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Family and Kids Critique Part 1

I know you've got to be excited to see the fortresses I am, yeah, tio, I did get to see some of the critiques coming through, and I just really wanted to start off by saying that a lot of the critiques that didn't get up because we have so many were too good to be critiqued, and I know that there's a lot of photographers out there that really need that validation that they're good enough and you've sent in this beautiful work, and so much of it was so beautiful we would have this would've been the critique, so this is beautiful. Next image this's really beautiful to really were trying to get images that have some learning component and optional components, otherwise you don't, lynn but, man, there was some beautiful stuff in there. Sure, wass and actually so glad to hear you say that, because I know when, when we were originally looking at the pictures, I was thinking, what possibly could I say about a few of these images? Because they were just that good, and actually, some of the one...

s we saw yesterday probably should have been shown because they were that good, it was really very difficult to give a critique because they were just amazing, just as a photographer, you do need to lynn, when you're being critiqued, you're being criticized its it's so subjective, right? If your client paid for it, then why would you send to them for a critique? I would seemed in something that they didn't pay for because you'd want to know why you don't need to be validated you only need to be validated by the person paying you you are good enough to just be good enough for your clients. Your work is beautiful and we don't need to bring you up in front of us to tell you it's beautiful, I think there's so much beautiful week in this industry. So, you know, I just remember that there's a difference between critique, invalidation, criticism and acceptance is very hard. I still put wake up on my facebook page that gets critique by people even though I'm not asking for a critique. It's ok, you know, I accept that not even like to work, so today I guess we'll try and find as many educating components so that you're learning something lots of questions to today, please bring him in. Yeah, jim and seasoning here for that reason, you know, but I will say that for myself that I've never taken a good photograph, so you know, sometimes people will send in photographs is it that you and I might look at and go holy cow that's like the most amazing thing I've ever seen and yet maybe to them, they're going, oh, you know, I wish I'd done this or that and actually I think that's a good thing, I think that's very healthy to not feel like you've arrived because if you feel like you've arrived and you know, it's just like it's, a perfect image than we're sort of go. So you know, I hope that you know that you guys will keep submitting your images and if they if they didn't show up here than be happy that's kind of actually a good thing so that's nice, okay, so we have our way have our first image to look at you're looking at the screen of the screen either way um, one of the things that I absolutely love, I love it when a photographer will take the time to photograph the siblings together and when you have a newborn like this it's a very young baby with a little older sibling it's a very difficult thing to do. I like the way that they have chosen toe lay them down. I think that that's that's not a bad way to proceed. There are a couple of things with this photograph that I would probably like to see them change the first thing to me is the angle on the photographer use to capture this image the the older child because her face is turned up towards the camera a little bit too much her eyes or cast down and it makes her look a little bit on the cross side side s oh I'd like to see that there's a couple of ways you can do that the first thing is is if the if the photographer will tell that child hey the older one you know don't look necessarily down to baby but have your eyes look at a point so that it looks like the child that they're look she's looking at the baby but not necessarily turning your eyes all the way to that child I think would be a big help and marrying their expression works today like the little baby he's kind of relaxed eyes closed if the little girl had a very nice close to their foreheads head of being toward each other it would be more of a little moment together than anything else in pull back this is about for this key shot I'd be either mom loved it oh I bet she did tio very very nice ok um let's talk about imposing on this photograph I'll take that this is my favorite when okay um I've got nikki coming coming in this way it's so simple when you're posing to people in one is cobia if my body stands upright like in the case I'm going to look bigger and I'm going to from that perspective all I have to do is drop it back and tuck it in take a drop it back and tuck it in our faces are still here and then ironically when you're here and in your hands cross see the arm squashes on the boob lengthy and bigger so if you kick the bootie back takes no not you you stay there I'm taking my baby bed takes all the pressure off the front braced and so then I'm look slimmer anyway so you also get a bit of chin forward action there because you know but not shooting high and not shooting I don't want you to shoot down on people because it looks a bit eighties and nineties I