© Tim Pannell Photography

Not everyone has a willing 2 year old subject at their disposal to use as an indentured “photo servant.”

My kids are all older now with my youngest being 12.

Older kids don’t always like to have their pictures taken, so how and when is the best time to photograph them?

By the way…..I’m sorry I haven’t posted in a while.  I’ve been both very sick and very busy.

I’ve been sick off and on for over 4 months….ever since we moved up here to Utah.

I finally went in to see a doctor and he determined I have allergies.  Who would have guessed?

I hadn’t had any allergy problems in Arizona in over 22 years.

I also had 2 photo assignments…..one that took me to LA 2 weeks ago and another that took me back to Arizona for all of last week.

I was shooting within 1/2 mile of our old home in Chandler and my daughter, who came along as my “digi-tech” assistant and I just wanted to hop over our old fence and go swimming one more time in our pool.

It would’ve been fun, but I decided to pretend to be mature…..so we didn’t.

© Tim Pannell Photography

OK, back to the subject…..I’m sure you’re not on here to hear me blather on about my personal junk.

Most teenagers, not all I realize, but most are involved in sports programs at some point during the school year and I’ve found that even the most uncooperative of my kids didn’t mind having their picture taken when performing.

My middle son really doesn’t care to have his picture taken….probably my fault for shooting him too much as a little guy.

He plays lacrosse and wanted me to shoot his team while they played in a tournament.

It was fun and a nice change of pace.  No posing, no giving directions, just covering what happens in the game.

© Tim Pannell Photography

There are other activities where you might be able to shoot your older kids and still be involved in directing.

Maybe you have a daughter or son in ballet.  There are lots of cool ways to shoot ballet.

If their instructor is amenable to it you might be able to shoot them at practice.

If your child has friends you can get a bunch of them involved as well and get shots that everybody’s excited about.

© Tim Pannell Photography

I shot all of these images in Orlando at a school for ballet.

The kids had a great time and were amazingly cooperative as well as incredibly talented.

As always….the name of the game is to have fun….it always shows in your final images if people had a good time or not.

Elle - Final © Tim Pannell Photography

I was setting up to take some “birthday party” pictures for a self assigned stock photo shoot.  It happened to be the day after Valentine’s Day and we had these balloons sitting around so I decided to do a little lighting test with “Baby Elle” my first victim that day.

She’s absolutely adorable and a great sport, especially when you consider how young she is.  Her mom is a really good photographer in her own right so Elle is used to “photographic abuse“.

I never show outtakes of images from a shoot, it’s almost like sharing how to do a magic trick, but since this is about instruction……here goes.

This image was taken under my covered patio.  It gave me some

Elle - 01 © Tim Pannell Photography

nice open shade and it also allowed me to lighten up the background considerably so that it wouldn’t compete with my subject.

My backyard, which is the background, was lit by direct sunlight so when I

opened up the lens to correctly expose my subject who was in open shade, it naturally overexposed the background until it became almost white.

Photo image – Elle-01 shows what the background looked like

shooting from my perspective instead of being at Elle’s height.  The background is way too busy for my taste as I prefer my backgrounds to be non competitive with my subject.

Photo image – Elle-02 shows what happens when I don’t change my perspective, but alter the crop.  I like the crop of this image better.  The strobes aren’t exactly firing the way I want in these

Elle - 02 © Tim Pannell Photography

first 2 images so the light is not quite what I like.

Elle-03 shows the image with the cropping I will use, but without any strobes firing.  You can also notice that I got a lot lower on the ground so that I minimized all the extra clutter from the backyard in the previous 2 images.  You can see reflections of the strobes and me in many of the mylar balloons.

Once I was ready to shoot I had the balloons turned to minimize the reflections as much as possible.  My expectation was that I would have to do a little photoshop work on the image to get rid of some of the unwanted reflections.

The final image shows how everything came together.  I shot this at f2.8 and 1/250th of a second.  I had a strobe left of camera shooting through a white sheet as well as a strobe right of the camera and behind Elle to give her a little highlight from that side.

The background is nice and soft, but with a  bit more interest than just a white seamless background.  I like the eyes looking up,

Elle - 03 © Tim Pannell Photography

but not too much.  And, as often is the case I went with an image that wasn’t just a big smiley face.  I find the “say cheese” images that are so prevalent very hard to look at for an extended period of time.

Beginning Photography Tips:

Tip #1 – Open up that f-stop, keep the background soft.

Tip #2 -  Shoot from your subject’s level, try not to shoot down on kids.

Tip #3 -  Use lighting to accentuate your images, make them interesting….nice shadows, nice highlights, some directional quality.

Tip #4 -  Don’t over-direct.  Try letting the child do her own thing.

Tip #5 – K.I.S.S. – Keep It Simple Stupid – One of my art director’s favorite lines.

In any case, Elle’s her typical adorable self….she’s a teency little superstar!

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.

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.

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!