Tips or Tricks for a Birthday Party Photo Shoot

[Miss Kelly]

I've been asked to photograph a little girls 1st Birthday Party. Obviously, I don't want to just take snapshots, I want to take excellent photographs. The party is at her home, inside. I'm not quite sure how much light will be available. I don't have a digital camera (yet) so I'm stuck with the old Nikon SLR.

Can anyone offer any Tips or Tricks for this Birthday Photo Shoot? I would be most appreciative. Thanks!

 

[Miss Kelly]

 

[Master Mason]

hmm..... reaching back in to the reseses...

Inside you should use at least 400 or faster ISO film.

Do you have a built in flash or an external flash?

Be careful of pictures where there is a window are bright light source behind the subject, it causes shadows.

Make sure you have clean shooting lanes.... it is frustrating and you lose your shot, or get a crappy shot when someone gets in front of you.

This is for a 1 year old, so someone will most likely be close to the birthday child... make sure that they are also a part of the picture, not just in it.... in otherwords, you don't want their back very often, but rather a picture of both of them.

Thats about all I can think of, execept work with the appature settings to get the right light and some good portrait style shots.

Hope I was of some small assistance at least.

 

[handicap18]

What kind of lenses do you use. If you don't have one the Nikkor 50mm f/1.8 would be a great lens to use indoors combined with 400 or 800 speed film. It also takes great shots of people combined with a bounce flash when holding the child. (granted you can do this with any lens, but that 50mm is very sharp). Bounce the flash off the ceiling. Only do this when the adults are standing (so long as the ceilings aren't to high).

Be sure to get some good close ups of the child and cake before they let the child lose on the cake. And some wide angle shots of everyone as they sing happy birthday. Lots of times if there are other young kids (3-5 years old maybe) they will "blow candles" a few times so the other kids get a chance as well. Good time for closeups.

If they do let the child lose on the cake by him/herself be sure to get closeups of the face and the messy cake. Those are always great shots.

Try to get down to the childs level a few times. I think thats a better angle than the standard you stand and take picture while child is sitting at the table below you.

If you can pose a few shots before blowing out the candles a nice one would be with the child and cake with burning candles with the camera eye level with the child.

Most importantly (from a lesson learned many years ago) make sure you continually check your settings and light meter in the viewfinder (I believe my Nikon N70 had one, but its been a while since I used that camera). The last thing you want is to take a few rolls and find out after they've been developed that you underexposed EVERYTHING becuase you left it on aperture priorty from the last time you used the camera. DOH!! That was very embarassing.

 

[Miss Kelly]

Thank you both for the wonderful advice. I will put it to good use!

 

[manning]

Maybe you do not want to bounce the flash off the ceiling.

Bounce it ONLY if the ceiling is WHITE.

The light from the flash will bounce off the ceiling as the color of the ceiling, I.E. if the ceiling is blue you will get a blue cast on your pictures.

Shoot at the child's eye level. especially the cake shot, it is the most important one. You will get much more pleasing pictures.

These sites might help. Also google "taking children birthday parties"

http://www.kodak.com/eknec/PageQuerier.jhtml?pq-path=42/92&pq-locale=en_US

http://www.mommysavers.com/frugal-holidays/great-birthday-party-pictures.shtml