Child portrait 1

A big portion of photography is family portraits, and the majority of that is children. Doing children portraits is not always an easy task. Kids can be unruly and their attention can drift quickly. So,  the best thing to do is have everything pretty much set up before they arrive, props, lighting, ect... Have some idea of what you are going to be shooting, so when they arrive, all you have to do is put them into position. Shoot as quick as possible, and change things up after a few minutes. Keep talking to them, don't let them get bored.
In the video you will see two of my grandchildren. We only shot for maybe 20 minutes total, and that is really fast for me; my normal shoot time with a model is 1-3 hours. My granddaughters are not your typical child subjects of course, they have been in front of a camera for years. That is obvious at one point in the video where they are jabbering away, but when I brought the camera up to start shooting, they fell right into place.
As you will see I used a four light set up, 2 four foot boxes (custom built), and 2 softboxes made from coolers and a white frosted shower curtain. For props I had a heart shaped pillow, a giant teddy-bear, and a free standing full length mirror, with a faux fur rug. I started out shooting at 1/100, f/s 5.6, at 400 ISO... But soon switched to 1/80, f/s 5.6 at 400 ISO, and that was were I stayed for the rest of the shoot.

I hope you enjoy this episode, please feel free to comment, or ask any questions you may have.
Until next time... Keep shooting!