July, 2009
digital portrait lighting © Tim Pannell Photography
Where do you start when you want to help people take better photographs of their children?
I remember when I started out taking pictures when I was in High School I knew absolutely nothing. I was a blank slate. I had nothing.
I had friends that had been taking pictures for years, so I relied heavily on them to show me the ropes. Them and whatever crappy photo books I could get my hands on at the time.
I learned your basics about exposure, f stops, shutter speeds, lens choices and that was about it.
I shot scenics and some pictures (lousy ones) of my girlfriend at the time. When I look back I’m completely embarrassed at how bad my stuff
Portrait Lighting Setup
was at the time.
My lens choices were crap, my angles were all wrong and even my exposures could have been tidied up a bit.
I didn’t know anything about cropping, but mostly I didn’t know a thing about light or the quality of light.
I didn’t realize at the time just how important great light is to an image. That’s really what separates the men from the boys. LIGHT!
My friends did the best they could. they taught me everything they knew. They got their info from other friends and other crappy photo books that were available.
I’m gonna skip ahead a few years. Suffice it to say that I really enjoyed photography, but had yet to be exposed to anything that really helped me a lot.
I decided to turn pro when I was in college for Design Engineering and Economics. I was going to go on and get an Architect’s license after that.
I had about a year left and made a huge change in direction when I decided out of the blue that I really just wanted to be a photographer.
I started out shooting weddings and engagement portraits. It was fun for about a week or two and then it started getting really repetitive and boring.
I began pouring through commercial photography books, Communication Arts, Photography Showcase and the Black Book of Photography.
I would spend weeks and even months going over the images in those books one by one, identifying all the images I liked and then trying to understand what it was I liked about them.
This is when I really started to learn about the importance of great light. I would then pick an image that I loved and then I’d go out and do my best to reproduce that image.
This wasn’t for my portfolio, it was just an exercise to learn about lighting. I set about to learn what kind of photography moved me so consequently I would know what avenue of photography to pursue.
So, ask yourself, what kind of photographs have you seen that you really like? Have you actually seen great photography of kids?
Do you like images that look like classic portraiture or do you like images that have more of an editorial feel? Do you prefer images that lean a bit more towards a commercial look?
Maybe you like a little bit of everything and that’s fine too. The more you play with photography, the more you’ll come to recognize your particular vision and way of seeing things. This is the fun part!!
As you learn how to apply different photographic principles to your images, you’ll be able to see photographs and figure out how to go about producing those types of images. That’s at least the ultimate goal.
Seek out great photography, learn all of the child photography tips you can get your hands on, get yourself a target to aim at and let the adventure and fun begin.
First Steps? © Tim Pannell Photography
My wife and I have 5 kids and I can distinctly remember where we were when each of those 5 kids took their first steps. It’s an amazing event and one that is always fun to capture in a photograph.
So, to begin with……..how do you pull off this magical feet of capturing those first steps with your camera? Can it even be done? It’s kind of like guessing the actual time of the baby’s birth. Who knows when or where it will happen. What do you do if it doesn’t happen?
Initially it’s important to scout out a convenient location in your house or yard that will be ideal for the baby to actually walk, but also where the light will be co-operative. If you know how to use strobes effectively it will greatly increase your options for a suitable location.
To be honest, you’re most likely not going to be able to capture the “actual” first steps, but if you’ve done your homework ahead of time you can get that picture within a fairly tight window of the real event.
This shot was done for my friend and his wife in their little bungalow in South Florida. I threw up a light and shot through a white sheet with my lens set wide open at f 2 and 1/125th of a second.
You’ll notice it’s not a “baby’s first steps” shot. That’s what we wanted, that’s what we were going for, but the baby didn’t give a rat’s behind what we wanted and insisted on crawling. I think it was another week before he actually walked on his own, but I was back home in AZ by then.
So that’s the twist with this shot……crawling. I could have been so insistent on getting the baby walking that I missed out on what he actually did.
As I preach quite often about taking what the subject will give you, I followed my own advice and let the little man give me a great crawling shot.
As is typical for me with kids, I was lying on the ground when I shot this. It makes all the difference in the world to the final image. I love the joy on the little guy’s face, it’s priceless!
© Tim Pannell Photography
Having trouble taking good pictures of your incredible children? Do your kids look like they’re just showing you their teeth instead of smiling? Are you trying too hard and getting no real results to show for it? Do you need help?
Chances are you’re not as far off as you might think. For some of you though, the previous statement doesn’t apply. Some of you might actually be taking absolutely horrible pictures. Don’t despair, there is always hope, especially in this day and age.