want you just to push their bodies back and just using always use the slimmer body so if you have a male partner and he's big and you wantto make her body fit around his just give it a kick that back there and it just shapes this bit here makes all this look good in the lina she is the more she contain out if you got to give the girls and they both got a ten and both kick the baby's bed but you know it's just such a beautiful shape from the france also thanks thinking I don't really like porch it's when people are looking after the side I find it really odd and I'll tell you why I guess because I'm a glam a photographer so I have two airlines one is directly at the camera and the other one is down their own body line which is really beautiful forbid wear but very few portrait's look good with people looking off you know either one connection or connection to the self that very really connection off because if you're looking away you're looking at someone else and models pull it off and catalogs when they do the whole looking over the shoulder and like they're running away or in bed wear can look cute like that because it's kind of somebody's just walked into the room and they're looking at me but for portrait when you're looking away it's like who are you looking at? You're either with the people that you're being photographed with or you're with the camera you know in addition to that think about body language and what it says you see because of the way these two girls are opposed because the young lady in the yellow because your body has turned to straight towards the camera you see how awkward that feels to have her arms stretched across see it's kind of like it's like I don't really know if I like you or not it's like ok, you know turn yourself that way a little it's like ok, you know I like it's like again your bodies I answer saying yes but me it isn't exactly exactly so think about that one other thing too is you have a really beautiful environment and this this location is very beautiful but we have that vertical that strong a static line behind them with the trees so what I would love to have seen you do let's have the maker move them either to the left or to the right I love the shallow depth of field so I love the the focal length of dance you were using was really nice on dh the lighting to the face is beautiful outside if you have a choice and we don't always have a choice but if you do have a clothing consultation with your subjects because the young lady wearing the yellow because it's that stretchy kind of fabric to begin with and it's a really it's a very bright light color it's going to emphasize may be areas of her shape that are not going to be you know the most flattering aspects so and obviously there are times we you know that our clients are gonna let us do that but when I have a clothing consultation with a client I'll say if you can no half sleeves on dh no bold bright stripes, aarp lads and colors that stand out because what happens is that it pulls the eye away from the face and it pulls to the garments I really like the idea of this picture there are so many things I love about this image I love the attitude I love the pose of this little girl I think it works with what she has on beautifully I'm trying to decide whether I love the treatment or hate the treatment I'm not sure about that because I keep wondering to myself I love so much of what's going on with her and it's so playful and so fun is that a distraction or is an enhancement what do your thoughts take all that takes your office and it's absolutely fabulous I love it it's gorgeous she's kinnick did great powers love the stockings cost ears you just over did it it's ok we all do it how fun is that? Yeah beautiful great shot it's just over down there so my mother voices my mother told me had a reattach she's a re toucher that's how I became a photographer and she said to me when I was eighteen it takes to others to do an act job want to do the work and the other one to hit the first artist over the head when you've done to match and that's the thing you will get you work it go and have a bath go for a walk come back look at it again and then put your teachers aren't take a few teachers back kokoshin now I put some more blood last week coco chanel get ready to go out go to the merit take one thing off not your underwear just one thing you know some things that I said I grabbed it right back way too bad. Okay, awesome. Um there are some things about this photograph I actually really want to like it. I love photographing little girls and I think that it's it's such a special time in the child's life when they're doing when they're having you know, this looks like like preteen maybe or a young teenager yes, I think that you just got a little bit too far it's a little bit too overworked in my opinion um I actually I like the way that you posed her hands I think she looks she looks soft and she looks pretty but I think the biggest part for me that's that's holding me back is that it's over saturated so much that it's real hard to see her and she looks very soft herself but I think that all of their treatment is pulling it back a bit. For me, this is a really beautiful shot in the nineties but we just gotta pull it a little bit into the same melania I just feel like it's gs what's making it so nineties for me is probably the amount of saturated color in it that big job is competing with the blue bows the pink roses in terms of housing and connection