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D.I.Y. Professional Family Photos

on Wednesday, 03 April 2013. Posted in Family Life

Our expert photography tips will transform your family pictures from blah to wow.

D.I.Y. Professional Family Photos

As most of you will agree, rounding up the family once in a while to take some good snaps is an important practice for preserving memories down the line. You will thank yourself for capturing the good times and your child's youthfulness before it fades once they've grown up and flown the nest! 

 

So, whether you’re at a picnic in a country park, on the beach, a boat, or even just gathered around the dinner table for a family meal, when you do capture those happy moments you’ll want to make sure your family looks as good on camera as they do in real life.

 

Here are a few tips from our in-house photographer, and expert advice from Hong Kong School of Photography co-founder Malcolm Ainsworth (Malcolm’s advice is in italics and bold quotes).

 

 

Know Thy Camera

ATTENTION: read your camera’s manual, it will do wonders for your photos.

 

Take the time to try out various functions and experiment with different settings. You should be comfortable with your camera; know which settings work best in which situations, and be confident enough navigating its features to have it ready at a moment’s notice. 

 

Taking a few minutes to read through the instruction manual and trying what you read will help explain your camera’s focus and exposure features, and that is the biggest step you can take toward getting professional quality photos.

 

 

Get on Their Level

Squat, lie down, kneel—the extra effort will pay off in your pictures. Many parents remain standing to snap a photo of their child, but a picture is more engaging if taken at the subject’s level. To make a photo of your kid even more dynamic try a “bugs eye view,” a shot from below, making your young child seem larger than life. 

 

But don’t always get low. REMEMBER: variety is key (and sometimes breaking the rules is what it takes to get a great photo)!

 

“A lot of photographers say get down to kids’ level. Personally, I like shooting down on kids as their big eyes looking up at us is how we mostly see them.”

 

 

Do your best to fill the frame whenever possible. Headshot’s generally  have more identity than ¾ length shots, ¾ length shots generally have more personality than full body shots, full body shots look best when framed with a suitable background landscape, and every photo looks better when the elements of the composition fill the frame proportionally.

 

 

Squish ‘Em Together

When photographing large groups make them squish together. Then make them squish even closer together. Maybe even try a group hug (couldn’t hurt). This almost uncomfortable closeness seems to bring out a natural smile in people and the smile is contagious. It’s this kind of natural happiness that makes a good picture great. 

 

Another good way to make people smile is to direct them in interesting ways. ‘Everyone jump on the count of three,’ and get a shot with the whole family in the air. 

 

If you need some fun inspiration check out these two sisters at play (you can tell the photographer is having just as much, if not more fun than the girls). Playful directions can turn a photograph into a playground and, besides producing great family photos, can be a lot of fun.

 

“Make a game out of it so that everyone becomes so engaged in what they’re doing they forget about the camera and you can capture some wonderful, natural and candid moments. This could be anything from playing dress-up, to mum in the background pushing her daughter on a swing, to a pillow fight with a few feathers thrown in for fun. Be a kid yourself, be silly, be dramatic, and don’t get too hung up and don’t keep shouting ‘look at me, smile, say cheese!”

 

Shutter Speed

Kids are highly active little beings, and even young babies rarely sit still. When you’re taking photos in situations that aren’t candid or posed, or where you don’t have a countdown, or shout “cheese,” you’ll want to make sure your shutter speed is fast. 

 

A slow shutter speed means a longer exposure. For things that stay still a slow shutter speed isn’t a problem, but if anything moves, including if you move your camera while taking the photo, the resulting image will be blurry.

 

When taking photos of high octane kids you will generally want to maintain a fast shutter speed, but try different settings out to see how a slower shutter speed can add a little extra depth to your photos.  Some cameras will have a dial where you can select sports (action) or flower (macro/still). Generally you’ll want to use the setting with the little sportsman graphic. 

 

“Kids are always on the go, so I like to play around with slow shutter speeds to get a little motion blur which really accentuates the feeling of action and speed.”

 

Photo courtesy of Hong Kong School of Photography

 

Rule of Thirds

A good rule of thumb to follow is the rule of thirds. Imagine your lens is divided into an equal 3X3 grid. Try to line your subjects up with the intersection points of the grid’s lines. Look at the photo of the young girl on the red couch (below)  for a prime example of this rule. Notice where her eyes are in the composition versus where the fruit basket rests.

 

Also, try to make the background of your photo include 2/3 land, 1/3 sky (or 2/3 sky and 1/3 sea, or 1/3 carpet and 2/3 wall… I think you get what I mean) to make a photo more visually appealing.

