Original subtitles

All right, you have children in front of

you.

And the famous quote is, never work with

children or animals.

But they're a lot of fun, so why

wouldn't you want to?

And quite simply, there'll be many times in

your career that you simply just won't have

a choice.

Now, you're actually at a wedding.

You will find that the children will get

a lot of attention.

And that's just a fact.

And I've got to say, I say it

often as a joke, but I actually really

mean it.

I often say to the bride, oh my

god, the flower girl, the page boy is

so cute.

Half the album is going to be of

them.

And normally, when I say that out loud,

once every blue moon, the bride might say,

better not.

But the fact is that if you're at

a wedding, there's going to be mayhem with

the little ones because they're unpredictable.

If you're photographing a family portrait, yes, whether

newborn, whether they're a toddler, whether they're at

that teenage age, whatever it may be, obviously

children, unpredictable.

But that's the beauty of photographing children.

I think that I find that you just

can't control children very well.

Yes, there's going to be some times where

you have well-behaved children that are of

a certain age where you can reason with

them.

And you can do classic portraiture and beautiful

lighting and all those different things.

When you're at a family group session, whether

it's on location, an environmental portrait, or you're

photographing children at a wedding, you've got to

do your best.

If you want to look in the camera

photograph, great.

If you want them interacting, if you want

them to hold hands with the page boy

and the flower girl, whatever you basically want,

just know that there's going to be a

high degree of difficulty.

And there's going to be a point where

you're going to say, this is not working.

No time.

We've got what we've got.

Move on.

And you'll find this especially when you've got

young children who just need to nap at

a certain time.

Some of the parents will just say, look,

you know what?

They're not here.

Don't worry.

Take the family photograph.

Let's do it.

And then you just do it.

But you've got to keep in your mind

that if they're awake later on, they will

probably blame you still that you didn't take

a family photograph or a bridal party photograph,

including the page boy and the flower girl.

It's your fault that you didn't actually bring

that up later on in the day.

So just take responsibility.

Do the best you can under the circumstances.

Now, you've probably heard of what a reveal

means.

And I discussed that a bit earlier, how

the bride and groom will meet before the

ceremony so they can meet.

We can take photographs afterwards and all these

different things.

We call it a reveal.

That's a term that's been popularized.

I certainly, among many, have popularized the notion

of doing a reveal with a father.

In other words, the bride will see the

father for the first time as a bride

in a beautiful bridal dress and create a

moment out of that.

And it could even be with the parents

or whoever it may be, like the mom

and so on.

I had never done a reveal with the

children before, as in this is the first

time the page boy will see the flower

girls.

And the first time I did it, I

struck gold.

This is like meeting them for the first

time.

And often I'll speak with a little baby

voice and I'm like, eww, boy germs, eww,

whatever it might be.

And then all of a sudden, you sort

of amplify what's going on.

This girl is sort of, the tall girl

there, she's probably thinking, oh, I don't know

if I like him or not.

She's probably at that age where she doesn't

like boys yet, but sort of a bit

confused.

She's a bit grumpy there in the middle.

And of course, she's like very intrigued.

Oh my God, he's very sweet.

I like the look of him.

So just remember to embrace the children.

And the hardest part when you're photographing children,

especially in a group photograph, and I'm sure

if you've ever photographed a family shot before

with a baby in it or whatever, you

finally might get the child right looking in

the camera if that's what you wanted.

And then all of a sudden, everyone's looking

at the kid to make sure the kid's

looking at you.

I'm like, dude, like that's my problem.

And you just screwed the photograph up and

now I have to deep etch your face

and I've got to put your face on

another face and hopefully come up with a

clean photograph.

So you have to be very specific with

the dialogue on the day.

So again, whether it's in the context of

a portrait session or a family session on

a wedding day.

So everyone, please do not look at the

child.

Keep on looking at me.

And then you might get a favorite auntie,

someone who will get the baby's attention.

Now, my wife, Melissa, she's got a very

joyful, beautiful energy about her and she can

attract just any energy.

