I just grabbed a couple images from a highlight from what we were doing outside it way had let's say, we started out here the very first segment we were doing with the family, with the mom and the two girls, it we noticed it got incredibly hot in here. I can't obviously see that online, but it had a massive impact on the energy of the kids, which it course will, and so I find myself going into overdrive kind of mix it up quick change, etcetera, but we did a lot there with continuous lighting and showing how you can make little shift between the way you hold the light, giving more soft light being short, add powder when you need it, and it made a big impact here we had the kids on the couch jumping and throwing things at us. That was about the best case scenario for those kids having conversation ahead of time, they're not going to stay in small, enclosed spaces. I normally wouldn't shoot them in a small space, but in a family situation like this, we do a lot of action around the house ...

because it's just a lot more fun. We were working with very little light and some competing lights, which created unintentional shadowing, but all of that by moving the couch away and moving the lights, we we mitigated some that shadowing on dh were the boost this pretty easily in post which is great in terms of the lower light going outside we had that natural light shooting and then we added the strobes and we got to see the difference there in terms of the sharpness of the lights here's a great example these two side by side all of these air just pulled direct that camera or right from the tether but this is your idea before without doing anything else just cropping and doing literally above down and exposure like nothing mohr where we're going to get to with the shot again I'm going to shoot a little wider have a little more space around my subjects then I want to deliver because I want tohave and he sort of any sort of issue that might happen with movement and in the frame I don't have to worry about clipping anything I don't want to clip here we've got the fingers chopped off but I know I'm going higher up anyway so I'm not so concerned and then I do like this little strip of leading in with the lead line so I'm gonna have that probably actually added on a little bit more when I do the final crop and delivery let's see what else we have we had here on the bench just some fun shots of the kids being a little more stylized they got into that more than anything with this sort of scene we're goingto have mom get up and move around a lot in a longer shoot I do this a lot on a big wide row of stairs that you might have leading up to a large library or public building or something you could do that but I like to call the album shot with families and usually by by slicing that in in the middle of a shoot you can get a ton of energy back so much of photography is energy. When we went out with these kids you saw that they were just drooping and so I literally made the kids run back and forth back and forth by the time they came in they were ready peppered up again um down here we've got the two shots oh do you think steel you could pull the shot that's next to this I wanted to show that big real quick to show you the difference between a slight shift in posing this is a slight shift imposing if you look if you want to think of anything and just look at the frame they look really close don't they? But if you really pay attention she's very soft and she's sharp and what's the difference it has to do with how close and far they are from the camera to the naked eye it's hard to tell that she's a good inch and a half back because of the angle that I'm shooting at, but I'm paying a lot of attention to that focal plane and I know because I'm shooting at a more shall it at the field that her just being a little farther back in the shot is going to make her soft or mom soft so I have two choices bring their heads closer together or extend my field of focus, but otherwise I'm going to lose focus on one of the two people in this frame that's what I did, I brought her closer in and then I had mom come in and now everybody sharp together I went from a to eight to a three two and then brought poster together and the problem is solved this is a really, really common problem that's very easy to come up against when you're out thinking about eighteen million things, and if you're not looking for those subtle shifts in terms of where the head lies in relation to the other head, when you've got two or three families together, you're going to miss it with a shallow depth of field and it's probably one of our common things I see so this is the fix you're goingto bump your aperture to stand your field of focus and you're going to make sure you position reposition them a little bit to be closer, another easy cheats to be able to see this if you're looking at this you know it's not very obvious to you that she's a little farther back because the angle you can tell where the body is in relation you can see her body's actually closer because it's physically larger here versace it's physically smaller there and by seeing that that's another tell that she's a little further back than you want her to be to be able to get them both nice and clean thank you still um and then lastly we jumped out here with our last family as the cameras were shut down and we're changing scenes and we just want to get another one because they were another great happy so he did and then just with the pro photo lights pull them all together on the same bench on dh again when those kids we're moving we had a ton of energy and we had great expression if I tried to just keep him in place I wasn't gonna have it and so that's why bill that in so much to my shoots doing the shooting today is a little bit of a challenge for me because we are trying to work in controlled spaces and we are trying to work with controlled lighting and to be able to stay in a spot even though I think the crew here was awesome at moving so much you're going to see a lot of that tomorrow too I really appreciated that still, you know the idea of having a wide open space to do whatever you want khun really up your creativity and keep that energy moving the whole way through ok, any questions about all of those shots? It's pretty sweet? Yes when you notice that I mean, do you just know that the girl was soft or do you check your camera during shoots to make sure you know I could tell with the two those two shots together tell putting look how fast he is, what amazing russell brand making things happen baby knows the steel looks like russell brand he does you totally does so with these two shots right here, the thing I noticed when I was right there is I could see her the physical disparity in terms of proximity to me like I could see that she was farther away but also trained to look at it. So if you're not looking for it so easy to miss there's a couple things I'm thinking about I don't know if you noticed earlier when mom sat down she put a foot like this and that broad foot to the camera is usually had no, no not always there sometimes it's someone's wearing cool shoes or something fun and you want to show it off it's not a big deal the trick is trying to find the compromise between utilizing those traditional rules opposing that really are lovely and make a big difference and evoke mohr emotion and closeness, utilizing that, but making sure you're marrying it with that spirited expression, and that mohr emphasis on connection and relationships, putting all that together sometimes can be a little extra effort like that. That shot, but you don't want to deliver that. Have everything perfect and one person soft, and you miss it.