beautiful but you know you just gotta watch that that lighting style is not kicking you back with that background into to oppression because it screams hold fresh into may but then kind of rate try but I hope that was your intention these two women are absolutely beautiful and neither of them really connected to each other or the camera the girl in the front on the right is to flip to the camera and the girl beside here is competing for her angle um stand up bambi I'll show you one thing if you photographed two sisters or two girls if there are partners they need to be connected romantically if this sisters orbis friends they need to be connected this one here is struggling to get around this front one so it's not there's no connection to the faces if she was like this and then kicked on the back body in and they were like this they could connect their faces or towards each other just make sure the body language of togetherness is really important and he's been talking about this for the last two days when you pose a couple you don't post them with their hips away from each other crazy sexual energy is towards each other here so they're connected at the hip first sisters and girlfriends are always connected and you want to connect at the cheek mom's a connective take moms and daughters and if they are partners and they connected no differently than pavers as it's more of a basic energy than it is an upper energy. But just make sure you working those shoulders also there's a really fine line between when people smith when they smoke with their mouth, not their eyes. Now, when I tell people to smoke, I want the expression to country here. So I want all the twinkle to be up here if people smith, they got this and that, then you get that, ok? And that is not up here that in the mouth is not we're such beautiful women you look at the amounts, not the eyes because they melt, they're holding the expression but their eyes or not and if their eyes were twinkling, you could not go past this image because it's beautifully, I love the color times the additive camera actually what's really? But we were gonna I was gonna dress that next. The problem? I don't think a cz much the camera angle is that the girls are hunched forward. You know, one of the things that I tried to tell people to do is that when you, when you tell someone to lean forward, we have a tendency to roll our shoulders and that's what this young lady in the front is doing she's rolling her shoulders forward a little bit, which is what we're seeing that that roundness of the shoulder so what I'll have them do, it will say I want you to lean forward with your chest you guys lean forward with your chest a second do you see how that kind of straightens up your back a little bit? So that is yeah, maybe the camera goes a bit high, but there are tradeoffs when you're working with mature women and that is this area down here, so I personally like a higher camera angle, but but it does make a huge difference if you have them lean with the chest versus leaning forward with the shoulders and then rolling those shoulders out. One of the thing that I think is important is to give people a reason to smile, not ask them to do so like I don't I don't never tell someone to smile I'd like to give them something to think about that makes them smile naturally in my studio we have ah little questionnaire we go through with clients ahead of time and ask them about their families and about what kind of movies they like do they have pets so that I have topics of conversation that I could get to know them a little bit? You know during the photo shoot so that I have conversations with them that immediately draws a happy point or something that makes them feel good because if somebody asks me about my son cameron or my daughter lolita about the process of the possibilities of having grandkids, you're going to get a natural smile from me because it makes me think about something that's happy you think that vote of the feel of this photo could have been completely changed just if they would have tipped their heads together yes, I did well they remember dying tipped the top of the head go with the cheek in terms of the shoulder roll it's just address one thing I don't say chest forward I say shoulder forward but I don't say showed a ford yeah okay because models clothes like that so only that really lame friend that can do that really sort of, you know shrunken and looks gorgeous but that a normal body type they don't roll in I say bring the shoulder forward and put take the cheapest bed but I wanted to come forward and predict forward not rolled in you know so that's the roller but yeah cheek to cheek always you know what else would help this images of the young lady that's on this side over here with the has the floral dress on if they had scooted her just a little bit more away from the other lady then she could have lead towards her dropping that shoulder a bit and that would lead them for instance you soon are together like this instead of having him lean like this having her pull away a little bit and then lean like that is going to drop that shoulder and make it look nicer girls come around this family to show you something I show you two really great poses which kind of really interesting provo does this sit down I'm going to take it to the floor we take this to the floor nicky come in sit down and come and sit down beside her katie and said when you leave but jake said I know live but jake