Like she can quickly just grab the attention

of a dog, a cat, it could be

a little baby.

She just plays little games and she can

be next to the camera so I can

get that safe shot looking in the camera.

Now to satisfy everyone thinks the baby's cute,

the baby was just born or whatever.

Yes, now you can freaking look at the

baby and all interact with the baby.

And now as they get a bit older,

you might get a little shy child.

Let's say the age of four or five

or six.

You're depending on the confidence level of the

child.

I might literally say, everyone, look at Jimmy

right now.

And then, and now Jimmy can start freaking

laughing or he can go into a bucket

of tears and you'll never see him again

for the rest of the day.

So you sort of gotta be careful.

Then every so often, you'll just get an

incredible exhibitionist like this young girl.

So this is the actual bride and groom's

daughter.

And she was just full of personality, just

such an amazing girl.

This was actually photographed in Florence and she

had a great time.

So I'm like, well, let's kids be kids.

What happened was that I was taking a

shot looking in the camera smiling, the wind

blew the veil over her and I didn't

try to make it perfect and quickly put

it back.

I'm like, just have some fun, play around

a little bit.

And she started just playing around and being

an exhibitionist because that's who she is.

And then every so often, you'll get gold

like this.

I don't know what's going on here, but

this girl is just licking the brother's forehead

and I'm like, well, let kids be kids.

Like you wouldn't stop that.

And even sometimes if you have all the

kids being behaved and one's bawling, I'm like,

that's fun.

Like that's timely.

Sometimes the portrait needs to show who this

person is at this time of your life.

Like if this little child's a little pain

in the ass, that's okay.

Let's show this little pain in the ass

when they're older, how in fact painful they

were as a child.

Sometimes if you can't fix it, embrace it.

Like own it.

This bride was really close with all the

nieces and nephews and things like that.

So what I did was I did a

bit of a reveal.

I even had some guests at the lobby

of the hotel in the background, which I

thought added an interesting element because they're not

really distracting, but they add an extra element

twist to this shot.

And then of course, every person, every uncle

or auntie just wants, or parent just wants

their child to run up and give them

a hug.

And I'm like, well, if you get the

bride in the background, just inviting with the

inviting arms, then I take that shot.

And then I turn them around and she's

cuddling all her beautiful little nephews and nieces.

Now we've got this beautiful shot.

So if this was a wedding day, if

this is a family portrait, I can simply

go in and photograph each individual.

And you can see the personalities very clearly

of each individual.

And this little pain in the ass, I

say that respectfully.

I love that because we've got this very

sort of predictable, predictable portraits of all these

kids because I could control them.

And people say, well, Gerry, why do you

prefer photographing adults?

Because I can control adults.

I can't control kids.

But if I photograph kids, and at least

then again, I embrace the fact that you

are gonna get ones that are gonna be

cute and bashful and confident or shy, but

she just would not stop crying.

And in my head, I was designing this

portrait or this album.

And I'm like, you know what?

This is perfect.

All of them are all being really well

behaved.

And this one little girl was just crying.

I'm like, that's perfect.

Great.

Let's not try to fix her.

That's just who she was at that moment.

Fantastic.

And then, you know, we, this actual bride

was, and the groom for that matter were

photographers.

So they wanted to actually a bit of

extra element.

And they had photographed portraits that was part

of the little details that they had on

these postcards that were tied to the clothing

of the bridal party, which is really cool.

And then sometimes what I'll do is if,

whether I'm photographing a family portrait or whether

I'm photographing a wedding, if kids are being

kids, I will just have some fun and

stir them.

Like, because kids like the little, like little

teasing in a playful way, in a respectful

way.

But, you know, the girls were just sitting

together.

And then that shot, that left-hand side

shot was the one that I took first.

And you can see they're a bit nervous.

Like, who's this guy photographing us?

Because I'm a tall six foot two dark

guy and I can be quite intimidating.

And then I disarm them a little bit.

I'm like, come on, cuddles, cuddles, you know,

wiggles and giggles, wiggles and giggles.

