Pictures for Suzuki method teacher (cello)

pickerbw · July 1, 2011

OK, I need some help... A friend of the family is in town at a music conference and has asked me to take some pictures for her. She teaches cello in the suzuki method (if you don't know what that is, just think little kids...) and needs some pictures for her website to help build her studio. She's coming over at noon tomorrow and will be teaching my 3 year-old daughter. I have a Nikon D90, 35mm f/1.8, and the 18-105mm that came with the camera. I may be able to borrow an SB-600 from a friend, but it may be broken. They also have an 18-200mm I may be able to borrow, but my house is small, so I don't know how much help the 18-200 would be. The friend lives in Memphis, so this is my one shot at it.

Any suggestions on setup, types of shots, etc.???

Thanks!!!

Qarik · July 1, 2011

for this kind of thing..unless you have studio or real nice space in your home that you KNOW will be a good back drop, it really needs to be the a full session. Forget the house and go outside and find a park and take some shots in the shade on a bench somewhere.

pickerbw · July 1, 2011

She doesn't want portrait shots, but some of her teaching. I considered going outside, but thought it would be a little awkward to have pictures teaching outside. That, and it will probably be 100 outside around the time we will be taking pictures... I guess I need to let her decide if outdoor teaching shots would be awkward, or if she thought they would work.

Bryce Wilson · July 1, 2011

Why not check with one of your local schools? They may let you use one of their "music rooms" or even an auditorium stage to do the shoot. They might charge a nominal fee. To me, that would be the perfect backdrop for a shoot of this nature.

divamum · July 2, 2011

Ok, take this fwiw, but as a musician, I personally loathe staged "look at me teaching" shots because they always look so phoney; I greatly prefer candid shots of actual sessions. Does she usually teach in people's homes? If so, that's a perfect setting to demonstrate what she does. If, however, that's not her "usual habitat", you probably ought to take the shots which emulate the look of where she teaches. A classroom might work, although I think for the typical Suzuki teacher an auditorium setting might be overkill and slightly "too formal" to show teaching style (although perfect for performance shots, of course!).

Assuming that "at home" is tyipcal for her, then I think it's fine to do exactly that. Make sure the area is clear of extraneous stuff (eg toys, laundry, food, personal items etc etc) and that the floor and walls are clean (dust does show, especially on wooden floors, and it's a pain to clean up in post!).

If you can set up near window light, all the better - it's perfect for candid shots and would solve the flash problem. Set it up so that another wall (or sheet, or posterboard, or styrofoam, or something light-coloured) can act as a reflector out of shot to fill in the light on the non-window side.

I think showing the interaction between student/teacher - as well as shots which make the instrument clear - will work very nicely. Go for true candids - you may find you want to overshoot a little so that you don't miss any expressions as they happen spontaneously (you can always delete the rubbish afterwards!). If you also want posed shots, I'd say do those at the end after the lesson itself, once you have an idea what you've got "in the can".

If you have a piano or other instruments nearby, it could be nice to have those in shot as part of the background, although in a way which doesn't distract from the main subjects. I'd try shooting from all angles: kid's-eye view, teacher's-eye-view, from above onto the fingers, with teacher and student playing together (if she's Suzuki I assume she plays with them sometimes?), over kid's shoulder looking down into the instrument (and reversed looking up at kid), teacher facing student, teacher's arms around student demonstrating a finger or bow position etc etc. So many possibilities

I'd be shooting a wide aperture to minimize background distractions as well as maximize light, so sounds like that 35mm prime could be put to good use. Also, remember that while a superwide angle (like the 18mm end of your zoom) can be used with a slower shutter speed if light is low, and you could use the wide-angle distortion to great effect if you frame the shot well (eg superclose to the instrument - which will make it appear bigger than it is - in the foreground, with perhaps the people slightly blurred with depth-of-field... or the other way round with the people sharp and the instrument blurred a bit). Lots of things you can do!

HTH....

NeilL · July 2, 2011

As I've got a little more experience, some facts of life have impressed themselves on me:

- luck happens, but most good shots are the result of skill (from knowledge and experience)

- and of preparation and rehearsal: you might get the ideal location and shoot with the ideal gear, but the world isn't phased, and will carry on regardless of you, unless you engage it beforehand, over and over; so start your shoot now, before the shoot, set up and make sure you have control of the perspective and the light: my G**! picking up a flash and lens an hour beforehand sounds like kamakazi

- composition+lens is critical yes, but the most critical factor is getting the right light where it's needed: natural window light - great, except you possibly don't want direct sun, and depending on what the clouds are doing, so is your exposure doing, and the shadows, which always have a way of getting in the way: so artificial light is sometimes less of a headache: look at your histogram and look at the hardness of light and shadows: fast aperture, yes, lovely, except when stuff we need to see is blurred

- especially where you have impatient subjects: taking a shot ten times just goes beyond their conceptual boundaries

- don't neglect to take a WB standard (grey card etc), the other aspect of good exposure

- write out your planned shoot program, including all tech details resulting from your rehearsal and practice; then when the "actors" arrive the scene is already set, the show can go on without the set still being constructed around them, without you having to teach them their parts too much: the most familiar environment to you will be the most successful

- and did I say, rehearse and practice, rehearse and practice?

Neil

pickerbw · July 3, 2011

Thanks for all the help, everyone. Unfortunately, this was a late notice request... I did the best I could, and our friend seemed to like some of the results. Here's one she liked. It's certainly not up to the standards of many of the photographers here, but she like it, so I guess that's what matters the most. I think it still needs some work in pp. Color seems a bit off.

[Edit: I adjusted the red a bit, and I think this looks a little more natural.]

NeilL · July 3, 2011

pickerbw wrote: »

...she likes it...

nice feel to it

Neil

pickerbw · July 4, 2011

Thanks, guys. Any recommendations on post processing? I use Capture NX2.

divamum · July 4, 2011

I think the shot you got is very nice! Shows a real simpatico between teacher and student. Can you loosen up the crop a little so the spike isn't almost out of the frame and give the whole pic a bit more "airspace"?

Don't know about NX2, but they're a little heavily saturated on my monitor - ymmv....

pickerbw · July 4, 2011

I had to rotate the picture a bit, and crop out a corner of a door, so I lost a little of that "airspace" around the edge. I DEFINITELY need to watch the rotation on my pictures. It's something I have noticed the past few days as I have gotten back into photography a little.

Capture NX2 is basically the same as LR, but made specifically for Nikon RAW files. As for the saturation, I see what you mean. I'm doing all my post on a work laptop (my desktop just died), so not exactly the best screen to work with. On the laptop it looks fine, but on my iPhone, it's a bit saturated. Maybe I'll need to do my softproof on my iPhone... Yikes! Anyways, thanks for the input, divamum.

Pictures for Suzuki method teacher (cello)

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