I want to start by talking about the area of photography which I particularly enjoyed and without doubt did more of than any other type of photography.

My early portrait focus quite by chance started out primarily with canine photography and I have to say that this is a very lucrative market. Clients are far more likely to order a large, framed print (often with canvas finish) to hang on the wall of their dogs than their children. The largest I was asked for 40 x 30 inches (1000 mm x 750 mm) and for this sort of size we are talking very serious money – particularly if it is framed and canvas mounted. But more about canine photography later.

STUDIO PORTRAITS

It has to be said that the biggest advantage you have working in a studio is that you have total control over the working conditions. You control the lighting and unlike weddings you don’t have to worry about the weather. That said it’s useful to have a cloakroom available for Clients so they can prepare themselves for a sitting particularly if it is blowing a gale outside.

Looking back over the years, I have photographed far more women than men. I’ll leave you to draw your own conclusions as why that would be. Moreover, it was usually a woman who would want a family photograph rather than the man of the house.

You may have also noticed that perhaps with the exception of the baby (is it a boy or girl), all the subjects above are from the "fairer sex". Why is this ? It seems that the ladies are far more likely to want to have their portraits taken than the guys.

TIP : If you are looking to gain a commission for a family portrait sitting, 9 times out of 10 it will be the mother who will book the sitting. So statistically it is better to work on convincing the mother to commission you rather than the father.

THE EARLY CONSTRAINTS

The shot below was taken in the lounge of the house I used to own. It measured no more than 14 feet by 11 feet (4.5 metres by 3.2 metres) and all the furniture had to be moved back against the walls. I later moved into the garage which was approximately the same size although there was not furniture to worry about.

STUDIO LIGHTING TECHNIQUES

Figure : 1 – My standard lighting setting for the studio

In the illustration above, the distance between the “White umbrella” and sitter was around 6 to 8 feet while the distance from sitter to the gold umbrella was around 12 feet. This lighting set up also gives a degree of modeling which adds extra interest to the final image.

Sometimes I would change the lighting slightly and use a hair light rather than a backdrop light as I have in the illustration above.

When photographing small children, I usually used “wrap-around” lighting as illustrated below.

Figure 2 : Wrap around lighting which provides an even spread of lighting on the sitter. This is ideal for small children and babies.

You may note that for the picture below of the little girl sitting on the white rug, I did not use any lighting behind the subject.  Consequently, there is a suggestion of shadow on either side of the little girl. My mistake !!

Tip : When photographing children I often used to use a glove puppet to try make it a game. You may notice that the young lady on the right has pinched my puppet. But hey, if it keeps the punter happy - what the heck.

In the example on the right, only two lights were used. One is behind the sitter with a snoot fitting which gives a slight halo effect. The second is positioned to the left of the sitter and which provides the exaggerated modeling effect on the face. Again to provide the soft lighting effect, this light shot through a translucent white umbrella. A diagram of the lighting used has been included below.

Tips on Photographing Children

This can be one of the more challenging aspects of photography. It can also be one of the most rewarding from a “job satisfaction” perspective. First let me own up and say that not every child sitting I did actually went according to plan. This was for anyone of a number of reasons some of which I have listed below :

This may sound all doom and gloom but for every child who gave me a hard time, there were probably ten who were model sitters. Generally speaking I tried to make it fun for the children and I found that if I followed a set routine, things went generally smoothly. For example :

Let the children come into studio and allow them some time to get use to their surroundings but keep any breakable items (your cameras for example) out of harms way

I always had a jar of sweets handy and assuming the parents were happy I would let them have one if they were good (yes, I know, it was bribery)

When photographing the children I usually sat on the floor and hand-held the camera. This seemed to be less intimidating

If they were apprehensive I sometimes would play games with them I would get them to hide behind a chaise lounge and play peek-a-boo although I would always have the camera ready and often got some good shots.

In the portrait on the right, as you can see it wasn't taken in the studio. However, I still used the peek-a-boo game to good effect.

With the shot centre photograph, when shooting a group of children, I always tried to "enlist" the support of the oldest child and endeavour to make them feel important. This would often have a positive effect on their younger siblings.

Finally, another wart !! On the right a lovely little photograph was ruined by me because I didn't check my flash light settings before the sitting. The result being that there is too much shadow in the young ladies face. Remember to pay attention to detail !!

As I mentioned earlier, I also found that a Donald Duck glove puppet was a useful diversion. However, as I liked to work with a hand held rather than a tripod mounted camera, it meant Donald Duck had to take the photographs too.  This often seemed to amuse the children and render some lovely results.

For the younger children, I always kept some toys and rattles handy

For posing the children, I generally used to use one of four “props” – a chaise lounge, a bean bag, a wicker chair or a large wool rug.

GROUP PORTRAITS

Working with groups is a little more challenging than working on a one-to-one basis. In addition to giving more thought to posing, here are some tips to remember.

You need to ensure that the lighting is evenly balanced on all subjects. Adjust the position of the lights as necessary

Ensure that no subject is casting a shadow on another subject’s face

Make certain that all subjects look comfortable whether they are standing or sitting. If they aren’t comfortable this will usually show in the final results

Where there are children in the shot, you sometimes find that parents will watch the children rather than look towards the camera. Make a point of asking the parents to look to the camera leaving you to attract the children’s attention at the appropriate moment. The shot on the right is an exception of course where we have a doting mother and father looking at junior.

When you are photographing children with their parents just watching, ask the parents to stand behind the camera (although not obstructing the lights). As the children will often look at their parents it means that they will be looking in the direction of the camera.

Always discourage the parents from trying to attract the children’s attention unless they are stood behind the camera.

Finally, try and introduce some form of symmetry into the pose 

HIGH KEY PORTRAITS

I consider myself very fortunate to have discovered high photography many years ago because I love to be able to use it whenever I can. The majority of photographs in this website are low-key. That is to say that images that have been created with a dark background and the majority of colours are dark rather than light. For high-key on the other hand, you would usually use a white, well lit background and most if not all the colours would be light. In my opinion, the subject ideally needs to be a natural blond to get the best results as illustrated on the right although this is not essential.

Whenever I have had a display of my work in an exhibition or perhaps on a marketing stand, I have usually included a High-Key shot. Time and time again I have been asked “is it a photograph or a painting”. The technique is simple too. First use a white back drop. The subject ideally should wear light clothes (white is best). Just use one soft studio light positioned directly behind the camera. Place a second light between the sitter and the backdrop to eliminate any shadows.  Be careful that you don’t cast a shadow over the sitter when you position yourself behind the camera (see illustration below).

If properly done, this can be a good earner and the lady pictured above actually ordered twenty five 10 x 8 prints plus a 20 x 16.

The illustration above shows how the lighting should be set to achieve a High Key portraiture effect.

	I also tried to include the High-Key technique as part of my canine photography kit bag but I have had mixed results. If you look at the photograph on the left, you can see that, in this example, I ended up with a kind of surreal effect which wasn’t quite what I was after. Oddly enough the owner of this particular dog loved it and as I said early “it what the Client wants that’s important!”

By definition, this shot of a bride which I took on a wet wedding day is arguably high key. It was certainly not the best of days for wedding photography and you may well notice some spots of rain on the window behind the bride. I used only a reflector to compensate for her back being to the strong light coming through the window. I deliberately did not use flash for fear of getting a nasty reflection from either the window or the bride’s spectacles. Not only did the weather conspire against us that day, but it was also one of those dreaded situations where you have limited scope for photography and the window provided what was probably the best “backdrop” available on the day