okay, now if they both sit on the left cheek then I have to bring them together. This works really, really well to put your knees away. Incoming. Now you come and sit in there so you two in your knees away now on your lives but tenure back to katie now when you lift but taking so the way he was sitting just yet and so now bring him in. So this is how these girls would kind of posed for this one's open and then this one's trying to come around here like that so you see what I mean if she turned the shoulder just a tickle and you come in nice and close nicky yeah and then now I can get katie to move into here and pose that way now tip your head that way and you go to here. All right? So there's, lots of ways to bring them together like this. Now you always put the kiddies when here because if it was, may jump up katie, I can kind of use my body like this to hide behind here by the you know what I mean, but doesn't work of I'm a lot shorter because and I'm in here so you could elevate the on a little cushion. But then if you want to look at how to bring their hands together, like if the sisters, mom, daughter, not a capital, because this isn't a couple's pose and that she wanted him to hit the head and all the way around it. But then he said, hit shoots it between his legs, you know, you can kind of be right here and then also this chin comes forward like this, and then nicky brings hitchen back to meet may and then we made in the middle there, and so that works, and so I feel like I used to do this pose all the time sitting down and it looks absolutely beautiful when you get two bodies and you just get the perfect face symmetry and it just it's a great post photos to practice it because everybody should do it I really love this I love the baby I love the woman I love the connection I love the fabric I love it throwing I just don't like the background you know it's just like classic beautiful girl on a background that's too and focus that looks like a landscape shot without a girl that should be in it of somebody's farm and I feel like if this was in any other location or there was a bit more deep to field to their background was gone arose a misty morning it would have just seen an unbelievable shot but you got to commune somebody for getting perfect connection and perfect posing in a beautiful dress throw and a great fabric rep and even the baby's absolutely gorgeous um how would you improve that? Actually there are a couple things I think that would really let's say that this is the environment that you have and you can't change it you're out there and this is what you've got to work with how about a really low camera angle to minimize and get rid of all of that background because the clouds actually I think that that higher part of the picture would actually work nicely with what she has on with her clothes on dh so I think that if it were me if I had to shoot in this area I'd either shoot photograph from a very, very low camera angle on the ground or I would maybe come in tighter so that I could minimize that background and that photograph just like closer up to the baby and the mother because I actually am nuts about the way the mom is curled into her child and I think the rest of it really is so non essential it doesn't to me the dress the throwing of the dresses like what's that ford doesn't make sense in the context of this kind of photograph that's such a beautifully posed images had just been in the studio with no dress throw it's that good it's just in the wrong place you know I feel like with the shot they probably with thirty other shots around it s o a big question was this the best one? And secondly, you know it's a cute shot, but if you're a professional portrait photographer all you need to get their baby and he doesn't look like he's upset or running away so you got to do what you got to do to get the shot and that's not quite a portrait standard yet, although every the component to it looks really good it's just what you're capturing. You know I love a day in the life kind of portrait session and I do a lot of them and I'm very successful with doing a day in the life, which means you can't follow that child around their house and a photograph of them in their natural environment. But one of the things that I have found that's been very, very beneficial is to bring a wrangler with me and a wrangler is a person whose job is to do nothing else, but entertain that baby and and engage them and my one of my associate photographers, we have a whole bag of tricks. We have stuffed animals, we have squeaky toys, we have feather dusters, and I mean a plethora of little tiny things that we can that we bring along with us so that, as I'm I gather the correct camera angle and the correct in the environment correctly said that I know I've got my money environment with my child then as far as getting give, getting expression and that's, I think that's one of the things that's lacking in this image is that I'm not getting quite the expression that I'd like to see, so that wrangler just off camera position can do wonders for helping you to initiate fabulous expressions from those children. In addition to that, there are some things I like about this photograph and some things that are bothering me the horizontal line through the baby's head in the background, where you see that heady background and then it goes light, you locate it. Yeah, you did. You look at that, that particular area and I find that that's a little bit of a