Class Materials

Free Downloads

Children and Family Photography Syllabus

Adoption Myths and FAQs

Tamara Lackey Photographing Eyes in Portraits

buy this class

$00

Buy Class

Sale Ends Soon!

starting under

$13/month*

Unlock this classplus 2000+ more >

79.7K Students

99% Recommend this Class

00 Student Work

0 Video lessons in HD
00h 00m of class content
Exclusive bonus content
Lifetime access, anywhere, anytime
Streaming access on desktop and mobile browsers
Download and offline access with class purchase
Offline sync with our iPhone & iPad apps
100% satisfaction guarantee

Tamara Lackey

Tamara Lackey is a renowned portrait photographer and Nikon USA Ambassador whose photography has appeared in a multitude of media outlets, including O Magazine, Men’s Journal, Good Morning America and on The Today Show. She speaks regularly at quite a range of programs, seminars and conventions, from delivering presentations on the Google stage to leading private workshops around the globe.

SEE INSTRUCTOR'S CLASSES

topics covered in this class

Family & Lifestyle Portrait Photography Lighting Digital Photography

Ratings and Reviews

a Creativelive Student

Thank yo Tamara Lackey and Creative Live for such an amazing course. Every tool that is needed to maintain a successful business is in this course. Tamara's appreciation for love and family are so apparent in her style of interaction with people and methods of photographing them. In this class she shares everything from the basics of connecting with your clients to the importance of in person sales sessions and how to do them without being uncomfortable. I love Tamara's energy and sense of humor. She really emphasizes how important it is to be self confident and love what you do. This class is amazing. I can barely sit still through a movie these days, but I was entranced through 3 consecutive days of highly valuable information. I am thankful to have this class in my CL library. I am sure I will refer to it often.

Abbeylynne

Thank you! Thank you for bringing Tamara back to Creative Live! She is one of my favorite teachers! She has a bubbly effervescence as she teaches. I like her teaching style and never tire of her message in photography. Tamara has a way of working with her models/ clients that makes you want to just jump through the screen to participate in the process! Her portrait stories share her zest for life. She has great business ideas as well as for life and family. A truly balanced instructor for the beginning photog as well as a seasoned professional. Refreshing concepts about how to deal with challenging situations with lighting, posing, and interaction with her families. It's hard to pick a favorite section - the entire class was just great! A wonderful resource for your library to refer back to time and again. Keep up the great work Tamara. You inspire me to get out and shoot!

user-6a96fc

What can I say- it's Tamara Lackey, so of course it was AMAZING! I learned so much, about relationships, self awareness, lighting, portraiture, posing, gear, marketing, products, I could just go on and on. Tamara has an incredible ability to truly connect with her clients (and her students)- and she taught us how to do it! I admire Tamara on so many levels and I appreciate how much of herself and her own business practices she was willing to share. Her new organization Beautiful Together is inspiring. I will be watching this course over and over. Thank you Tamara Lackey and thank you CreativeLive.

2,000+ classes ranging from fundamentals to advanced techniques.

Image Review of Family Photos

Image Review of Family Photos

Lesson Info

17. Image Review of Family Photos

Lessons

Simple Posing: Young Girl

Simple Posing:Young Boy

Group Posing: Two Girls

Backlit Shots: One Girl

Shooting in the Shade

Using the Rule of Thirds

Review of Selected Images

Working with Self Consciousness

Training to Photograph Authentically

Talking Through Self Consciousness with Subject

ProFoto Strobes: 2 Light Sources with Pre-Teen Model

Stylize and Prep for a Shoot

Simple Family Poses

Use Props and Backdrops During Family Posing

Family of 5 Indoor Couch Scene

Natural Light and Strobes