General photography for stock questions

[dp69_2001Participant]

I wanted to do a few photos for my first “collection” which is going to be American Sign Language. I’m doing mostly illustrations but my 2 year old is getting really good and I thought that if I could get her to hold still and smile a few shots would be great. I’m using a pretty crappy GE camera http://www.pcmag.com/article2/0,2817,2405181,00.asp usually manual settings. I haven’t done much photography since high school. What do you think should be my biggest concern in getting some shots? They’ll probably be exclusive since I don’t want to deal with model release and all that garbage. Unless it happens to be a popular set.

[JoAnnSnoverParticipant]

Lighting and background.

Not sure what you have for lighting and whether you were planning to do isolations or a scene (such as her at a chair or in front of a white board/black board), but ensure that you have enough light to get good illumination with no hard shadows or on camera flash. If the message of the shot is the signs, then you don’t want a busy background or anything distracting.

I’m not familiar with that camera but I read the summary at the link you provided and it talked about good results in good light, so don’t depend on cranking up the ISO.

You might also consider some closer shots of just her hands making signs – sometimes things have more possible uses if you don’t see a face.

[dp69_2001Participant]

@joannsnover wrote:

Lighting and background.

Not sure what you have for lighting and whether you were planning to do isolations or a scene (such as her at a chair or in front of a white board/black board), but ensure that you have enough light to get good illumination with no hard shadows or on camera flash. If the message of the shot is the signs, then you don’t want a busy background or anything distracting.

I’m not familiar with that camera but I read the summary at the link you provided and it talked about good results in good light, so don’t depend on cranking up the ISO.

You might also consider some closer shots of just her hands making signs – sometimes things have more possible uses if you don’t see a face.

I was mostly thinking outside in the daylight, which will be tough since the grass is all brown here now. I could build a light if needed but, was mostly thinking kind of natural.

I could pretty easily isolate for a shoot. I have a bunch of blank newspaper 😉

[JoAnnSnoverParticipant]

If you’re shooting outside, even if it’s a bright overcast day (best) get a reflector. A large white board will do if you don’t have a reflector. Take a look at this example that I used a while back to show the difference of without/with reflector shooting outside on an overcast day (click for full size)

[url]=http://digitalbristles.com/temp/Reflector-overcast-day.jpg[/url]

Do you have any light colored walls to use as a background?

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