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Lesson Info

Family Shoot Q&A

Lori peanut asks, what would laurie have done if the little guy had had a complete meltdown about the gum? Would you put the camera down and try to try to talk with him? And then again, lulu, to says, what do you do if the kids are completely out of control and weighs up? Quiza says, when you take the toy like that, what if he had a tantrum? Um, and that that can happen if he has a tantrum, I'm just going to let him hold it, but typically, if I'm playing with the same toy, I can get him toe, you know, I do that a lot with the toy on top of my camera, so whether it's a bearer ball or whatever it is, I'm just going to get it and put it right up there, and a lot of times they'll come with little guys or, you know, dinosaur, like we talked about yesterday, whatever in we can find a place, I'll even get them a special chair if I need thio, if there, if it's really something that we're having a hard time, we'll find a special place for them that so they can watch him get his pictures taken s...

o he was he was pretty easy to let go of it, but but, you know, just work with them and if it's something that's special to them make it be a part of the session and what everywhere you can and if it's not something that's appropriate to be in the image then just make it a part of it so that that whatever it is is watching or, um helping me or you know, we'll we'll give it a name or, you know, whatever works great um carrie from new york and jose would like to know why I use a silver reflector instead of a white reflector you know, people ask me that all the time and I don't know I like that it is a lot of phil and but I like that and I just for my style even what you're seeing on the screen is more contrast e than I'm going to end up most of my images, you know, the super technical photographer, the guy you know they're going to call my image is flat, but to me that's that is actually what I'm going for because that's, what mom wants mom wants doesn't want a super high contrast e image of her child we can get more into that when we're photographing seniors or, you know, different subjects, but I really like kind of a more just flat, even lighting and so that provides a really nice phil for the light and another uh another little question about how you shoot em must ask oh says do you have your camera set in io servo when you're photographing the kids moving around I don't know what I had it set in today john I don't normally but it is okay it is I actually don't normally I'm usually just someone shot because it really locks focus a lot better when you're on one one shot so um that's what I take typically m cool we have already has a question do you uh do you shoot tethered all the time or you no we're just doing that today for creative life and so do you ever stop and say because I find a lot of kids if I'm shooting I want to see because everybody's so used to looking at you know do you ever let him bring him around and oh hey look, I don't I do with high school seniors I do with if I'm just photographing a single you know, a person or even a couple I thought I show them a lot but with kids you show them once and they want you show him every single time and so and that's something that I learned a long time ago when it you know you think it's a fun thing to show him the back of the camera and then every picture they're running back and forth so I mean yesterday you saw me do it but if they asked me to see it, I'll I'll push it so it goes away and I'll tell him it's broken I'm sorry, it's, you know it's not there and and you can do that as well by just making the time that the images on your camera a lot shorter and that works as well. So you know what? Whatever it takes to not take their attention away from exactly what's happening on this is a question that I'm uh sure a lot of northwesterners have since you said that you would usually try to shoot outside no matter the weather, how do you protect your your equipment in inclement weather? You know, the equipment now is so tough and durable, especially if I'm using it my camera that I had right before this one and this one in the starting aware on the edges, but it was like silver all the way around the edges because of dropping it and rubbing it against, you know, I mean, it's just it was about in fact, a friend of mine j b silly would look at my camera he's like man, if you just did a little bit more that this could be like a product, you've got like a silver camera, but it was just so beat up and I have, you know, lenses that are dented and beat I mean just be up our lenses are equipment nowadays is durable and so even when I'm shooting in the rain, I don't I don't really even try to protect it I'll bring it back and separated all and let it kind of dry out but I'm not really that worried about it snow you've gotta let it I'll even go and sit my camera in the car before I go out if I'm newness no session and just let it get used to the weather because if you're taken it from hot to cold a hot coal, you're going to get foggy um so just let it get used to the climate hand you should be good to go. All right, one more, one more question before you move back over to the living room is do you do always crop in camera? I I should pretty tight, so I'm typically cropping in camera here. Obviously well, I'm out of my element and we've got a few things to consider, but, um, you know, even coming in and looking at the image of daddy and egg xavier, I love that we don't even really see eggs I've your face, but dad's that look on his face is just so precious and he's gonna love that, so you know those types of images I am getting really close on um when it's a fuller