic. But a topless baby in a pair of jeans with a (Photoshopped, of course) tattoo on his chest is anything but traditional.

In this day of media saturation, we are much more image savvy than ever. Ads on television, in magazines, and on the Internet all influence our taste and style. This girl in 6-15 is very young, but that doesn’t prevent her from wanting to look like a super model and express some attitude!

Traditional family portraits rely on careful posing and arrangement of each family member. A contemporary style seeks to get a little closer to reality by allowing the family members to pose themselves and interact with each other in a more natural way, as in 6-16.

On location

Any location can work for a contemporary style because the style depends on how the photographer sees the subject more than on the actual location itself. However, you may want to look through this section for ideas on similar locations in your town. As you look through them, you may see how each location could be used in a classic and romantic or a contemporary or photojournalistic way. It all depends on your point of view.

Urban decay is part of the world we live in, and contemporary portraiture is geared to take full advantage of what some might see as old and ugly. An old industrial door adds texture and interest to the background in the image of the young girl in 6-17.

“The portrait photographer who understands his work will never seek a formula for success. Those who would simplify portraiture to a few rules and diagrams will serve you pretty cold potatoes, for the vital essence of the good portrait is too elusive to be caught and bottled. Portraiture will always be an art of discovery.” ~Edward Weston

A wall mural acts as an interesting and amusing background for the stylish baby in 6-18. However, kids often just aren’t into the “cutesy” that their moms still love. They are just as influenced by images as their parents and they want to look cool. In 6-19 for example, the vibrant blue building acts as a video-like set for this group of friends while the subtle backlight separates them from the background.

Libraries, art centers, and other public buildings (even parking garages) can be great places to capture children and their families. Use the lines in the architecture to frame your subjects or draw attention to them, as in 6-20.

Lifestyle Photography

Lifestyle photography has greatly increased in popularity, and has some qualities of a photojournalistic style, giving photographs a more spontaneous, spirited, and unadulterated look and feeling. True photojournalists often act as a fly on the wall, observing and capturing what is happening before their lens for the purpose of telling the news. They don’t interfere with their subjects in any way.

Photographs are not set up, there is no wardrobe change or fixing of hair — the photo opportunity presents itself, and the moment is captured. Lifestyle photography is seldom romantic or timeless; it can be considered contemporary because it is fresh and of the moment.

Lifestyle photography borrows elements of true photojournalism with a few key differences. You might plan wardrobe and location, which is obviously not photojournalistic; however, once the setting is established and the subjects are in place, lifestyle photography requires you to get out of the way and let kids be kids. Forget posing or fixing hair as you go, just let them run and be ready with the camera.

Using your cell phone’s camera/video

One way to assure spontaneity and freedom while capturing your children and family is to take advantage of your handy cell phone camera, as in 6-21. These days it seems it will always be at your fingertips, but sometimes we forget we have it in moments that can slip by unrecorded.

Some photographers take this fun quite seriously and use creative apps, such as Hipstamatic, Photoshop, Colorsplash, BlendCam, TiltShiftMaker, and Vintage Video Maker, to enhance or embellish the images. Why not keep a journal on your cell phone using the camera, the video, and even the recording devices? That way you can document your family life. There are also apps that serve as actual journals for you to organize your moments methodically.

On location

As the family documentarian, it can be challenging to capture those spontaneous moments if your kids always want to pose for the camera. The best antidote to this is to keep your camera out and use it often. Before long, these creatures become accustomed to it and go about their business, allowing you to chronicle them in their natural habitat.

Telephoto or zoom lenses come in handy when you want to capture your photograph unobserved, as in 6-22 of a big brother giving a piggyback ride to a sibling. The longer lens allowed the photographer to get in close and simplify a cluttered background by focusing on just the subjects and a blue sky above.

Lenses and their various types are covered in depth in Chapter 9.

When striving to attain a lifestyle approach, you will want to capture the kids wherever they are, whatever they are doing. Can you imagine if the photographer had waited to shoot until the little girl in 6-23 was sitting up straight in her chair?

Photographing children in their natural environment allows them to be more comfortable, and the images have the added value of triggering memories later in life of their childhood home. With the parents’ cooperation, roam around in the home to find ideal or unusual settings and light to add pizzazz to your photos, as in 6-24, 6-25, and 6-26.

Mood

It’s not very realistic to think that you will just happen upon amazing moments and capture them. Sometimes that happens, but most times, it doesn’t. That’s where a little assisted reality comes in. Put the kids in their environment and then let them have fun. For example, the little boy in 6-27 was easily entertained playing superman on the living room couch. Using available window light helped to give the photographer enough light to catch the action with a fast shutter speed. Giving a child the opportunity to play his favorite everyday games can really enhance the mood and feeling of a photograph.

A foggy beach day highlights the family in 6-28 as they cavort in front of the cave on the Oregon coast. The clothes and setting and lighting were all planned, but the fun and emotion are the real deal.

Another way to portray siblings is by focusing in on only a part of them, as in 6-29. Placing the children on the mom and dad’s bed in their light-filled bedroom allows for a new take on a traditional portrait.

Cropping in tight to capture the child sharing a mischievous grin while enjoying his snack creates an instant connection with the viewer, as in 6-30.