distraction. So try bringing a wrangler long state that you can work on getting expression because I will tell you this kind of photograph. This not find a photograph, but this kind of concept and doing the environmental portrait of a client's home is can be a huge money maker for you. Because here's the deal, you can sell a client, a wall portrait of single wall portrait for their home, or maybe two or three for their house. But you can only sell a client so many wall portrait ce before they have a shrine in their home. If you do a day in the life portrait session of their family, of their children or of their child a child every year, every single year do you realize that you have you can shoot photograph them every year. Last year, my largest client order was from a family that have one little girl, and I was over forty thousand dollars for a single session. It was not a wedding. It took me an hour and a half to do that. So the day in the life session, by the way, is also a really important session for the client that is in the upper tier. Financially, because people that are that are have a more sophisticated palate. I hate to use that wealthy thank you wealthy, but it but it's not just wealthy, though, because it's it's not new money, it's old money, new money they might spend and put it an eighty inch wall portrait on their world but old money they're going to have that ring. Monet, you take god, they're gonna hang artwork on their well, so they're not going to buy well courts. But they will buy albums and they won't just by one, they'll buy one for each of their homes. So it's a terrific way for you, tio. Be well compensated for your talent, but you've got a thin end of the day. It is all about expression and if you don't have expression, you don't have anything. So you want to think about that? Yes, you're doing the life package. What it fully includes, it includes me going to do the shoot. Yes, and then they purchased things like okay, so it doesn't have an album and a can't miss, sir. No, no it's, just my service to go and do the session. And then and then we dio slide presentations for clients we do not put our work online. Ever and one of the things that I also do is I pre design an album before they ever come in gets a lot of work for me to do that it makes me I don't have to design a book I do my retouching ahead of time I do my album designs ahead of time because I want them to see the big picture I want them to see themselves in those pictures and if they just see you know john q public's album laying out they can't they're not invested in it yet and so this is a terrific terrific thing to do and I can't even tell you how financially rewarding it is to do so photographing children is not my favorite thing um but I will tell you it is you know you can I laugh all the way to the bank is it is a very, very financially rewarding thing and at the end of the day, if you can't make a living, you know being a photographer then you have to go get a day job and do something else and I still get to make a living being a real photographer like you guys you I know thousands of photographers around the world and none of the top line of photographers and when I say the top line I mean the more experienced that higher price, the more established photographers sell packages just about ninety nine point nine senior themselves ala carte because it's only the younger line of photographers that air like but what if they don't buy anything? Weii you're always going to get clients that don't buy anything that just happens in every studio it's a numbers game in some spend more and some spin list but the idea is that you create a session thie you sold your work of based on the quality of your website your folio and you know how much thes e rsm enjoy you have for what you do and then people employees to be their photographer they commission you and then you go and create outwork that even sell to people so that tel I work that's how bambi works you know I want to present my work and at the point of you coming into look atyour portrait you've exchanged no money with me so it's not like I hope they buy something it's I have worked so hard to create these images there is a chance yes that they're not going to buy but that doesn't even come into my thought process when I'm creating your portrait I'm just hoping that I've created something for you there's so magnificent that you want to own it and if you don't believe that you that you have done their fake it until you do I'm not kidding you when I bring a family in the first thing that I say when I call them and let them know that it's time for us to get together for their viewing, I literally tell I go, oh my goodness, you're gonna love your pictures, save your money because you're gonna want them all. And even if I don't really honestly feel that way in my heart and I, as I said, I don't think I've ever taken a photograph that I really actually like yet, but I believe that enthusiasm is truly very important for us because if you don't like what you've done, how I mean how in the world and if you don't sell it and how they were going to feel good about buying it? A submission with albums I think it's a really just an amazing, wonderful addition to your to your c a products we use album epoca, and they are fabulous company, and if you'll just email me bambi a control portrait dot com, I'll send you a voucher that will give you a hundred dollars off for your first albums. That's a really great thing.