Few weeks back Atharva was here in Noida and met him after a long time. Travelling Camera was again with me at that moment and somehow I convinced him to allow me clicking some photographs. Here are some of them...
Initially he was not very comfortable in front of Camera, so he was trying to hide himself behind bed or anything else, which could allow him to peep and see if I am still there or not.
Boy has a style and this photograph shows that...
This photograph was clicked when he had go out of the room to see cars running on the road and I was standing just in front of the door. Now he had no option and had to smile for me :)
Kids are continuously on the move, so a photographer gets a great opportunity to click various actions and movements, and proper space around the place is important. At times, it helps if you are not directly visible to kids. Various kid activities like playing in the ground, swimming, talking to friends, doing some naughty stuff with some articles at home can be captured very well.
Atharav inspecting the papaya that is being given to him in breakfast. Kids feel extremely safe with their Mom and now he is not much worried about the Travelling Camera roaming around him.
While shooting kids, one needs to make sure that setting are appropriately changed with change in position of Kids. Here he has gone to the other room with less light and I forgot to adjust the settings. There is clear difference between this photograph and others shown in this PHOTO JOURNEY.
This is again in bad lighting which needs more accurate setting on camera. Here is posing for a change and happy that I am clicking his photographs. Children start cooperating if we put best efforts in making them comfortable and don't restrict them for something.
Since it's not possible to restrict kids from their regular movement, one needs to enure that expressions are well captured. At times, we may have to bump up the ISO to an extent that we don't get prominent noise in the photographs and avoid the motion blur.
Most of the parents use Auto settings in Digital cameras while shooting photographs of their children, so it's recommended to use Sports setting in the camera.
Most of the parents like to click photographs of their kids and at times photographs with blurred background are preferred. There are basic things, which can be done while clicking such photographs. If Camera allows to adjust Aperture, just reduce the f value to minimum. If there is enough space - E.g. while kids are playing, panning can be tried. In panning camera needs to be moved with the movement of kid and click during this movement. This will capture a photograph of child in focus and motion blur in the background.
Since size is small, at times we need to bend down to reach their level to click the photographs with right perspective and avoiding any unnecessary distortions. Although various angles can be tried but it's safest to click at same level and probably keep some distance, if possible. I wish I had 50mm on that day; the magical lens for portrait :)
It's inappropriate if we stress upon the smile. It's not important to have kids smile. At times unnecessary requests to smile may spoil the while mood. Kids are intelligent enough to know when to smile and when to show the attitude in their photographs :) ... This photograph is clicked just after he ate a piece of papaya and enjoying the taste of chat-masala applied on it.
Atharva giving his approval about the breakfast and talking to his dad who is standing near the bed. I was sitting at his level to click this photograph and Photograph is very well expressing that some happy conversation is going on here...
It’s a great fun to freeze moments when kids become totally engrossed whilst playing with their toys or modern games on laptops. Close-ups of their expression are dramatic, which I failed to capture that day.
Overall he is techie guy, who is always moving around the places in house or outside and most of the kids are like him only. So it was great learning that one can't even think of clicking photograph with some props around them, because there is guarantee that they will have time for you setup the environment.
With this, an informal Photo-shoot happened for few minutes and he was ready to fly for Shimla !!! See you soon...
.jpg)