And then all of a sudden they're wiggling,

they're giggling.

And then you just give them permission to

be themselves.

And then, you know, you'll see the one

who's the exhibitionist and then you'll have some

fun, but kids are being kids.

Am I gonna sit there and pose every

little finger and point the toe and bend

the knee and shoulders back?

No, they're kids.

So posing has to be age appropriate.

So, and again, it's also personality appropriate.

That classic example that I often give is

that you would not pose a corporate female

CEO executive with pointing the toe, bending the

knee, shifting the weight back, shoulders back, chest

forward.

No, it would look a little bit too

overt, a bit too sexy, a bit too

curvy.

But you might want feminine, but you might

wanna say strong.

So you might get hands like just on

the, you know, on the crossing arms like

that, bending the wrists in, so it's quite

feminine.

But then I lean forward, it means strong.

One little knee over the other, so there's

a soft little feminine touch, nice, strong, nice,

strong strength into the camera, beautiful.

Again, posing is not just meant to be

flattering.

To be honest, it's more important that it's

meaningful and actually it says something about the

person that you are photographing and what they

wanna say to the viewer of that photograph.

Now, it's gonna be very rare that you

get a girl like this who is just,

I mean, she, I've never seen, I think

she was like eight, nine years of age,

10 years of age, I don't know what,

but she would just pose like an adult.

It was fascinating that anything I basically said,

any pose that I wanted, she would just

get into and she would give me that

little hint of a squint, add that little

mystery.

Now, here's something that you have to understand.

Now, whether this is a wedding, more so

when you're photographing, let's say maybe a senior

portrait, whether you're photographing maybe just a teenager

for any description.

See, most teenagers wanna look like adults, but

remember who's buying the portrait.

So parents are buying the portrait.

The parents, they wanna see this, they wanna

see smiling, they wanna see a 10-year

-old, but the kids will often wanna look

like adults.

So you've gotta, I suggest certainly, first of

all, age appropriate.

You don't want to make a teenage girl,

for example, look too sexy.

It's just not appropriate most of the time.

If, maybe more so, maybe if she was

modeling, and I wouldn't even say sexy, you

might wanna buy that high fashion look, no

problem, but you don't wanna be too overt

with a teenage girl or even a girl

like this.

Now, in this case, she's just giving a

quiet, confident look into the camera.

Then she peers off, but you can see,

she has that confidence of an adult.

She's almost like there's just a presence about

her, this quiet confidence.

Then you make her giggle, and all of

a sudden she's exactly her age.

So remember who you're photographing for, and remember

that you don't wanna listen completely to the

teenager or the young child, because, again, remember

who's buying the portrait.

But you can represent a child as confident,

beautiful, handsome, whatever word you wanna use, and

having a sort of a mature sensibility without

going too far.

This is a great example.

You would say the pose is quite childlike,

but there is a confidence with her gaze.

And, of course, now we see these beautiful

triangles in the portrait as well.

We are photographing with a very shallow depth

of field, so we eliminate that background, but

it's complementary to her skin tone and things

like that.

And then I thought, well, let's just make

it a bit more casual.

So I quite like the fact that she's,

you know, you'll often see teenagers put their

knees up to their chest, and, you know,

they will basically sit down on a normal

chair and bring their feet right up there,

and then you can get something a little

bit casual, you know?

And remember, too, that whoever you're photographing, and

especially girls, just be careful to be age

-appropriate, to be more specific, is do not

photograph into the crotch.

Even if she's wearing jeans, certainly still cover

the crotch.

And, of course, if you're photographing a dress

or a little jean shorts, just be age

-appropriate, and just be careful, and make sure

that you're doing the right thing by the

individuals with respect to the people that you're

photographing and the actual parent's wishes.

But again, it's so funny how you can

just make someone laugh, and all of a

sudden, you just break out of that formality,

but a soft little turn of a face,

the hands just draping down, the hands sort

of mirroring the feet, and all of a

sudden, you've just got a very different portrait.

