Spin Move

A simple college arts and dance show can surprise you with great photo opportunities.

Charlotte Rutty is spun upside down during a Bowdoin College dance show.

The Photo

Every Fall, Bowdoin College invites parents and family members to visit on Family Weekend and experience the variety of activities the school has to offer.  My daughter Megan helped organize a dance performance, so we didn’t want to miss the chance to see her perform on stage.  Yet while Megan was very excited about her own dance number, she said we absolutely should not miss a dance where her friend Charlotte would be spun around her dance partner’s arm. 

Thanks to that tip, I was confident a perfectly-timed photo would capture something special.  However, the dance hall lighting was far from ideal, as performers moved in and out of alternately bright and dark spots on the stage. This required perfect timing to shoot photographs only when dancers appeared in the lighted areas.  In addition, because the dance photos required freezing fast motion, the image quality would be sub-par, since I had to set my shutter speed to between 1/250 and 1/500, use a very high ISO, and set my lens f-stop to a wide-open f/2.8.

When Charlotte and her partner began the dance, they moved rapidly around, side to side and front to back, but I kept focusing and shooting.  At times, they were in the shadows, and I knew those pictures would not be usable, but when they danced in the brightest lit spots, those pictures looked great.  The first time she was spun around in the light, I missed timing the the shot for when she faced forward upside down.  Continuing to follow the dance, they did the spin again, and I timed everything perfectly.  It was a good thing, too, because they didn’t do it again. 

3 Tips

1. College dance shows can provide unexpectedly great photo opportunities.

2. Be ready to compensate for frequent changes in lighting or inadequate lighting.

3. Use a shutter speed that freezes the action, even if you have to lose some image quality by using a high ISO.

"Now That's Funny!"

Close-up facial expressions are often the most important element of great kids' photos.

Megan Maher, left, and her teammate laugh while taking a break during the Northern Westchester Swim Conference swim meet in Chappaqua, N. Y. (© Michael Maher).

The Photo:
My daughter Megan was so busy concentrating and having fun when she was participating in sports, she rarely noticed when I pointed the camera at her. At this swim meet, while waiting her turn to participate, she and a teammate were laying by the pool watching the races, when another swimmer started goofing around to make them laugh. This went on for several minutes, and I managed to photograph several expressions of Megan laughing with her teammate, but this was the best. One key to taking kid photos is getting them to ignore the presence of the camera. Fortunately, none of them -- Megan, her friend, other team members -- paid much attention to me, so I could concentrate solely on finding a great photo. If you station yourself in one place, and wait a few minutes, kids will typically start ignoring you. Megan also had a brief moment of fame when this was published in the local newspaper.

3 Tips:
1) Kids frequently show a wide range of expressions and emotions when doing even simple things like watching their friends.
2) Stand back with a medium or longer lens so the kids concentrate on what they are doing, and not you.
3) If you stay in one place and wait patiently, kids will get used to your presence, ignore the camera, and you can take spontaneous photos.

Easter Dress Clothes

It's wonderful when a holiday photo can simultaneously captures a family member's personality.

Megan Maher, left, winks as she poses with her sister Colleen for her annual Easter photograph (© Michael Maher).

The Photo:
Each year, we took a photo of our daughters in their Easter clothes, sometimes with other family members or friends, other times alone together. The key to making this a great photo is capturing an outstanding facial expression and lighting the shot in a way that highlights the dress clothing. This year, the weather was nice, the sunlight was bright, so I found a dark background against which to place the children where the sun could shine on them from behind. This took awhile to set up, but the backlighting effect highlighted the bright colors of their Easter Sunday dress clothes. I took several pictures, but the kids were getting bored with the routine, and I could not get them to show any interesting facial expressions. Fortunately, Megan decided to ham it up for the camera, cocked her head, and winked at me. The beautiful highlighting of their colorful clothes and Megan’s funny wink made this one of the best Easter photos we ever took.

3 Tips:
1) For holiday portraits of your children, capture interesting facial expressions and show what their clothes look like.
2) Backlighting with the sun shining from behind is a great way to highlight colorful clothing.
3) Determine the photo you want to take and where you want to line it up before asking kids to pose, or they’ll get bored quickly.