Studio Alegria Blog

Kids and photography Erion’s story

Kids present a unique photographic challenge in the studio

Put yourself in the place of a 2 year old for a moment. You are led into this empty, kinda dark room with 4 or 5 bright lights shining down at you. You are stuck on a chair and your mommy walks away. Some guy that you have never seen in life starts making corny noises and tells you to “smile big for the camera” . The normal reaction of the 2 year old is sheer terror unleashed at whoever comes near.

Now, unless you are Jill Greenberg that is not exactly the look that mommy wants.

And frankly a lot of the mall studios reinforce this in the child’s head so whenever they see a studio setting those bad memories come back and you can’t really make great portraits unless your photographer is willing to take their game to another level.

Erion came into the studio with her mom. Mom said that she went to one of the mall studios (no names mentioned here Jacques) and Erion came un-glued. They were not able to get any usable portraits.

When she was brought into the camera room she looked around for a second and sure enough the hysterics began . The young lady was inconsolable.

So what is a photographer to do?

I shut down the lights (turned off the modeling lights that we use to set up the portraits, but left on the flash) and turned on the over head lights and plunked down on the floor with her (with the camera at a arms length away) .

She settled down a bit almost as soon at the modeling lights went off. I found a little green ball and rolled it to her … and she rolled it back … We got something happening here ! We played with the ball for more than 10 minutes before I reached behind me and grabbed the Nikon and popped off a shot.

The first flash kinda caught her by surprise … but after that it was off to the races !

She started to really get in to the photo sessions and we have had the opportunity to photograph her and her family several times since.

For her holiday portrait she not only was really into the session but would stop every few shots and run over to look at her pictures on the studio monitor.

We also did an awesome family photography setting a couple of weeks after that.

The bottom line is that a professional photographer really knows how to work with your child to create unforgettable portraits.