So what I wanna do now, guys, is

actually show you a lot of examples of

a child at a wedding.

So this is basically the groom's daughter.

So this is Chris and Nellie, some of

our best friends, and Nellie and Madison, who

is Chris's daughter.

So obviously, because we're all friends, and I

know how close they are, as in the

groom with the daughter, I'm like, I'm gonna

make some moments out of this, and again,

try not to be too perfect, but show

the relationship between them.

So we basically had some shots where he

was doing up the back of the dress,

so I thought, let's bring her up on

top of something so she can be somewhat

of a similar height.

So he's doing up the back of the

dress, and then they play this game where

she tries to be a lion or a

tiger or something like that, and I know

this, so I get that out of her.

So then she's having fun, she's growling and

having some fun, and this was always gonna

happen.

We're gonna get some shots, and of course,

I'm gonna go back and forth, and we're

gonna kiss there.

Now again, this does not have to be

a wedding.

This could be a father with a daughter.

This could be a mother with a son.

Remember, if you're taking photographs of families, you

photograph every combination, and I mean everything.

Let's say, for example, you've got parents, okay,

so you've got, and again, by the way,

I often say mom and dad, I often

say bride and groom.

This could be two brides, two grooms.

We're 2020, get over it.

Like, love is love, and that's what it

is.

So even though the examples that I'm giving

are often heterosexual, just know that this could

apply to any gender, same-sex marriages, weddings,

whatever it may be.

So if we've got two girls, as in

two boys, two girls, and parents, what combinations

would you do with the family portrait?

Well, you would photograph the whole family together,

traditionally, casually, walking, foreground, background.

Like, there's all these examples we've already shared.

Then you would photograph the mom with all

the kids, the dad with all the kids.

Then you would photograph the mom with the

girls, the mom with the boys, the dad

with the girls, the dad with the guys.

Then you might even do individual shots of

each of the kids, which each of the

parents.

Then you'll photograph all the kids together.

Then you'll photograph the boys together, the girls

together.

In other words, do every combination imaginable.

One, you're telling a story, it's history's sake

as well.

You're creating a legacy, but you also might

wanna sell all of this stuff.

So it's all part of it.

So we've got this shot, we've got giggling

off in the distance, and I love the

fact that she's lost her teeth there a

little bit, and that's just part of growing

up, but it's quite endearing.

Now, I forget what happened on this wedding

day, but they were doing what they were

doing, and I'm like, so Madison was on

her own.

So I'm gonna photograph her on her own.

Now, she was being deliberately a little bit

cheeky, which I think is really cute.

Like, that's just part of the persona, and

because she's gotten to know Uncle Jerry, like,

we have a lot of fun, and we

tease each other a little bit.

But she looks off, and I know that

she'll get into cheeky mode very quickly, having

some fun, playing with her hair, and it

just ends up being a lot of fun.

So it's a combination of, you might have

an idea that you want this kind of

portrait, but no, it may not be realistic

based upon the age, based upon the fact

that they're shy, that you are not gonna

get children to always do what you wanna

do in front of the camera.

So let children be children.

Now, we've got the big reveal with the

daughter, and step-mom-to-be.

So they're back-to-back.

All right, so you can already see that

she's getting emotional.

So the new mom is getting emotional.

Then we turn around, and I love the

fact that she's just looking into her, and

she's got the surprised look, very in anticipation

of what she's gonna feel about the dress.

Then there's that cute little endearing hands that

they give, which I think is just beautiful.

Then we give the new mom, new step

-mom, beautiful little kiss.

Then we get something a little bit more

traditional, and then we have turns kissing.

While we're there, let's get dad back in.

Let's have some fun there again.

Let's go closer and horizontal.

And then you always know when there's an

extreme expression like this, there's always gonna be

a giggle afterwards.

So just know that's gonna happen.

And then at one point, I think we're

interrupted, and we're doing something, and all of

a sudden, the bride just grabs the chin,

and I thought it was just so beautiful.

