MomShots

Earlier this week, child photographer David Moore wrote a blog post titled “6 Steps to take ‘Guerilla’ Photos of your Children” on the Digital Photography School website. It’s an excellent post and a must read for any parent that wants to capture better images of children. What is the “guerilla” approach to photographing kids? It’s somewhere between candid and formal. Your child is aware that you are taking photos, but at the same time, you’re not so removed from the environment that you’re only capturing candid moments.

Last Saturday I was photographing my oldest son’s soccer game. On the side of the field I noticed the coach’s toddler, Drake, playing in a pile of leaves with his older sister and my youngest son. They were having a great time covering each other with the crunchy leaves. I quickly grabbed my gear and headed in their direction. Drake knew I was taking his picture, but because I was sitting on the ground about 25 yards away, I wasn’t disturbing the natural playfulness that kids have around freshly fallen leaves.

Here are David Moore’s tips, with some comments that accompany my pictures below:

1. Prepare your gear. Because I was shooting a soccer game, the only gear I had with me was my camera, monopod, and a Canon 100-400mm lens. Not the ideal lens for photographing children, but I was very surprised at how well it worked considering I didn’t want to disturb the kids. I was able to quickly set my camera to AV (aperture priority) and kept the ISO at 800 because of the dim morning light.

2. Get down to their level. I removed the camera from the monopod, made sure that IS (image stabilization) was enabled on my lens, and then sat on the ground.

3. Light the eyes. The sun was coming up over my left shoulder so I moved 45 degrees to the right so that I was not sitting between the kids and the sunlight.

4. Watch your backgrounds. Before clicking the shutter, I made sure that a garbage can on the field behind the kids could not be seen from my angle and was hidden behind a tree.

5. Shoot the scene, not just the face. Along with these images below, I was able to capture Drake playing with his big sister, running around and dragging his feet through the leaves.

6. Bring the camera along. Should it take thousands of dollars in camera gear to capture a meaningful image? No. Someone with a point-and-shoot could have created similar images if they have a good understanding of their camera, light, and use tips like these provided on MomShots.com.

In addition to David Moore’s tips, here are two that I would add:

7. Show the child your images. In my experience with Drake, he was curious about my camera and wanted to see some of the pictures. Every few minutes he would walk over to me so I could show him what I’d captured. He would grin and laugh at himself. This broke down any shyness that Drake may have had in front of the camera.

8. Encourage the child. Drake was having fun and needed no prompting or direction from me. Every once in a while I would say to him, “Drake, I want to see how high you can throw those leaves in the air,” or “I’ll bet you can’t jump over a pile of leaves.” Because it was a fun challenge to him, he would unknowingly perform for the camera.

You can see the rest of Drake’s images on my website, www.ShaunNelsonPhotography.com. And please feel free to comment and share these tips.

If you see this post today, I would like to encourage you to click on this link and head over to JPG Magazine and vote for one of our favorite DadShot contributors, Shaun Nelson. He has a great photo of his son in his luchador costume that is perfect for the current theme of Heroes.

I voted.

I hope you will too.

Because it is an awesome DadShot.

During the creation of her U.S. 89 book, I recall Ann Torrance telling a group of us at a PhotoWalking Utah mini-clinic that we should dedicate ourselves to a project. She explained that as photographers we should assign ourselves a project to work on. Submerge and devote yourself to a single project? What could I possibly photograph that would be considered a project? Somehow I knew that taking on a project would help me be a better photographer, but the creativity and ideas were absent. I struggled with ideas for a self-assigned project for more than 8 months.

My photography has never been centered on a specific subject or style. I like photographing landscapes, wildlife, and well, everything! At PhotoCamp Utah 2010, a local photographer named A.J. Rich presented some of his photos and that’s when the inspiring light bulb clicked on over my head. A.J. Rich has a series of photographs titled Imagination. Each of the children in his photos reminds me of my youngest son, Connor.

Our world is full of video games and cartoons that occupy the attention of our kids. The imagination of children isn’t what it was like when I grew up. Connor is different than most kids his age. He loves to dress up and pretend. On the playground at school, all the first graders seek out Connor at recess. He assigns each classmate as a Star Wars character and gives a brief description of their daily adventure. At home, he dresses as Indiana Jones, Iron Man, Spider-Man, and Batman. His imagination and energy are endless!

This is where my photography project begins. My self-assigned project is to capture Connor as he plays, pretends and creates stories dressed as his favorite characters. My goal is to capture unique, fun and memorable images of him. The resulting images will tell a story about Connor. These photos will be a reminder of the simple joy of imagination, pretending, and escaping to act in our own adventure.

The first image is titled “Sometimes You Wear Stretchy Pants in Your Room. It’s for Fun.” Nacho Libre is one of Connor’s favorite characters. When he told my wife, “Mom, I need new blue Nacho tights,” we laughed. How many 6-year old boys do you know who make blue tights a serious request?

"Sometimes You Wear Stretchy Pants in Your Room. It's for Fun."

If you have a photo project you’re working on, make sure to leave a comment on MomShots.com. I’d like to see what everyone else is doing. And if you would like to follow the progress of my project this year, check out the Connor’s Adventures gallery at ShaunNelsonPhotography.com.

Note from Jessica: Today I am very excited to announce that our guest DadShots post is by Brett Birdsong, of Birdsong Photography. Brett is an extremely talented photographer from Pensacola, Florida but travels all over the US shooting amazing photos. If you want some inspiration, spend a few minutes looking through Brett’s galleries on his site!
I hope you enjoy this post as much as I did!

