This evening, I endeavored to photograph one of my favorite subjects: My two-year-old son, Benjamin. Naturally, everyone has the innate desire to photograph their children, but the ante’s actually upped a little in my case. This past Christmas, we purchased a digital photo frame for my in-laws, and we promised them that we’d update their photo collection throughout the year. So I’ve got to make with the picture takin’, or the in-laws gonna’ be pissed…
There are several inherent hazards to photographing the toddler in his natural habitat. First and foremost: Toddlers never stand still for more than 0.03 seconds. It makes it somewhat difficult to set up your studio strobes when your subject will happily stand everywhere except the spot you metered on. (Why yes, I do whip out my studio strobes to take a photo of my toddler. Doesn’t everyone? 
) And focusing? Good luck.
Then there’s also the issue of trying to photograph him in my decidedly non-photographer-friendly apartment. Since there’s a two-year-old living there, it’s always cluttered and messy. Since it’s in New York City, it’s microsocopic in size, so the white walls spill my light everywhere, and I have to use real wide lenses which makes it look all fun-house-mirror-y when he comes close to the camera, which he loves to do.
And still, sometimes, it all works out:
Greetings, everyone! My name is Jason, and I am a photographer.
(Hi, Jason.)
Being a photographer and a geek, I’m something of a mad scientist. I’m always fooling around with different lights and modifiers. Naturally, I prefer to do my funky experiments on friends and family before I try them out on paying clients. This presents an issue. My wife, although stunningly beautiful, doesn’t like to be photographed unless she’s had time to do her hair and makeup. This does not mesh well with my ad-hoc fooling around. That leaves me with one and only one subject: Benjamin, my two-year old.
My boy doesn’t mind being photographed at all. In fact, he quite enjoys it, and especially enjoys seeing the results on the back of my camera and on the computer. Unfortunately, the one thing that he won’t do is sit still for two seconds in order for me to actually take the photo. Somehow, somewhere in the deep recesses of his brain, he knows exactly how long it takes for my lens to focus, because just as focus is achieved, he runs madly out of the viewfinder, either to look at the photo that I haven’t yet taken or to do whatever else it is that commands the gnat-like attention of a two year old.
Occasionally though, he’ll sit still for two seconds and you get something like this:
My son Benjamin looking over his left shoulder in a moody, hard-light portrait
