10 Tips for Doing Your First Family Portrait Session

Photographs from a good family portrait session will be treasured for many years to come. It’s an incredibly rewarding area of photography, but it can also be a little daunting for new photographers. You need to build a rapport with the family fast, keep the children on board, and meet the parents’ expectations with gorgeous photographs.

So where do you start? Which camera settings should you choose?
Here are some important pointers to make your first session go smoothly, and to help you take great family portraits.

1. Get down to their level

Get down to a child’s eye level. This will lead to far more engaging photographs, as well as helping you to interact better with the child.

2. Use Centre point focus

Different focus settings suit different photographers, but center point focusing tends to be the most useful for family portraits. As you take more and more family portraits, you’ll get a feeling for whether this suits you, But it’s a great starting point for your first session.

3. Choose an appropriate aperture

Your aperture settings will be influenced by the style you prefer. As a starting point, many lifestyle family photographers choose to shoot wide open for individual portraits (f/2.2 works really well), and around f/5.6 for group shots to ensure everyone is in focus.

This was taken at f/5.6.

This was shot at f/2.2.

4. Starting shutter speed

You will probably find yourself needing a slightly faster shutter speed for family portraits than you’d need for many other kinds of portraits. Children move fast, and sometimes unpredictably! A good setting to start with is 1/250th, which will give you flexibility for children rolling over or waving. If you have a situation where someone is moving very fast, such as a child jumping or racing off into the distance, choose a much faster shutter speed like 1/800th.

This was taken at 1/800th]

5. Use Auto ISO

While you’re familiarizing yourself with the apertures and shutter speeds that work for you on family portrait sessions, consider setting your ISO to auto. The results are usually satisfactory, and it’s one less thing to think about on the day. As you gain experience and confidence, you can start to select the ISO as you go along.

6. Metering mode

Certain metering options seem to suit some photographers better than others. As you take more family portraits, you’ll soon see which works best for you. To start with, try using spot metering for individual portraits, and evaluative metering for a group shot.

This was taken with the evaluative metering mode.

7. Shoot in RAW format

The editing options open significantly in Lightroom, and you’ll have a far greater range of colors and detail recorded if you shoot in the RAW format.

8. Auto White Balance

Set your white balance to auto if you’re doing a location shoot. You’ll be working in a variety of locations with different lighting, and you won’t have much time for setting white balance as you go. Correcting white balance is an easy edit in Lightroom, so you’d be better off spending the time engaging with the family you’re photographing.

9. Choose your lenses

Consider which lenses to take with you to the family portrait session. If your budget doesn’t stretch to having several lenses, consider renting some. It can be surprisingly economical, and it gives you the opportunity to try out different focal lengths to see which suit you best.

This was taken with an 85mm lens.

Using several lenses throughout a family portrait session will give you lots of variety in the images, as well as meaning you can cope with most locations. A zoom lens like a 24-70mm will give you lots of flexibility, or a popular prime lens for family portraits is an 85mm lens, which is very flattering for portraits. A wide lens like a 35mm will help you to set the scene.
As you gain experience photographing families, you’ll develop a sense for which lenses suit you best. That’s a good time to invest in the best quality lenses you can afford.

This was taken with a 35mm lens.

10. Set limits

Limit yourself to taking five versions of each scene. This will train your eye to look for the details and expressions you want to capture and to make sure you ultimately combine them all in one photograph.

Conclusion

So there you have it – family portraits in a nutshell. Practice makes perfect, though, so be prepared to work hard and hone your camera skills. Above all, a friendly and professional attitude combined with careful preparation for each family portrait shoot should make for happy clients and repeat business.
Please share your family portrait tips and photos in the comments section below.

The post 10 Tips for Doing Your First Family Portrait Session by Louise Downham appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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5 Tips for Portraits of Musicians That Will Help You Hit All the Right Notes

I’d like to share a few tips for portraits of musicians that will help you avoid the awkward photos that make any musician cringe.

