Portrait sitting with 11/12 people...

Jeremy Winterberg

Ok, so Sunday afternoon I have a session with a family at their home. There will be 11 poeple for sure, maybe 12. We might do some inside their home, and some outside depending on weather (Wisconsin is still borderline winter right now lol :dunno ).

So, I need some advice :bow. (I know many people on here are weary about giving me advice, because I've been known to disregard it and stubornly go my own way :rolleyes . But this time I really need it, and will use it:D .)

Seeing as this is my first post in like 3 weeks, its time to hop back on the photography choo choo train and talk to others about my problems (Not the Dr. Phil kind).

so... I will do my own research :wink, but If anyone has suggestions on poses (or line ups) for large groups, or can point me to some good online reading material, it would be greatly apreciated :clap .

After the session I'll post some of the pictures on here so you can see if your advice helped me out or not, and also so some of you can shoot me down for what I did wrong. :thumb

Qarik

my only suggestions:

1) if outside find some shade
2) if you are going to line up people more then 2 deep..make sure to shoot greater then say > 50mm or so to avoid wide angle distortion (front row will folks may appear bigger then back row).
3) take multiple shots of every shot and check each shot for people blinking, not looking at camera,etc
4) no jeans and matching shirts!

mrt10x

I was trying to figure out what part these 11/12ths people were going to be missing,,,,, sorry pretty lame

Hackbone

Two rows would be find. Instead of a straight line try to arch it a little. When posing the people try to think in triangles ( head relationships). Try not to get two heads next to each other at the same level. Look for chairs, stumps, kneeling, etc. Watch you focus point and shutter speed.

sweet caroline

Here's one I did with 11 people



I've also seen some more casual shots with people in several different groupings spread across the shot instead of all in one group. I haven't had a chance to try that idea with such a large group, but I'd like to.

Jeremy Winterberg

Thank you, I'll keep it all in mind as I do the shoot.

One thing I was thinking of doing was bringing a couple (height adjustable) stools. So that instead of doing a full body shot type thing its more upperbody close up (just a thought).

Any other suggestions would be great. I'm still compiling my thoughts on it. I have another shoot like an hour before this one. Hopefully Sunday will bring in some money through prints. (both are free shoots. The earlier shoot is for a babtism at my church, and the later is a session I donated for an auction at a dinner theater my church had as a fund raiser for the teens.)

But the large family shoot might become a returning customer. They have a son that graduates in a year or two (not sure). And me and him are kinda friends (he gets annoying... real fast, which reminds me that younger guys are immature). So I might be doing his senior pictures. And they also mentioned christmas pictures too so that would be nice.

Jeremy Winterberg

mrt10x wrote:

I was trying to figure out what part these 11/12ths people were going to be missing,,,,, sorry pretty lame

Its ok, I chuckled a little bit. I even thought about saying the joke in my original post, so your humor is not alone my friend. lol

Jeremy Winterberg

Ok, so the shoot went well... Learned a couple things from it.

1. never have an umbrella on a light stand without sand bags holding it down on a windy day (knocked it over and bent the rods on my umbrella... they bent back and its fine)

2. Outdoor pictures are not good in wisconsin during spring... everything is still dead.

3. Make sure your batteries are fully charged in your flash. I thought mine were and I thought my flash was going off the whole time... but they were, it wasn't, and I didn't have time to switch batteries out.

4. Its really hard to see how bad pictures look on a 3" LCD screen on an extremely bright sunny day.

5. Its hard to find shade on an extremely bright sunny day.

6. I dont like shooting large families. They're hard to fit in a small space.

heres a few pictures from the shoot that I like the most.

1.


2.


3.


4.


5.


All in all I think they'll be happy with the results considering I was being rushed limited with only 30 minutes and a ton of problems.