Photographing Childrens’ Fashion
I recently had a children's fashion shoot with Brisbane brand @purecutechild so I thought I’d share some tips for shooting childrens fashion on the blog.
This type of shoot comes with its own challenges and styling decisions and it's a chunky enough topic to deserve its own blog! So, here we go...
Theme:
First things first, we need to establish a theme for the shoot. Childrens fashion shoots are fun, because kids are all about creativity, imagination and play - so we need to explore this with our photography too! So I encourage you to get creative with your children's fashion shoots.
Let kids be kids. This probably comes down to a personal preference but for me. I prefer not to style children in photoshoots as if they were adults. For me it's a bit of a jarring juxtaposition to see a child skulking at the camera and made up like an adult. Instead let's put them in situations, style them, pose them etc as children. This is much more natural for everyone involved and will result in a much more authentic image.
As a starting point, it's a good idea to match your shoot theme to the theme of the clothing and emphasize its practicality and function. So a good first step to ask yourself is: what situation would this clothing be worn? Do you sell clothing that would be great for the beach or a holiday? Wet weather gear? Play wear? Or something grown up which a child might wear to a special (formal) occasion?
Once we’ve established how and when the clothes may be worn we can begin to form an idea of how to bring this situation to life in your scene. For example: If it’s playwear, perhaps we want to create a fun shoot environment with toys and crafting supplies. If it's wet weather wear, then maybe we can style the scene with some rain clouds and umbrellas.
In the below example, the dresses are very girly and would usually be worn at a formal occasion such as a flower girl dress, so we had a simple pink scene and added some paper flowers for the girls to play with.
Set design:
You don’t necessarily need big fancy sets for fashion photography. But they do need to match the mood and theme of your image.
You can choose a lifestyle location, which means going out into the real world and shooting on location. If your theme is a holiday then this location might be the beach, or if your theme is ‘play time’ then this might be a playroom in a nice home.
The downside of location shoots (aside from the unpredictability of weather and public interference) is that these images end up being quite busy. There is a lot going on in the frame and our products can end up competing for the viewers attention.
It's for this reason that many fashion shoots are often better off done in a controlled studio environment. In a studio environment you have control over how busy the backdrop and set are and you can add and remove objects as you please.
You can set up a simple seamless paper backdrop, or work against an empty wall and floor space, then add in creative props to dress the set and introduce your theme (more on this below).
Props / Activity
Incorporating a few props into your scene is an important one for childrens photo shoots:
Props help to introduce your theme. As mentioned above, if you are working in a simple studio set, you want to add some fun props which could help to create mood / theme in your image. This could be as simple as hanging some paper rain clouds in the background and giving your child model a umbrella to play with!
Props can be just about anything! Confetti / paper crafts / balloons / fancy dress masks, the sky’s the limit! Indulge your creativity here and see what you can come up with.
Activities are also helpful, especially when working with children. It’s important to give them prompts and keep them entertained. This could mean that you have a few games for them to play, simple games like patty cake or ring a rosie tend to work great. Or you could have a more interactive activity or craft for them to do. Having an activity on set is going to help you to capture more authentic expressions, movements and moments. It will also keep your model entertained and help to mitigate any restlessness!
I always suggest doing some moodboarding at the onset of your project to help brainstorm some ideas. Feel free to check out my children fashion inspiration board on pinterest here.
Working with child models
Working with children is tricky, so here are my top tips for making it go smoothly:
First up, you're working with kids so we want this shoot to be fun! I like to have music playing to keep the mood light and playful. Spend a few minutes getting to know your child model at the start of the session, so they feel comfortable with you.
Get yourself organised before the children arrive on set. Children have short attention spans and they are not going to want to sit around and wait while you set up your lights and backdrops.
Once you start shooting, give your child model time to explore the set, give them props and allow them to play. Children are very creative and will find interesting things to do with the items they are given. Your job is to be ready and capture their interactions with their surroundings.
Children need space to move, so make sure that your set is big enough for them to move and jump around uninhibited (without banging into anything or knocking over any lights or equipment).
If you are able, it's a good idea to have more than one model on set. Having a friend can make children feel more comfortable and confident and give them a friend to bounce their energy off.
To sum up, shooting childrens fashion is a lot of planning and organising but once you get on set it's fun and creative - so enjoy! And as always please come over to the photography for makers facebook group to share your images - we love to see what you are creating!
Rachel
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Images in this post feature Pure Cute. Pure Cute is one of the makers in the @BrisStyle 2021 Entrepensurship Program, if you’d like to support Pure Cute you can find her gorgeous products for sale at: www.purecute.com.au or follow along on Instagram @purecutechild