The first question you need to ask yourself is what type of images do you want of your son or daughter. Are you looking for images that document the way they look or do you want images that express who they are as people. Your answer to that question will dictate the approach you should take.
If you are looking to just document what your kids look like then I would suggest trying out a different website, maybe www.HowToShootMugShotsForPrisons.com. Photography has so much more potential than just showing what little Johnny looked like when he was 4 years, 3 months, 2 weeks and 5 days old.
The greatest invention in the photographic world has to be the digital camera. There are plenty of close second place finishers, but the digital camera absolutely rules! I used to spend up to $10,000.00 a month on film and processing with my commercial photography business on a fairly routine basis.
Think of the money you’re saving by shooting with a digital camera, I don’t care how expensive it is. You can shoot til your fingers bleed without going broke on film costs. That means that it doesn’t cost you anything to play with your camera. You can experiment to your heart’s content. What a great deal this is!!
There are many rules of photography and it’s important to know and understand them, if only to know when it’s appropriate to break them. Never say never and never say always when it comes to photography. I will give you some beginning photography tips in future posts of what I think is needed to make a great photograph, but they’re just guidelines, not hard and fast rules.
As you explore photography while shooting your children you will eventually start recognizing what you like and what you don’t like. You will begin creating your own unique vision and way of seeing things photographically. It’s a great adventure and one I’m sure you will enjoy.
© Tim Pannell Photography
Don’t get caught up in “directing” her and just experience her. Give her something to do, no matter how simple it might seem and see what she gives you. Some of my favorite images of all time, are those happy little accidents where a kid will just do his thing and be completely oblivious to me and I get an amazing timeless image out of it.
A word of caution: don’t force it. It’s difficult for control freaks to let a 3 year old be in charge, but trust me, they are. You can nudge and prod , but when push comes to shove if your little angel doesn’t want to take pictures, you’re not going to take pictures.
I have shot countless images for countless clients with tons of children and have always come away with great shots without throwing a tantrum or spazzing out on the set. For some reason though, I can’t say the same thing about shooting my own children. Truth be told, I get way too attached to getting a great shot with my own kids and I have at times forgotten all of the techniques I use as a professional to “convince” kids that they want to have their picture taken.
Several years ago we “tried” to shoot our family portrait and my assistant of 10 plus years came along to help. He had never seen me “lose it” ever, always calm, always cool, no ruffles, no worries. That wasn’t what he saw that day. I was a wreck. It was entirely because it was my family and I wanted perfection and complete co-operation. We got nothing that day…….all my fault. My assistant even asked, “Who the hell are you, and what have you done with my friend?”
For some reason, I have unrealistic expectations when I shoot my own kids, but am the most patient person in the world when I shoot someone else’s children. The lesson is not to ruin the whole experience. You want to be able to shoot with your child on a routine basis so make sure that they don’t perceive any pressure when you do shoot with them.
You want them to have a great time so they actually look forward to doing it again. Make it fun, make it easy, make it a blast and you’ll be rewarded with amazing pictures that capture your child’s essence, whether they’re little or big.
© Tim Pannell Photography
One of my most obvious child photography tips is to get on their level, not yours. So, for starters, the next time you shoot your kid, try getting “down and dirty.” Get on the floor and roll around a little bit at their level and see how differently things appear to you from down there.
Your first assignment is to just try it. Keep the lighting setup simple and easy. Find a nice window to shoot next to and focus on letting the child do what they want to and see if you can capture their experience. Stay calm, stay focused and for heaven’s sake don’t throw a tantrum yourself.
Have a great shoot!
Soccer Champs © Tim Pannell Photography
Where I live, there has to be a couple of billion kids playing soccer every Saturday. I’ve coached my kids teams for about 9 or ten years total. Most of the trophy shots you see are the kids all lined up like the school classroom photos from the 70′s.
I wanted to do it a bit different so I piled all the kids in the minivan and shot away. Sometimes kids have a hard time smiling without looking like they’re being electrocuted. But, they all love to yell and scream at that age so shove them in and get ‘em to yell their heads off.
You’ll get a lot of real emotion as the kids try to one up each other. Eventually you will have had enough and you’ll be begging them to stop. But, by then you will have taken a great picture so it’ll be worth it.
The light will spill in through the windows of the car giving you nice highlights and visual interest. I tilted the camera just slightly to keep the shot from looking to staged and static.
Chris © Tim Pannell Photography
Would you like to be able to shoot beautiful portraits of your kids instead of going to some schmaltzy cookie cutter photo joint in the mall? So many people settle for these kind of “one size fits all” portraits because they don’t think they can afford to go to a real portrait photographer’s studio.
