Getting 7 young cousins in one place can be more than a challenge sometimes. One trick I have found helpful is to find some kind of “container” that will serve to physically or psychologically keep the group together. Without such a container, kids can all to easily disperse before any frames are exposed.
This portrait was part of a multi-family session, and so by the time we tried this shot, I was familiar with some of the personalities of the kids. I knew that a couple of them were going to be rambunctious and require some work to have stay in one place for more than a fraction of a second. On the positive side of things, I thought that I could get some good cooperation from the slightly older kids.
So with the aim being to get all seven of them in one portrait, I scouted the grounds (a public memorial garden), and found this water hole with an interestingly shaped rock formation around it. Could it be a suitable “container”? My thought was that if we put all of the kids with their feet in or near the water, it would hold their attention — especially the two youngest ones — mabye for as long as it took me to fire off several frames. Of course, the little one on the far right was up and down constantly anyway, but I was able to catch her sitting for a brief moment… although unfortunately she was not captured looking at the camera. I just have to let that fact go, haha!
Tech Info: Tripod mounted Fuji S2, 35mm f2.0 lens, set to f4.0, 1/250th second shutter speed (to freeze subject motion just in case), ISO 100, B/W mode, Fine JPG, Org tone, Standard Sharp. I lucked out on the lighting direction, since the sun was located directly behind the mass of foliage behind the kids, which meant I benefitted from totally indirect light from the sky and from reflection off of the various structures located in front of the kids (out of view of the camera). Had the sun been anywhere else, the kids would have been squinting much more and the lighting would have been flat.
–Eddie.
