Ideas -Studio shoot children

[Farno]

I'm shooting some friends children next monday and as they are friends and paying friendly rates I feel like a little experimention.
Age range 7months, 4 years, 6 years and 8 years parents and grand parents.
Only the children will be in the shoot.
My normal setup for children / group this size is white background blown out, with soft boxes / reflectors / gridded spots depending on what the client wants. Very few of my clients ask for a black background, but the studio i'm in for this shoot has dedicated white and black backgrounds.
I'd normaly shoot a few full length then head / waist, see how involved the clients want to be and work from there.

I'm thinking of using an ultra wide lens just to mess about with, but what do you think would work best, low down, up high, only got them for an hour and dont want to be messing about with the lights too much.
Ideas welcome.

 

[lawrie29]

Get the "safe" shots done first - the ones you know will tick all the boxes and then experiment. You need to work round the youngest as well, make sure that you get the 7 month old when happy and have everything planned for the group shot as the 4 yr old and the little one won't sit for long.

 

[V8burble]

As said, get the safe ones done first... if you can get everyone involved then you can have fun with a wide lens. This is the sort of thing I do for family groups for a bit of fun.

 

[donald]

after the bread and butter shots focus on fun - they always go down well, I like to try and find out a little about the family and their interests and get them to bring props with them. With the very young it might be favourite toys with older childred something they are "in to".

Good luck and have fun too!

Most importantly - show us how you get on.

Donald

 

[Farno]

Thanks for the replies.