You can access the video “Walter 2 Year Old” on my YouTube channel with this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MpIxKGtI4cc or the channel itself at https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuTaSun1drjo5JBsh989TYg
The child illustrating this post is an older boy, not Walter. I used this series of images to show the finished results of the four poses I was doing with Walter.
The Walter video is a complete sitting of a 2 year old boy taken at a child care center. It was one of about 60 sittings that I did that morning. The images that accompany this post are the four poses I attempted to do of Walter. The second pose required a little more control than I had. You will see me try this pose briefly and then move on.
The video opens with me inviting Walter to come to the posing table. He is one of four children sitting next to the table. I have just finished the previous sitting. The director is sitting in the background taking care of the paperwork.
After I placed Walter on the table and posed him, I took a few shots of the first pose, moving in to reposition him after each shot. He kept wiggling but that’s okay. He finally stays in position well enough for the last shot to be almost exactly what I wanted. If he didn’t, I probably would have moved on to another pose at about the same time. The first shots of this pose are good. I only take a second shot of a pose if I think I can get something better, quickly.
I then try to pose him in the pose with his forearm on his knee. After a couple attempts I decided he was not going to stay in this position and I moved on to another pose.
When I did the arm pose I placed him on a four inch posing block. This may seem like an unnecessary step, but it is useful. It limits his movement.
The standing pose is done last. This is the pose the child is most likely to be uncomfortable with and it is the pose that is least likely to be successful. In a child care setting that is as well controlled as this center it works almost all of the time.
I have mentioned the director sitting calmly in the background. More obvious are the three children sitting next to the posing table. The boy who is laughing loudly has already been photographed. I picked him before Walter because he was the liveliest and might not wait as well. The two girls are sitting quietly and can wait. Notice the older girl talking to her sister. She is explaining what I am doing. I have some great video of the girls photographed together then separately. I will post it when I get a chance.
If the child is much younger, under two years of age, I will have a parent or staff member sitting near the table to make them, the parent or the staff member, more comfortable. This greatly reduces the chance of the pose being successful and increases the likelihood that the child will get off the table, but sometimes it is necessary to make everyone comfortable. I recommend having someone next to the table if you are a new photographer. (If you are a new photographer working under my name I would insist upon it.) After you have done this pose a few thousand times, you will be better able to predict and control what the child will do.
Throughout this whole sitting the director is sitting in the background. She is not at all concerned with what I am doing. The video of the entire shoot shows the same thing. Other staff members are continuously bringing in children and taking out the ones that have been photographed. This is a child care center that I have photographed a few times. The staff and director know me. They know what I want them to do because I have told them. It took a couple complete shoots before they had this level of confidence.
When I have younger children, under about fifteen to eighteen months, I have a staff member sit next to the table. The age at which I do this will vary depending upon the level of confidence I have in my ability to control the child and the level of confidence the staff have in me. When I do this it will make it more difficult to maintain the child’s attention and get relaxed expressions.
How do I get children to stay in these poses so consistently? Some of the teachers and parents I work with call it magic or psychology. Actually it is just engaging the subject and treating him like a real person to get their cooperation. I guess that is psychology, but I think of it as what we do as portrait photographers with a subject of any age. Engage the subject. Get them to relax. Elicit an expression and capture it.
There was no editing on this video. It shows everything from when I invited Walter to the posing table until I finished the last pose and helped him down. All sittings for children of this age don’t go as smoothly and many of them go much faster and more smoothly. Every child and every sitting is different.