Assuming you already have a decent digital SLR camera, you could buy some lighting equipment for the same price or less than you’d spend having a legitimate portrait photographer do the work for you.
There are quite a few common misconceptions about photography and equipment and the kind of lighting power someone might need to do simple portraits.
I do use pretty expensive lighting for all of my commercial work, but for simple portraits I have to dial my strobes to their absolute lowest output and many times that’s still too much light for my needs and I end up diffusing the light source another 1 – 2 stops.
This image of my friends’ son was shot in my living room 
using one main light and 2 accent lights or “kicker lights”.
You can produce this kind of lighting setup easily against a paper background, or even a wall in your home.
I shot it a f 2 @ 1/200th of a second with an 85 mm f1.4 lens on a Canon Mark II body. I exposed for the diffused highlights on Chris’ face and then adjusted my “kicker lights” until I got the highlights the way I wanted them.
I frequently shoot wide open or close to it because I like the ethereal quality it gives the overall image. It’s a great illustration of the concept that not everything in an image has to be or should necessarily be tack sharp.
This is very similar to how the human eye works as well. Not everything you look at is sharp. A relatively small area in your field of vision is actually sharp and then everything else falls off rather quickly into being out of focus.
There are quite a few inexpensive lighting setups out on the market that have more than enough power to produce images like this. Do your research before you buy any of them, make sure they have good warrantees and that the company has been around more than a couple of months.
The great thing about digital is that once you have the camera and lenses, it costs you nothing to shoot and experiment. With film you could spend thousands and thousands of dollars playing around with lighting setups until you found something that you really liked.
The creative possibilities that we now have at our fingertips because of digital cameras and photoshop are endless. One word of caution though……don’t use photoshop as a crutch.
It’s still just as important today as it was decades ago to become a master at lighting and exposure control even though it’s easy to “fix” things in post.
Sky & Sammi © Tim Pannell Photography
I’m amazed at the number of my amateur photography friends that assume that a good shot is one where everything in the image is tack sharp.
There is a time and a place for just about any kind of photography, but most amateur photographers that practice the art of maximizing depth of field do nothing but create very cluttered images with no real subject to look at.
The beauty of using a shallow depth of field is that it enables you to direct your viewers attention right where you want it. In this image, you look immediately at the little boy’s eyes.
There are however, some drawbacks to this approach.
The main problem for most amateurs is knowing what to focus on. I will almost always focus on my primary subject’s eyes. When the eyes in an image are tack sharp the rest of the image no matter how dramatic the focal fall off is will look just fine.
This is an image I shot 12 years ago of my 4 year old son at the time and our dalmation – Sammi. I had been looking at some old photo books by the likes of Stieglitz and Steichen and wanted to play around with the softness evident in so many of their images.
I picked up a Fuji GX-680 camera, which is an absolute pig of a camera, but I love the images it can capture. You have all the capabilities of a view camera with the conveniences of a medium format camera.
It is cumbersome to say the least for me to use, since I detest shooting with a tripod and will avoid it at any and almost all costs.
For this shot I just wanted to capture my son’s love for his dog and the fun he used to have hopping in the tub with her whenever she got bathed. My son is now 16 and I wish he still possessed that same enthusiasm for dog washing.
I shot this with only available light and a little lite disc reflector to add a catchlight in his eyes. I set it up on our back patio under the awning. I wanted it to be super soft light with just a little bit of direction to it.
It’s still one of my favorite shots of my son. He was a sweet little kid, very loving and tender hearted. I’m sure if he read this now, he’d gag, but that’s how he was. He’s still the same today as he was then, he just tries harder to hide that aspect of his personality. You know 16 year old boys……….it’s more important to be “cool”.
I also like the “old school” quality that can be achieved when shooting wide open as well. If you apply this technique to black & white or toned images it takes on a kind of timeless feel.
I shoot the great majority of my lifestyle images at f 2. It gives me an extremely soft background and the ability to shoot through objects and render them completely out of focus that ads overall depth to most of my shots that I find really appealing.
Like everything else in photography, it’s all subjective, there is truly no right or wrong way to approach any subject. We learn by doing, so go out and play around with shallow depths of field in your images and find out what works for you.
That’s the key to developing your own style and unique way of seeing things.
Don't just stand there! © Tim Pannell Photography
Hi, my name is Tim Pannell and I’ve been a commercial photographer for over 24 years. Sounds almost like some kind of 12 step program. I guess for many, photography can be kind of addictive.
