Thanks for getting back to me Phillip. Spontaneity and deliberate posing don't go well together. Keeping kids where you need them is a dark and arcane art... the whole bit includes making lots of noise, playing games, pulling funny faces, chocolate by the ton and finally super glue. :)
Seriously though, if they wont sit how you need them, my method is to forget the pictures and play with them for 20 minutes. This usually works and can produce some surprisingly good results.
I wonder if a small backlight hidden behind your subject would have rimlit the head. This is easier in my view than training a snoot from a traditional position onto a child who wants to move a lot. FWIW, I recently was talking to a friend who invented a light that would follow a surgeon's hand in the operating room. Now if only this could be adapted for photographing kids. :)
Jeff, thanks for the notes. I had a gold reflector about a foot away from his left, camera right to fill. Maybe I should have used the silver, or thrown another light into the mix. I actually had a snoot on his head, but had difficulty getting it where it needed to be, while trying to keep him interested and still.
The 5 year old was in good spirits, but wanted to move around quite a bit. I wish I had a bit more seperation on him. The hand thing was just the angle and his closed hand. Very little hands :)
The stunning thumbnail drew me to your picture, Phillip. I thought this was a great idea for a portrait. Brandon looks really pleased to have his photo taken. The prop gives the viewer an insight into his personality and was well seen. The background was an excellent choice for isolating the subject.
I have found black to be an unforgiving colour when I don't allow the lighting to cover all of the bases. I am sure the print holds more shadow detail than can be seen easily here. Was the strongly directional key light the only source in this shot? I believe that either a rimlight or a reflector would have outlined the head or lifted the highlight areas (respectively) on Brandon's left side. Perhaps a soft fill on the face would have helped as well.
The shadow under his left ear looks quite unnatural. Before I sheath my sword I wondered what you thought about the pose. I think that I would have preferred to see Brandon looking directly at the camera (perhaps having thrown the baseball up and just caught it). Such an attractive and happy child deserves to be seen and 3/4 views can detract from the open portraits which I feel kids can often benefit from. One final observation on the pose is the left hand appears not to look normal. Does Brandon have a dysplastic hand or was this an unfortunate aspect of this particular pose?
The portrait is such a good idea and I would love to see it done with some of the suggestions I offered. (This should not be read as the only valid view is mine) but as your idea and execution could really knock my socks off with some attention to the details.
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