My Photoschool: Week 2 - The Teenager and the engine...

It seems that I'm doing my very first photo course.  MyPhotoSchool approached my employers, netmums.com, looking for someone to road test David Handley's course -  A Parents Guide to Photographing Your Children.  I'm part of the Netmums Parent Bloggers Network so I asked if I could have a go. My tutor, David Handley, is winner of the Sony World Photography Award for fashion and is an established and renowned photographer, known for his ability to capture the naturalness of his subjects, combined with compositional aptitude and knowledge of natural and studio lighting.


This week is all about a Patience, Positivity and Playfulness.  Again, no amazing technical knowledge is needed for this - the aim is to get natural, generally unposed photos of children.

Z is 14...and the challenge for me was to get a shot of his face.  I have endless photos of him miles away in the countryside with a mop of hair over his face.

Patience was needed even when chosing timing of the shot.  He knew I intended to take some pictures of him, so when I noticed him in the garden dismantling an engine I just wandered out and started snapping.  It was nearly teatime but I grabbed my camera off the desk and got going.

Fortunately the light was good and the 50mm lens meant I didn't have to get right in his face with a big lens.  It does of course mean lots of bobbing around and changing position to get the shots I wanted...tricky given the amount of oil and engine parts around the place!

He'd been waiting for me to get the engine back to the house for months so recording the event was kinda special and I'm really enjoying seeing him using his toolbox and working things out.  The old film developing tray of oil close to the backdoor is an accident waiting to happen, but hey - at least he put it in a tray.

Most of the time he was distracted by the engine and seemed very comfortable in front of the camera.  As mentioned in the tutorial, there was no way I could treat a teenager like a little kid.  We talked about the engine and I helped to dismantle some bits and worked with him, which made the exchange very positive and relaxed.  It was actually really nice to take time out with him.  I even got a slight teenager smile.  Just a slight one - but a natural one and that's what I was trying to catch.

 

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My Photoschool: Week 1 - Thunderbirds and things 11 years old shouldn't know about...

For the next four weeks I'm doing my very first photo course.  MyPhotoSchool approached my employers, netmums.com, looking for someone to road test David Handley's course -  A Parents Guide to Photographing Your Children.  I'm part of the Netmums Parent Bloggers Network so I asked if I could have a go.  Even though I've earnt the odd few quid from my pics, starting with taking some food photos for Netmums and I've exhibited from time time in open exhibitions and have some pictures on permanent display, I've never had any formal training.  So I was kinda nervous...

My tutor, David Handley, is winner of the Sony World Photography Award for fashion and is an established and renowned photographer, known for his ability to capture the naturalness of his subjects, combined with compositional aptitude and knowledge of natural and studio lighting.

Week 1 is all about achieving natural photographs of babies and children.  David's online video taught us how to use different techniques to distract the child from the elephant in the room - or rather the camera in their face.  No amazing technical knowledge is needed for this and indeed the brief was to put the camera into auto and get going.

First of all I realised that this was going to be hard.  We're a very low key sort of a family and though we laugh, it's usually at stupid in jokes.  Me waving props around in a way very unlike myself is probably not going to wash with my own kids, so I decided to choose an approach that suited my 11 year old.  Thunderbird 2 was duly set into active service. At first he wasn't convinced, as you can see...

So - we just chatted.  Laughs were had but I really can't repeat the wording here.  Suffice to say that he'd watched a film with two fourteen year olds the night before and was amused by a certain scene.  I just hope it's not mentioned at school...

At some point during all this the synopsis for a video was made.  So, in return I had to set up the tripod and attempt a bit of filming.

J: Thank you very much for helping me Rooster

R: 'I enjoyed it - it was fun'

R Walks off

R:'I enjoyed that'

Cool.

So - the pics are done in auto using a Canon 7d (I'd not actually used auto on this before) and minimal tweaking done in Lightroom (in the above pic the grass had made his face green and a smidge of cropping was done for the first and last - otherwise hands off).

The assignment has now been submitted for tutor and peer feedback...eeek!  Now it's time for me to do the next module - Techniques and Attitudes.  Catcha next week.


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Reading to older children & teens

This isn't something I'd have really insisted upon, had a stay at home Dad friend not regularly told me that he reads to his 16 year old daughter and her siblings.  Really?  I thought...yeah - knowing him, that's going to be the case.  And he's not going to be reading the Beano.  So...bearing this in mind and on the insistence of my 10 year old that he'd like a story, I wondered what to read.  It's easy to go back to Enid Blyton but to tell the truth, we both knew that the Island of Adventure wasn't going to cut it for us this time.  An evening reading and old Thomas the Tank Engine book broke me, and though I'm sure we'll still read dear old poorly written Thomas & Friends from time to time.  Why avoid something that gives so much happiness to a child?  Other than for my own sanity of course.  We need to move on.

We have two kids, aged 13 and 10.  Neither of them are slouches when it comes to reading.  Z, the new teengager, had books for his birthday - and R...well...where IS his school reading book even?  Apart from a frantic few weeks about three years ago where he went head to head with his brother to read the entire Harry Potter series, he's not read much - other than old favourites like Horrible Histories and a couple of Railway Detective books, which I'm told had the proper C word in.  Oops - and thanks Grandma.

So, where to begin.  A few googles on the loo and last thing at night in bed started me off nicely - not to mention putting me to shame and enthusing me all over again about my own reading possibilities.  The difficulty is persuading the kids to listen to Mum.  Mums aren't cool you see, and thanks perhaps to social ideas of mum's intelligence, a year spent chemically lobotomised (notice the big gap in the blog?  Don't do SSRI's folks - they'll screw you up) and the small detail that after getting them to do the things they need to do to be human, there isn't much time to be a cool and intelligent role model.  Burning tea last night didn't help my case.

So...at a time way past their bedtime, my mission to move them up a reading notch began.  They're not really sheltered kids in terms of TV/Media so hopefully they'll still sleep well.  Okay...I am looking after a small cuddly monkey today whilst R goes to school BUT I trust that this is down to the everyday social horror of school - not HP Lovecraft.  Yep, we started on the Necronomicon.  Hell, I want to read more of it myself and it turns out that it's an utter pleasure to read aloud.  Occasional references to the nether and other minecraftian things also bolster my case that Mum is to be listened to where books are concerned. 

And I hope we'll move on, through bookshelves that would have made me POP with delight as child.  No stunting for them with a tiny bookshelf and rereads of the stupidly expensive gender appropriate books from rare trips to WH Smiths.  Perhaps a few worries might crop up and - eventually - the embarrassing stumbling through a forgotten sex scene (we will laugh and read it in a funny voice most likely).  Or perhaps they'll save me the horror and pick up the reading baton themselves and our bookshelves will ravaged and my books will be strewn around the house.  Time will tell.