Yesterday I had the joy of photographing my neighbor’s 11 month old daughter. Everyone here understands what that means; constant motion, unpredictable, accidents! With all that happening its beneficial for the photographer to be prepared. Scout the space, decide what you want for natural light, decide what you want for key or fill light, and get it all set ahead of time. With this type of high energy subject its paramount for the photographer to trust the lighting setup, to remain behind the camera, not checking the LCD too often. To pull back and look at the LCD is going to eliminate a lot of great photo possibilities!
My setup was simple. I placed a Canon 580EX II on a light stand, attached an umbrella and Pocket Wizard II transceiver. I aimed the umbrella up into a corner of the room, essentially creating three sources of soft bounce light (ceiling, two opposing walls). I then established camera settings without flash that allowed me two things: first, shutter speed that was good for hand-held action. I shot at 1/200 of a second and second, enough light to open up or blow out windows. This turned out to be ISO 800, f/5 aperture, 1/200th second shutter. My lenses for this included the 85mm fixed and the 24-70mm zoom.
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11 Comments
These are awesome Alec!!! The last two of her in the bath tub are fantastic! I love the way you were able to capture the water droplets.
Hi Meg,
THANK YOU for stopping by and for the kind words. Hey, let your friends with kids now I’m available for hire!
Happy Holidays,
alec
How fun! I, too, really like the tub shots.
Hey JJ,
Tub shots? Is that a new kind of drinking game you and Kathy invented?
Later,
alec
Did you do some post production work to lighten up areas of the picture? For example, on Picture 6, is that natural lighting all around her?
Hey K Hawk,
Yes, there is some. I shot to the right side of the histogram for sure, but then made a brightness adjustment in raw to finish off the overall exposure level. Not much though, just getting light balanced correctly.
After that I have a bunch of post production techniques I use, custom, homemade Photoshop actions.
But, the direct answer is yes, its all lit. I didn’t have to much of anything special to get the balance the way its seen here.
Happy Holiday Season, Kevin.
Cheers,
alec
Alec, these photos just made me giggle! You captured this little angel’s personality; I know her family will be eternally grateful to you. Beautiful light and technique! Happy holidays, Alec.
Best,
Barbara
HI Barbara,
Thanks for stopping by. Its so good to hear from you. Ava is a giggling, smiling little girl and made the work very easy. Seriously, you know what I mean. Not all babies at 11 months will be this way. The only challenge is keeping up with everything she was giving. A fun day of shooting for sure.
Happy Holiday Season!
Alec
AJ,
Didn’t realize you were shooting when we spoke the other day. She is darling. You have captured some wonderful moments that will likely be presented someday at her wedding.
Classic and precious.
KG
Alec, I saw on Facebook that Ange was a fan of AC Photography, so I had to check out. The pics of this little girl, Ava, are just adorable. I just love the innocence you captured in her eyes. How many shots did it take to get these? They all seem so perfect. Leanne Jaskowiak
Hi Leanne,
Nice to hear from you. Thanks for stopping by. I shot about 250 frames and the mother chose about 106 for herself. The others were misfires, out of focus, etc. Here’s what’s amazing about shooting in a digital format; in film you could never shoot like this and capture these moments…too much film, too expensive, not creative enough. So, we were very productive, using on light on a stand and just going crazy. Ava was a super amazing subject, so it was relatively easy to get 100 keepers of which 30 are truly portfolio images. To see the full/full gallery visit my gallery site at http://acjphoto.zenfolio.com
Thanks again for stopping by and the kind words. Happy Holidays!
alec