Sometimes we are lucky enough as photographers to be asked to photograph someone with one of their most prized possessions: their musical instrument. Most people that want to be photographed with their instrument really and truly love it, and it’s a part of who they are. As a musician myself, I love photographs with gorgeous instruments in them, and I am especially bothered by photos that don’t capture those instruments naturally. Sometimes I’ll come across a photo that makes me cry out, “Why?? Nobody would EVER hold their instrument like that!!” You can still be creative with your photos without making them awkward.

1. Trust the musician

If you aren’t familiar with the instrument you’re photographing, it is especially important to trust the musician. This isn’t the time to try every posing trick that you can come up with, ending up with flutes on top of the head, or cellos held under the chin.
Ask your subject how they hold their instrument naturally. You can ask how they hold their instrument while playing, or when they’re relaxing between songs. If it’s a big instrument, like a piano, ask them how they would stand next to it before they perform, or how they sit by it when they’re thinking about what to practice. Ask them to demonstrate how they carry their instrument from one place to another. These might seem like silly questions, but you can really get a sense of what positions and holds are natural, then you can build from there.

As an example, a violinist may tell you that she holds her violin under her right arm when resting. You could take that position, ask her to sit on a chair in a formal pose holding the violin under her arm and get a beautiful portrait of a girl and her violin. The key is to remember that they are much more expert at how to naturally pose with their instrument than you likely are. However, if you do happen to know their instrument well, feel free to use your knowledge to get beautiful natural poses.

2. Do your homework

Before a session with a musician, you could watch some videos on YouTube to see how people interact specifically with the instrument you’ll be photographing. Find a professional musician who plays the same instrument. Look at their website to see what kind of photos they have with their instruments. You may have a client who is very shy and need more guidance posing, so it’s helpful to have a few ideas ahead of time. Be prepared for challenges that an instrument might bring, such as unwanted reflections in brass, immobility of harps or pianos, sensitivity to temperature or weather, and have a plan.

3. Ask the musician to play for you

If you can get your subject to give you a little performance during the photo session, you will get some great action shots. It usually helps loosen them up a little bit too, and brings out some natural smiles. Remind them that it doesn’t matter if they make mistakes because your camera doesn’t catch any audio. It will only capture the perfect moments of their playing. Also, remind them that you aren’t there to judge their skill, you just want to capture the relationship they have with their instrument. Move around as they play, and catch the beautiful moment from every angle you can, close, and far.

4. Get close-ups of the action

Hands are the main part of playing most instruments. Get in close on the hands as they play. These shots often end up being some of my very favorites. Try focusing on the hands as you shoot down the neck of a guitar, the fingers on a flute, or hands that are frozen in mid-air during a drum solo. Getting in close on these details can create beautiful action photos that really tell the story. If their hands are moving too quickly for you to focus, ask them to freeze for a moment in that position while you get the shot.

5. Make the instrument the star

Take a few photos of the instrument by itself, too. Musicians love their instruments, and they will love photos that show their beauty. Make sure to ask permission to touch their instrument, and to set it down, move it, or anything you might want to do for the shot that could potentially harm it in any way. You can even ask the owner to do all of the touching and moving, and you can move yourself around to get the photo that you want.
Tell the musician what you have in mind, and they will most likely be on board, and be happy to help you get some amazing instrument photos. Instruments can be extremely expensive, and even more importantly, can have sentimental value that can never be compensated. Keep this in mind throughout the session, whether your subject is in the photo with the instrument, or not. Never ask them to do something that could harm or damage the instrument.

Conclusion

Every time I’ve been asked to create photos for album covers for musicians, head shots for websites, art to print and frame, or just to capture someone’s favorite hobby, my goal is to create a photo that they will love. One that will stay true to what they would naturally do with their instruments.
I hope these tips can help you create beautifully genuine musician portraits too. I would love to see your musician portraits in the comments!

The post 5 Tips for Portraits of Musicians That Will Help You Hit All the Right Notes by Melinda Smith appeared first on Digital Photography School.

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