Child's Play

Family Photographic Services

Do You Think of Portraits in the Victorian Style?

Photography was invented in 1826 by a Frenchman, Nicéphore Niépce (although the credit sometimes goes to Louis Daguerre). His first exposure took 8 hours. Although the processes were improved by Daguerre, Fox Talbot, George Eastman and Frederick Scott Archer, they still took a long time to produce an image - exposures around a minute were not at all uncommon.

Asking anyone to keep still for that long would require a great deal of concentration and so it's hardly surprising that Victorian pictures were characterised by very rigid poses and a fairly stern overall feel - the participants would have been strictly admonished beforehand not to flinch lest it spoil the photograph.

Even with the invention of accurate lens-making machinery allowing significantly larger holes in the front of cameras to let the light in faster, photographs were still very slow affairs until the invention of magnesium flash powder. However, being in the room with a barely-contained explosion probably also did little to put subjects at their ease.

Fast forward to the 21st century and there is available a bewildering array of devices for capturing images at high speed - as short as 1/250th of a second is a very common duration for making an image, and four or five exceptionally detailed still images per second are possible. Some would argue even more is possible in the moving picture industry!

The art now is in holding back.

It's easy with digital and high speed film methods to take many, many images and there is a certain inevitability to producing great photographs if enough images are taken. If little thought is given to the photography, normally around 1 in 1,000 images might be great.

Child's Play uses skilful preparation of the environment and relaxed coaching throughout the sesssion gives a much higher success rate, typically 1 in 3 images are good and often 1 in 10 is really great. Everyone blinks once in a while and there's no need to be ashamed of it!

Unlike some studios offering a rigid 1 hour session, Child's Play will take as long as it needs to get the subjects to relax. With children in particular, adult ideas of timetables are not always convenient and it is simply necessary to watch and wait with the camera on hand; sometimes photos need to be deliberately "wasted" to allow the subject to get used to the sight and sound of the studio lights. If the studio environment is not preferred then outdoor photography obeys the same rules - time to relax and manipulation of light & mood - for producing great photographs.

Child's Play doesn't use artificial ruses to invent photographs but rather explains at every turn the how and the why of being photographed - body language, composition and expression - so that you need never worry about being photographed again.

In combination with the skill to recognise and grab those moments of mirth and warmth that occur throughout the session, Child's Play typically produces a large number of great images in a single studio visit. In the extremely unlikely event of an unsuccessful session, Child's Play will undertake another after making every effort to find out what the source of discomfort was first time round.