posing/shooting families with kids

[Elaine]

How in the world do you pose a family nicely and quickly and get everyone (including squirmy kids) to look at the camera at the same time with decent expressions!!????? In these situations, I end up feeling a slight bit of panic and want to move quickly to prevent any meltdowns, so I just start shooting, knowing that the "unposed" poses are often best, but... then I sometimes end up with a small collection of three or four pictures that I wish I could mush into one to get the best of everyone together. Does this just take loads of practice and/or are there some techniques and tips that I should know about? Any books to read? Anyone else feel this way?? :huh

[LiquidAir]

Here is a link to my favorite tutorial on posing:

http://groups.msn.com/Asktheoleproaboutphotography/joezeltsman.msnw

It is pretty thick and it only covers formal portraiture, but it is well worth the read just to get you thinking.

Generally my advice is keep it simple. I often use just a single strobe with a 60" umbrella and I try to pick a location where I can use the abient to fill. Alternately I will look for a room with white walls and shoot through the umbrella which scatters enough light that I get fill by bouncing off the walls. Lighting styles that require careful placement are not practical for most group shots. I often put the camera on a tripod and prefocus so I can use a cable release to trigger the shutter. That lets me be more actively involved in posing than if I am stuck behind the camera.

[swintonphoto]

Elaine - this is one of the struggles I think every photographer faces. Kids are tough. What I do is I try to position the kids in a place that if they move a bit it won't be a big deal (for example, not somewhere that they could easilly block someone else). Then, I usually set the older family members in their places and tell them to just keep on smiling. I will then just shoot lots of pictures hoping one will work. I often have to photoshop one head from one of the previous images - but if you are taking lots of shots you will usually get one they like. Also, my wife often comes along for my shoots, so we bring a big green stuffed lizard. She actually sits it on my head, pretends it is eating my ear, and all sorts of goofy things. It gets the kids attention and makes them smile. So, I just have to swallow my pride a bit, have some fun, and then the kids will look my way.
Hope these tips help!

[SDJames]

Great suggestions!

I JUST went through this!:twitch

I was on the beach. Got there early, setup the strobe and tripod in the 'best' spot...first thing that happened was dad saying, "Can we take them over here?" I gotta learn to say no nicely when it comes to parent directed shot composition. He was a friend, so not a big deal. He ended up helping with making funny faces behind me and everything turned out OK.

This was LUCKY timing. They just wouldn't stay together holding hands. Dad positioned them, jumped out of the way, and at 5fps I got this one shot.
http://seaviewphotography.smugmug.com/photos/160907264-M.jpg
I learned a TON doing this shoot. Keep learning!

[Stu Engelman]

Hi Elaine,

Another idea: try to plan your shooting where/when there is alot of ambiant light, or use strong artificial lighting. You could set focusing to automatic for fast opportunistic clicking, but set exposure to manual so you can force a narrow aperture (the high depth of field will deal with people moving around without having to reset F-stop), low ISO (to avoid grain), and fast shutter speed (to freeze action in spite of subject movement, and not add chroma noise to pics). Strong light is the key: in weak light, the low aperture, necessary to guarantee high DOF on all shots, will force high ISO and/or slow shutter speed to get the correct exposure, either of which will degrade the pics.

Stu