On the first Saturday of this month I did a photo shoot for reactkids casting & modelling agency. It’s a new company based in Coventry who do castings for film, TV and modelling and run weekly acting workshops for kids to practice and learn skills. Samantha & Kevin who run reactkids contacted me about doing some photos; we had a good brainstorming meeting to discuss their needs and came up with some ideas for the shoot.
The shoot would be held on a Saturday between 11:00am till 2:00pm about 10 kids all needing at least 5 different poses with a mix of two different backdrops.
We started the shoot against the white background (BG) as this takes the most time to setup, and having got there a little early I had time before the kids turned up to set up. I used a lastolight hilite pop-up background with an SB800 flash inside. A Gemini 500 with softbox camera right, Gemini 500 with shoot through umbrella camera left, and slightly back. I then completed the set up with a gridded SB800 behind the subject for a hair light. See my bad lighting diagram for more details.
This went well, used a comfy stool for the close up and mid shots so the kids were relaxed. 
Talking them through the process and asking them questions and making jokes made them feel relaxed which is key to the whole thing. Most important thing I’ve found is you have got to make conversation get a good rapport going and then it is so much easier to get good photos.
After getting shots of all the kids I quickly packed down the white BG and setup for the next shot. While the kids were changing into a different outfits to vary the shot, I went to set up the next shoot loaction. We were shooting in the Ice building, Coventry, which had a good exposed brick wall to use as a BG; perfect.
I positioned a softbox high & angled down only about a foot out of the frame and just forward of the subject. I then draped a black cloth down the back of the softbox to increase the falloff of light.
A SB800 in a LumiQuest III softbox (left of camera) with a 1/4 CTO gel on to add a warm fill light (this was a couple of drops under exposed). I put a gridded SB800 in the BG as a hairlight (in this case on the right side)
Another bad lighting diagram
This all well surprising well without any problems, other then keep moving the main softbox key light up and down depending on how tall of short each kid was. For some shots I put a light low and close to the wall to give the BG a boost, this worked great for some shots but I like the added depth of the slightly darker background.
I may have taken more shots then necessary, as the hardest part was editing the photos down to just five shots per child, but better to have too many than the other way round. Most important the client said they were really please with how the shoot when and how the photos came out so a job well done for me!
