Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 2000/11/09
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]> Mike > Is that it? You're just going to make a statement like that and leave > me dangling like a participle (whatever that is). > > How about some hints and tips. > > Any help would be appreciated. Well, I'm game to try, although I'm really not sure if I can be of any help talking about it in words. First of all, I'd distinguish between pictures made for money and pictures made for yourself. When you're shooting for money, you have a certain obligation to get the goods reliably and efficiently. So photographers in this situation tend, to some degree, to fall back on certain tried and tested strategies that are known to work...which does sometimes lead to a certain sameness or "stock" character to the work. You've probably seen some of the more extreme examples of this in any small-town portrait studio, where a picture of anyone looks more or less the same--the same degree of dressiness in the clothes and grooming, the same degree of posing, the same backgrounds (more or less), the same degree of cheeriness (again more or less). Pasteurized processed people product! Which is okay if that's what you want (it's often what they want, which is why it's done). In those situations there are various tricks to use. A few I can think of offhand are: --Get the parents out of the room (unless it makes the kid cry). Usually the parents are anxious for the kind to behave and look good, and the kid's radar hones in on the parent's anxiety and the kid gets tense. --Try asking them to stand on something they can't easily move off of. I used to keep a small plywood cube in the studio for toddlers to stand on. They'd climb up on it, balance, smile at me because they were happy they'd managed to climb up on it and balance, and I'd get to rattle off a half a roll while they weren't moving. --Be relaxed and at ease yourself, and spend about 90% of your time relating to them, and only 20% shooting. Remember that this kkind of photography is mainly about relating to the kid and getting the kid to relax and slow down and be content. They're taking their cues from you, so making yourself both interesting and friendly is the trick. --With small kids, it sometimes works to get the mother to hold the kid on her knees, facing you, holding the child down by the waist so her hands don't show, and then take a few shots every now and then when, by prearrangement, she stops bouncing the kid for a few moments. --Another thing that sometimes works with small kids is to hold the camera vertically in front of your right eye with your right hand, then play "peek-a-boo" by covering and uncovering your left eye with your left hand. Not to brag, but I'm an expert in this esoteric photographic technique (long practice <g>). Actually, the kids who terrify me are adolescent boys. They're usually bored with the whole idea and barely tolerant of the proceedings, and their faces can project this eloquent ennui unceasingly throughout an entire session. The willingness and interest of teenage girls in posing and being beautiful makes up for this to some extent, but somehow that doesn't help while you're waiting for the frowning parents of the boy to write out the "on delivery" check. Plus, girls can pose for hours on end; with boys, you typically have about 15 minutes and you're lucky if you get half an hour. And then, of course, if you're doing it for art or for yourself, you can work with a good deal more freedom. If "professional mode" predicts pictures that reliably rank a 7, in amateur mode you can risk a bunch of zeros to get that ooccasional elusive 10. Here, my advice would simply be to get down on their level, be agile, shoot lots of film, and keep working it. I prefer to not be limited to longer focal length lenses, both because I often find the surrounding interesting in pictures, but also because a little extra depth of field often helps. Finally, if you're working with an M, the standard bits of advice probably apply--keep off a bit past the close-focusing limit, so you're not banging up against the limits of close focus too often, and fine-focus by moving _yourself_ rather than by turning the lens. It's really much easier. Hope this is of some small help. Mainly, I'd just like to encourage you by pointing out that what you're trying isn't easy, even for professionals who specialize in it. It's a tough shooting task. It takes some stamina, good control of your attitude, good skills in relating to kids, and practiced camera-handling skills. Keep at it! - --Mike