I AM BOY PRODUCT SHOOT
One thing that I don’t have a ton of experience in is portrait photography (remember my background is primarily in automotive photography). I have even less experience in children’s portrait photography! But this is a skill that I want to further develop, so when my wife, the owner of ImXYBoy.com, asked me if I would be willing to shoot photos of our son wearing her newest product line naturally I said yes (both because I am obligated to as her husband, hahaha and because I wanted the practice). We waited for a decently sunny day, walked down to a nice park by our house and went for it!
Funny enough, towards about the middle of the shoot he actually started really getting in to it and even started striking his own poses. Some of them were super silly and obviously not usable for my wife’s business but others, like this one were borderline professional. When my wife saw this photo she was saying that it almost looked like our son had done this before.
First lesson when shooting hyper toddlers is to bring lots of snacks aka candy to bribe them with, the second lesson, shoot really, really fast. I mean seriously fast or you will miss the shot or have blurry photos. I am not afraid to admit that yes I did plan the lighting, the framing and the exposure of these shots, but I would be lying if I didn’t also admit to the fact that there is a certain level of “spray and pray” when shooting pictures of a toddler.
One of the biggest issues in me being the “models” or “subjects” dad is that he kept wanting to run to me to see what I was doing, because of this I find it easier to shoot pictures of children that you don’t know as well but then again that provides a different set of challenges in hoping that the “models” parents can effectively get their child to cooperate. Overall my son was doing fairly well for his first ever official photoshoot.
Overall I thought the day was a success as we got some really good photos that helped out my wife and her business quite a bit and with minimal grumpiness from our toddler. I’d dare say that he even had some fun in the process. I know I sure did as it was great practice for me that thought me many valuable lessons for the next time I find myself in the situation. Till next time…
