One of the main things that clients ask for are ‘natural’ style images during their session. They’ve seen examples online and in my gallery and want some of those lovely candid family moments captured.
It’s often very difficult to explain how these images are put together because as you can imagine, a photographer who you’ve hired for a couple of hours probably won’t haveĀ chance to naturally spot those moments as they happen so some tricks are necessary in order invoke some of the interactions and playfulness. There are a lot of phrases to describe the service of a family photographer including: ‘capture the moment’ but the truth is that these images are carefully constructed by the photographer.
I always tell my clients that they can expect a combination of both posed and natural style images in lots of different variations. The posed images are often useful for getting everyone in the same place, then it’s possible using things like games, props etc. to break everything down into something more natural looking.
If you’re looking for more natural images from your session, you might not have consideredĀ how much you will actually love a few posed ones in your batch as they make for really nice timeless images. When it comes to natural images I often here comments like “it’s a shame Sam wasn’t looking at the camera in that one” so it’s very beneficial to cover the entire scope and include different styles.
I take lots of images during my session, usually around 100-150 during the two-hour slot. The first half of the batch consists of both natural and posed family portraits. The second half of the batch is usually more children orientated as I like to set the children free towards the end of the session for those lovely images of them hiding, climbing trees and playing with their siblings.