length one like the family images and even the one of both of the kids full length I'm giving it a little bit more space so that I can crop but you know, so I guess yes and no way have been talking about the event system and then this has this was the host mom and so this shoot that we just did was separate from the event itself it wass and that is not typical, but we ended up for these purposes we kind of wanted to do a little bonus family session so that we had a good variety of what we're shooting and a family session in the studio is going to be different usually this would all happen and then I would have them take a little break, go change clothes, get snacks, whatever and then we'd start all over and but the only reason I do that is because we're looking to decorate different areas of the home and I don't want them, you know, I can't sell a large wall grouping in the same outfit for another room, and so I want to talk to mom about that before she comes and lisa did send me three different wall images that we showed yesterday I created three different groupings for her, so if this was a a real live studio session with then we would um do this whole thing again and I'm gonna photograph kids alone kids together kids with mom dad, mom, dad alone um a lot of times I'll go ahead and photograph dad with kids mom with kids and mom with kids was the only thing we didn't get and I should have done that but because that helps complete a grouping a lot of times you know, if I'm hanging something even if I have pre sold something that's three images in a grouping then they see the images that go with that and we've taken the different out takes of all those different situations they have to complete that grouping with just you know, just the kids just mama dad just you know um so we can sell more that way by just making sure we photographed every single configuration we can think of and it helps break up the session a little bit too I think you know keeps the kids interested when you know okay it's just gonna be finley you know, come help me eggs a viewer and let's do this and even letting mom and dad stay where they are and letting the kids run back and forth a little bit tio break it up um just kind of helps the flow of the session what? How many do you do like this at people's homes vs at studio? Our family sessions are almost all at the studio I probably do about ten to fifteen percent of my family sessions at in people's homes okay here and last questions is when it is the event and you're at the host mom's home are you do you ever do that family shoot no that's complete notes yep this could really separate it's due to photograph the host mom's kids that day okay typically I'm asking the mom teo either have her kids photograph first or last I really and I'm not to say that I don't like it but I don't like having the kids they're all day because it's very distracting when their friends come they want to stay and play and you know, hang out with friends and instead of coming out to be photographed and so all I ask her you know let's get him photographed in the beginning and then they go to grandma's house so they'll go toe you know they care whatever that they're older kids that's different because they could even help during the day and I like to have a teenage girl that's there and so I'll either hire somebody or oss mama she has somebody a lot of our moms have somebody that's there almost all the time so it's just somebody that can be in that playroom with the kids as they come in and out after the sales appointment they're in their awesome thank you any other questions from you guys before we get rolling do you ever someone you're doing family, sitting there watching everything and I was we couldn't see it because the kids were kind of reflective, which is ok, but I was watching the parents and I got quite a few pictures of the parents do you ever have somebody else shooting? Because some of the expressions I grabbed of the parents were priceless, you know, the mom sticking her tongue out so it's forever an instance where you might do that, you know, I don't do that and I don't shoot with an assistant, but but it's a great idea, you know, we're doing a lot of fusion these days, and so those air great things teo put into your fusion videos, and I'm actually about to show you one of those. I told you guys on the first day that I did a special session for a client who saw something on pinterest and wanted me to do something for her that was stepping out of my black and white box and, you know, and so we did and I'm gonna show you, but you'll also see the fusion that we do, and we do fusion with a lot of the sessions we've been doing video with our senior sessions for probably, I would say three four years now and just in the last year have started incorporating it into other sessions including children and birthdays and, um, you know, different things and it's, just those little snippets of things that happened to the session that just brings so much emotion back. Um, you know, during the order appointment and during the when they see it again and again, it just is keeps time, everything back together. So that would be great for that. The difference between the moms and the dad was quite a bit different. Mama's very like, hey, on dad was like, though this conflict that's awesome. Yeah, and that those things are actually great toe. You know, you're observing that and use that when they come back for the order appointment, talk to them about what you saw on how, you know dad loves those crazy moments of them being chaotic and and he's gonna love seeing it on the wall. You know, um so so those air tools that you can use just by observing how parents react and how they are with the kids.