I have two little monkeys.

Jacob, who is 5, and Kylie, who is 4.

They are bundles of personality, independence, and insanity. Basically, small versions of me. This round of photos came about during a summer’s day about a year or so ago, in an honest attempt to get some “normal” portraits of the kids. I fall into that odd category of taking thousands of photos during a weekend in wedding season, but have virtually jack squat when it comes to photos of my own kids. I’m horrible I know, but I’m working on it.

So the scene before me was a big, fenced backyard, two freshly bathed kids under the age of 5 in clean clothes. Daddy, the professional photographer, with his fancy cameras and lenses, and the two perfect children to photograph. I could handle this right? I’ve dealt with crying mothers-of-the-bride, intoxicated wedding guests, and fainting officiants…I think I can handle normal photos of my own kids. Right?

In the time it took me to look down, adjust my camera settings, and fire off a few test shots of Jake, Kylie had found dirt, which had made it’s way on to her shirt and face. Jake found this worthy of a belly laugh, which encouraged Kylie, and within 5 minutes of walking outside with calm, clean kids, I had Goofballs 1 and 2 belly laughing at each other while I sat there watching, capturing the scene unfolding before me.

Lesson #1 learned - When I photograph kids, I now have no preconceived notions or ideas of what I’m walking away from that particular session with. There are no backdrops, no lights, no ” sit here and let’s give Sears some competition” photo sessions at all. To me, photographing kids, especially my own, is completely about working with the moment. Sit back, relax, let them be kids. You’ll end up with some really fun shots.

During the the course of the next 15 minutes or so, betwixt belly laughs and smudging dirt on each other, I had each of the kids stand in front of me and make a silly face. Anything silly, I said. I’d make a face at them, they’d make a face back. And out of the silly faces that were made, this collage of photos was born. Now granted, I didn’t get exactly what I had intended to that day. But what I did get was a few photographs of a brief moment in time where my two kids and I sat in the sunshine on a warm summer’s day and made silly faces at each other, and laughed together.

It simply brings back a really great memory of spending time with my kids. And I honestly couldn’t ask more than that from a photograph.

Last week Jessica was asking for guest bloggers to post on MomShots.com and I jokingly responded that the site needed a “DadShots post from a guy.” I was surprised when she responded with a positive and encouraging comment, so I jumped at the chance to reach out to an audience of parents that love to photograph their kids. I became a MomShots fan after Jessica gave a presentation at Photo Camp Utah in March of 2009. The theme of this site reminds me of what initially sparked my interest in photography, taking photos of my kids.

My journey into photography began in June 2000 when my first son, Caleb, was born. As a proud new parent I took pictures of him with a VGA camera (640 x 480, not even 1 megapixel) that only had enough memory to take 12 pictures, and cost about $500. The pictures looked terrible, but I was able to email them to family and was quickly bitten by the photo bug. Almost ten years and seven cameras have passed since I snapped the first picture of Caleb. To this day I constantly remind myself it’s not about getting perfect photos of my kids, it’s about capturing memorable moments through photos.

As my photo skills have increased, so has my level of personal photo critique. Can professional or pro-am photo skills be combined with creating memorable photos of your kids? It’s hard to pre-visualize photographic moments with kids. Christmas morning with children is not about perfect lighting, f-stops and shutter speeds. It’s not always possible to create a perfect environment to photograph candid moments of kids. In my house, the crazy photographic moments happen when my youngest son, Connor, spontaneously dresses up as Nacho Libre with Batman wings and runs around the house with a Star Wars lightsaber. The challenge that I have is putting the elements of getting a perfect image out of my head so I can capture that memorable moment.

While it may not be possible to create the perfect photographic environment every time you point the camera at your kids, there are some easy things you can do to improve your photos:

Lighting – Turn off the on-camera flash. When shooting indoors, open the blinds and let some ambient or available light from a window into the room. This works well when you’re attempting to capture a candid moment of your kids because the flash won’t distract them. Natural sources of light look better than the hard shadow created by a flash.

Light: Natural light from a window

Speed – Kids move quickly, you may want to consider using the Sports or Action mode on your camera. Observe what the camera has suggested for the light conditions and subject (ISO, shutter speed, etc.). When you’re ready to use creative modes on your camera (i.e. Aperture, Shutter Priority, Manual Exposure, etc.), you’ll know and understand what needs to be setup.

Speed: Sneaking A Quick Lick of Birthday Cake

Get down and close – Part of creating a memorable photo is getting a different perspective. You can do that by getting down on the floor with your kids and moving closer to their face. Use the 6 Tips for Photographing Kids in the left-hand margin of MomShots.com.

Down low: Snowboard Wipeout

Take lots of photos – Memory cards are cheap! Don’t judge your photos by previewing them on the tiny screen of your camera. Viewing them on your computer monitor is much more rewarding. You will find photos you thought were trash captured the moment better than expected.

Tons of photos: Sledding off a Jump

Again, it’s not about creating perfect images of our kids. It’s about capturing memorable moments through photos. Improve your skills, read your camera manual, and take tons of photos. In the natural progression of things, your skills as a photographer will show in the images you create as Mom or Dad.

Note from Jessica: Shaun is an awesome photographer. You can find more of his images at his website. Thanks for the wonderful post and refreshing perspective. I know I speak for all of us when I say come back and post anytime! Thanks Shaun!”