 

 

Light Source

Even amateurs know not to take a photo with the sun behind the subject, but you don’t want your family members squinting at the camera either, so it shouldn’t be directly behind the photographer. Find some middle ground or make a point to go out and take pictures just after dawn and before dusk. 

 

This is not a rule. You should experiment with different lighting techniques and angles, times and places.

 

“Early morning and evening light is really beautiful for landscapes, but for portraits, the low light casts harsh shadows on faces and the sun is either behind your subject causing problems for the photographer, or shining in the faces of your subject causing them to squint. Just after the sun has gone down the light is just gorgeous for portraits, but you have to work quickly as you don’t have much time until it is dark.”

 

Take Lots of Photos

Practise makes perfect and, with the amount of cheap memory cards/media storage available for cameras these days, you may as well take as many photos as humanly possible. The more photos you take the more natural you will be with your camera, and the easier it will be to line up a good looking shot. Plus, the more photos you have the more memories the family can share down the road.

 

Photo courtesy of Hong Kong School of Photography

 

Other Pointers:

  • If you really want a professional looking shot go ahead and coordinate everyone’s clothing colors/styles. It’s good to have a photo that looks like a Gap Ad in the family portfolio. 
  • Blur the background of your photo. It’s going to take some practice figuring out depth of field etc, but it gives a very professional feel to photos with a distant horizon, and a crisp, well-focused subject. 
  • Study the images you capture critically. How could you make each photo better? Also, review your camera’s manual occasionally. You’d be surprised how often you can learn something new with a little review. 
  • Make a studio backdrop at home with some sheets and clothespins. White sheets work well because they add to a room’s natural lighting. Get creative! Use the kids for manual labour and make a game out of a photo-shoot.  
  • Invest some time and money in photo editing software such as Photoshop Elements or Paint.net (the free alternative) and take a few online tutorials on touching up your photos. Pixer is an online alternative. Digital touch-ups and effects can bring another dimension to your photo quality. 

 

90% of my [digital] processing is done in Lightroom - general adjustments: tweaking exposure, contrast, vibrancy. It is designed for photographers but is useful even for amateurs because it’s all laid out logically and intuitive to use.”

 

  • Don’t bother forcing kids to smile. Buy a whoopee cushion. 
  • If you want to get your photos printed consult with a printing professional. Taking a USB key full of jpg files to your standard Kodak printer will not guarantee you high quality photos; you don’t want to pay for twenty pictures and get a bunch of fuzzy blow ups that no one wants to look at. 

 

Photo courtesy of Hong Kong School of Photography

 

Photography Workshop

The Hong Kong School of Photography offers a Compact Camera Workshop for four hours during weekdays. The workshop is aimed at beginning photographers with the most basic point and shoot cameras. The instructor is as comfortable with his compact cam as he is with his professional gear, and is well equipped to teach the ins and outs of point and shoot photography. The course includes a lot of hands-on practice to ensure you get the most out of each lesson. 

 

Instruction Covers:

  • Camera Settings
  • ISO, F/stops, and Shutter Speeds
  • Exposure Basics
  • Basic Do's and Don'ts in Picture Taking
  • Rules of Composition
 
 

About the HKSOP

The Hong Kong School of Photography was started by five members of the Hong Kong Photography Club: Howard, Chi, Mike, Anthony and Malcolm. They recognized that HK had plenty of Chinese-speaking photography clubs, but for non-Chinese speakers the options were limited. During Photography Club outings or photo critique evenings, they were always asked if they offered organized, structured photography courses. Their answer was no.

 

Before they ever offered courses of their own Club members would recommend interested individuals to some of HK’s better known instructors; the Photography Club aimed to remain a non-profit organization. But each of the five members soon realized HK’s good photography courses were usually booked solid months in advance. Opening the HKSOP seemed like the logical next step. 

 

“You could say we're still basically non-profit… as some of the course fees are just enough to cover the cost of renting a venue, hiring models, makeup artists, and renting costumes, etc. But unlike HKPC, where people do their own thing and ask fellow participants for pointers, HKSOP events are very structured, and we walk shutterbugs through what we are trying to get across: show them examples, hold their hands, adjust their camera settings, hit them on the head with a tripod (just kidding there!) until they grasp the concept. So at the end of any workshop that we hold, students gain a clear understanding, plus the knowledge, skills and confidence to put what they have learned into practice on their own." 

 

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