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Family Portrait Photography: Professional Techniques and Images
Aiming to motivate potential clients to come in for family portrait sessions, this guide reveals important steps for taking the best possible family pictures. Arranging locations, helping select appropriate clothing, and getting to know the names of the clients and the ages of their children are all discussed. More than 100 photographs illustrate various lighting, posing, prop, and location options. A section on client presentation details options such as contact sheets, paper previews, slide proofs, video, and digital projection.
- GenresPhotography
120 pages, Paperback
First published October 1, 1998
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Displaying 1 of 1 review
August 24, 2013
This book is for professional photographers. As such, it gives advice on such things as:
- a short history of family portraiture (now that people don't have to sit still for long exposures)
- drumming up business
- preparing the subjects for the session (especially matching or at least coordinated clothing)
- people skills (assertiveness, the photographer is in charge, parents - let me deal with the children)
- various styles of various professional photographers (nearly all of this book is about casual settings)
- what goes in the camera bag (some of this material is rather dated, but the principles are still sound - this book is not where you go for equipment recommendations)
- There is even a little bit about studio posing & lighting (but by and large this book is about shooting families outdoors in environments that they like to be in)
- And, of course, photographing in the clients home - so they can have memories of what it was like (which seems a little strange to state it that way since the photographer rearranges the furniture)
- Finally, the most important part, presenting the final result to the client
Basically for those of us who are not professional photographers this is a picture book, and I enjoyed looking at the pictures as well as reading the commentary. For succinct, good solid information, I got a lot of my education from the Kodak booklets. Since they are decades old, they might be hard to find, but I really like them because they tell what you need to know, illustrate it, and very little fluff. This book assumes that you already have the technical background.
At the time of the writing, professionals were swinging back to black and white. There were a few color pictures. Looking at the black and white pictures I was a little surprised that I found the ones where the people wore light clothing to be more attractive.
Backlighting and fill lighting were very appropriately done, and the text gave some examples of how the lighting was chosen. The author likes to arrive early at the site to identify good locations for groups and for children.
- a short history of family portraiture (now that people don't have to sit still for long exposures)
- drumming up business
- preparing the subjects for the session (especially matching or at least coordinated clothing)
- people skills (assertiveness, the photographer is in charge, parents - let me deal with the children)
- various styles of various professional photographers (nearly all of this book is about casual settings)
- what goes in the camera bag (some of this material is rather dated, but the principles are still sound - this book is not where you go for equipment recommendations)
- There is even a little bit about studio posing & lighting (but by and large this book is about shooting families outdoors in environments that they like to be in)
- And, of course, photographing in the clients home - so they can have memories of what it was like (which seems a little strange to state it that way since the photographer rearranges the furniture)
- Finally, the most important part, presenting the final result to the client
Basically for those of us who are not professional photographers this is a picture book, and I enjoyed looking at the pictures as well as reading the commentary. For succinct, good solid information, I got a lot of my education from the Kodak booklets. Since they are decades old, they might be hard to find, but I really like them because they tell what you need to know, illustrate it, and very little fluff. This book assumes that you already have the technical background.
At the time of the writing, professionals were swinging back to black and white. There were a few color pictures. Looking at the black and white pictures I was a little surprised that I found the ones where the people wore light clothing to be more attractive.
Backlighting and fill lighting were very appropriately done, and the text gave some examples of how the lighting was chosen. The author likes to arrive early at the site to identify good locations for groups and for children.
Displaying 1 of 1 review