It’s hard to believe it’s been that long. I started out shooting weddings and engagement pictures for just under 2 years. I grew bored of the entire wedding routine and moved our family down to Arizona in 1987 where I got a job as a photo assistant.
I worked for a great guy named Paul Markow. He shot “commercial photography”. Basically, he did a little bit of everything…..architecture, cars, headshots, business portraits, fashion, big productions, little productions, some celebrities. It was a lot of fun and it introduced me to a
whole new world of photography that I’d never experienced before. I enjoyed all of it since it was completely new and fresh at the time.
I learned about all the different ways I could control light, modify it and shape it. I loved the challenges associated with lighting. I loved learning how differently a scene could look just by the way the light hit it. I could alter the mood from bright and cheery, to somber, warm and cozy just by the types of lights I used and how I chose to place them.
By 1990 I was ready to move out on my own and pursue my own career. I was very interested in sports photography for advertising. I didn’t want to cover games or anything like that, I just wanted to create game type situations where I had control of the lighting.
I got a New York rep that got me some higher profile national work and I was off to the races. I shot for Reebok, and Champion Sportswear, McDonalds, Coca-Cola, AT&T, Adidas, Gatorade and whole bunch of other clients. I worked with some of the greatest athletes on tthe planet……….Michael Jordan, Charles Barkley, Larry Bird, Phil Mickelson just to name a few.
It was a blast! I also started to shoot stock photography in 1992 with an agency in Miami called Sharpshooters. They became my second family, Susie Turnau and Edie Tobias were instrumental in completely changing my career and my focus. There are no words that exist that could express how grateful I am to them for taking me under their wings and guiding me. I’ve lost touch with Susie, but I still get to see Edie from time to time. That relationship changed my entire life. I loved shooting stock images. It was so nice to shoot what I wanted, when I wanted and with whom I wanted.
As time went by, I started to drift more and more away from sports and towards lifestyle photography. I love interacting with people. It was the perfect path for me. I’d shoot seniors, baby boomers, babies, toddlers, families, gen X’ers, you name it.
Sharpshooters was eventually bought out by Corbis and my career shifted gears again. I was able to work with several of the best art directors in the world in locations throughout the world. We’ve shot in Africa, Paris, Barcelona, Costa Rica, Vancouver, Whistler, Norway, London, Denmark, Prague, Greece, Buenos Aires and all over the states as well.
I’ve had to learn not only how to light a wide variety of situations in a wide variety of locations, but how to do it quickly and as simply as possible. In the commercial assignment world, I’ll shoot a handful, 3-4 images a day at most. We spend a lot of time making sure the lights are just right and angles are perfect and exactly where the models will be.
With stock, the goal is to get 50 + pictures in a given day, so I have to be able to light quickly, but still do it well. It’s a great challenge and there are many times of great frustration, trying to find the right balance between the short amount of time I have and the quality of light I want.
Fortunately, I always have an amazing crew of talented assistants, production co-ordinators, make up artists and stylists that juggle an amazing workload to help make everything go unbelievably smooth. When we’re on the road it’s like we’re one big crazy family. It’s a lot of work, but it’s so much fun, you wouldn’t believe it. The images we create always turn out great in spite of whatever hardships or setbacks we encounter from our wide variety of locations and talent we happen to be working with.
I love photography, I love the emotion it can convey and the camaraderie that exists within the crew while we create all these cool images. It’s a wonderful career and a wonderful medium to enjoy.
This blog however, isn’t written for people “in the biz.” It’s written for moms that want to be able to take better images of their kids. It’s written for people who aren’t happy with the quality they get when they take photos of little Jeffrey or Christina.
Maybe they mistakenly thought that if they bought a nice new expensive digital camera they’d instantly get better shots, only to be disappointed when they’re new pictures looked exactly the same as their old pictures, but with higher resolution.
I can’t count the number of times I’ve had people say to me….”Gee, I bet it’s nice having that expensive camera, I know my photographs would look really great too, if I could afford a camera and lenses like yours.” Hey…..thanks for the compliment pal!
What most people don’t realize is that it’s not the camera that makes a great picture, it’s the eye behind the camera and the choices that eye makes with composition, lens choice, f-stop choice and lighting choices.
This blog will be about how you can make better choices so that your photos have life in them. There are tricks and techniques that I know will help you get better looking pictures instantly if you learn to understand them and apply them. I hope the information I share is helpful to you and that you enjoy the act of creating a great photograph of your child as much as i enjoy that process.
I welcome any questions you might have, or feedback you want to give. Photography is a fun ride as it is. You’ll have even more fun once you get good at it. Enjoy the ride!