So first of all, I love this shot,

but it's quite ironic that the minute I

crop the bride's identity out, you get so

much more feeling, and that's where hands become

so much more expressive.

Does that make sense?

So here's that beautiful shot.

You can see that happening.

Then I crop the identity of the bride

out, and then I just get that tender

hand holding her.

And of course, we've got that beautiful frame,

cute little sort of bashful, but somewhat sort

of confident sort of feeling.

But there's just this, she's waiting for the

approval.

Like, am I part of your family?

Or whatever it might be, whatever metaphor you

wanna give.

So remember that when you're taking these family

portraits, it is not just about the big

wide shot.

It's about those little tender moments.

It could be about the way the father

just touches the daughter's hair.

It could be some little mannerism that is

just so unique to each individual relationship within

the nucleus of that family, which is beautiful.

Now, in this case, the bride has two

sons.

The groom has a daughter, and now they're

becoming one.

But you can see how there's a beautiful

little hierarchy, which now makes that shot uniquely

them as a new family.

Would there have been a shot looking in

the camera smiling?

Absolutely, but these are the ones that actually

make me feel a lot more than that

looking in the camera shot.

Later on that wedding day, they're about to

get married, and we're just waiting for things

to get set up.

And then finally, I knew this was gonna

happen because I had to walk around this

area.

And then these two other girls that have

come involved, the little bridesmaids, and I knew

that this little interaction would happen.

So they're looking left, they're looking right, and

we're tracking them.

I'm like, you know what, love this shot.

I've got those in the can.

Let's get the bride out of the way.

Let's get the girls all together.

And if you just yell out group hug

to anyone, well, people know what that means.

So they group hug, I can hardly see

them.

Then look at me, bang, we've got this

beautiful shot, nice triangular composition, and then just

get them walking across.

So remember, don't try to control too much.

And yes, there are people that have made

styles out of classic, beautifully posed children portraiture,

which is very rare done well in the

context of a family portrait or a wedding.

Let kids be kids.

In this case, I know that Madison and

Chris have such a beautiful, unique relationship, and

I was dying for this to happen.

There's such a endearing photograph of the way

a daughter looks at a father.

And obviously, it's quite, I wouldn't say unique

in 2020, but it's not that often that

as a, you get to witness one of

your parents' weddings.

Yes, the nature of just relationships, we get

married, we get divorced, we get remarried.

But the fact is that Madison will grow

up and remember this photograph and how she

felt when she was walking down the aisle,

knowing that we can't wait to make this

family official.

And the relationship, and you know that that's

gonna happen.

And you know that that would happen as

we walk down the aisle.

So most of us would just focus on

the bride walking down the aisle, but surely

this would happen.

If you photographed at least one wedding, you

would know how to anticipate these kind of

moments.

And then during the wedding, you're gonna go

close up, and you're going to know that

there's gonna be cute little mannerisms of the

girls, whether they're doing some kind of ritual.

In this case, they had like a little

wooden sort of puzzle, somewhat of a unity

ceremony.

And she's holding the rings there, of course,

and then she's doing a reading.

So guys, that's what it's all about.

I want you to remember, and certainly I

can talk all day long about children's photographs.

The reason why I'm not mechanically showing you

how to pose a child, it's just, it's

somewhat similar principles as photographing an adult male

or adult female, but less pronounced.

Does that make sense?

Like you would not get a young eight

-year-old girl to actually turn her hips,

point her toes, slide her heel back, bend

her knee, bring her shoulders back, lean the

chest forward.

You might simply just get one knee over

the other.

You might just get her hands, holding her

hands together like this.

So it's age appropriate.

There's a little bit of femininity there, and

it's really cute.

It's fantastic.

You might get a boy putting his hands

in his pockets.

You might get him leaning on a wall,

like I told you, but you're not gonna

be after that absolute perfection because that's just

not the way life is.

So let children be children.

Have fun with them, but immortalize what makes

them unique, and that is their beautiful, unadulterated

unpredictability.

So I hope you enjoyed that.