Preparing Parents for Their Child’s Portrait

Whether you are photographing children as a hobby, a passion, or as a career, communicating with the parents of your subjects is an important part of creating a unique and meaningful portrait. Ultimately, your portraits contain a large part of you and your vision, even when you are following parents’ wishes. If you are interested in developing your photography as a vocation, both your images and your business will reap the benefits of collaboration and communication.

“In the faces of children I have seen a look of wisdom and of kindness expressed with such ease and such certainty that I know it was the expression of the whole race.” ~Robert Henri

Outlining expectations

It is a good idea to give the parents some idea of what your expectations are for photo sessions. Many professional photographers reveal their philosophy and working style as well as clothing suggestions and other important information on their websites or brochures. Take the time to get an idea of what the parents’ goal is for the final result of the photo session. For example, do they want a large wall portrait or just a couple of shots for the annual Christmas card?

This kind of communication works to establish trust in you as an artist and respect for your time and opinions. The clarity of the information up front prevents miscommunication and misunderstandings later. Some photographers place their business forms and policies online, which helps avoid costly and timely mistakes.

The most important thing you can do to prepare parents for an upcoming portrait session is to ask them to play the session down when speaking with their child. Children should come into your time together without feeling the pressure of any expectations. Many of the photographs in this book may look as though the children were perfectly behaved and everything was going according to some master plan, but nothing could be further from the truth.

Everything that you plan and discuss ahead of time is valuable and helpful in order to make a meaningful children’s photograph. However, when you work with the highly unpredictable nature of children and weather, both you and the parents need to let go of the exact results.

More often, if both parties (parents and photographer) are savvy to this, photographs are likely turn out better than expected. Surprises that come along won’t be frustrating, but creatively challenging.

“In order to be a portrait, the photography must capture the essence of its subject. Herein lies the main objective of portraiture and also its main difficulty. The photographer probes for the innermost — the lens sees only the surface.” ~Philippe Halsman

Collaborating with parents

Many child photographers prefer to work with the children they photograph one-on-one, with the parent off to one side or in another room completely. One of the main reasons parents want to remain with the child and photographer is that they want to make sure that the children don’t exhibit their funny smiles, their little quirks, and so on. The irony is that when the children are separate from parents, these expressions rarely occur. If the parents still insist on being present during a session, you might ask that they stand back, watch quietly for awhile, and perhaps walk away for 45 minutes if they feel comfortable doing so.

Tell the parents that you take pride in evoking expressions from the children, and that is usually possible only without distractions. If you are photographing outside, allow the child to be quiet and listen to the surroundings. Bring the silence to their attention and ask them what they hear. These quiet moments can evoke wonderful, natural, whimsical expressions, as in 6-31. Evoking these moments requires uninterrupted time between photographer and child.

Leave the big, cheesy smiles to the school photographers. If there is a smile or a hint of sweetness, let it be a reaction to something you have said. If you must work with an assistant, which is helpful if there are two or three young children, ask him or her not to distract from the relationship unless requested.

Ask the parents not to prime their kids about smiling or to discuss behavior issues. You should expect children to be children, and the more relaxed and happy they are as they enter the session, the better it all works for everyone. Parents should also try to be relaxed and confident because they can influence the attitude of their children. Tell them they are going to have fun with the photographer, but don’t ever fib about what is coming up.

If parents convey confidence and make very little fuss about bringing their kids to you, they can set the tone for the entire session. Always do your best to distract the children during those potentially tender moments.

If you choose to make a career of children’s photography, you will experience a wide array of behavior from very good to downright horrible. That’s what makes it challenging, fun, and creative for those who love children.

Some children are soothed by having a creature comfort along with them. You might suggest in your communication with parents that they can bring along a blanket, stuffed animal, or favorite toy. Special treats can also be a good idea (always check with parents first). You can offer them during the session, as long as they aren’t too messy.

Keep photographing

Inevitably, when you think the session is complete and it’s time to pack up and go, something surprising and photo-worthy will happen (as in 6-32), and you won’t have your camera in hand. Make it a practice not to put your camera away until you are in your car ready to leave. Moments like this cannot be re-created, no matter how hard you try!

Portrait Planning

Sometimes you will be creating individual portraits as well as family portraits. Ask parents to decide beforehand which is more important to them. Try not to go beyond the comfort zone and attention span of the children. That can be a brief period, depending on the ages of the child or children. Better to start off with individual portraits and move on to the groups if time and temperament permit. If you, or the family, prefer the family portrait, do that first.

Many people want to have more natural and un-posed photographs. Of course, the more people you have in a portrait, the more posed it tends to be as you try to corral everyone into the frame, unless you have the luxury of scheduling a session during a more natural event (family reunion or picnic). Be sure to communicate that knowledge with parents so they are prepared to see less spontaneity when there are more people in the photograph.

Assignment

Create a Special Portrait

Ask friends with a child if you can create a portrait for them. Communicate your desire to make a special portrait and collaborate with them, with you as their guide. Use the information you learned in this chapter. Post your best image of the child.

I wanted to capture a very special and close relationship between a boy and his cherished puppies, so I chose to crop in tightly to give it an intimate and contemporary feeling. Taken at ISO 500, f/5.0, and 1/100 second.

Remember to visit www.pwsbooks.com after you complete this assignment and share your favorite photo! It’s a community of enthusiastic photographers and a great place to view what other readers have created. You can also post comments, read encouraging suggestions, and get feedback.