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Elena Shumilova A.K.A Photographer Mom Shares Her Techniques For Photographing Kids

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Russian Photographer and mom Elena Shumilova became kinda famous when photos of her kids and family went viral in early 2014.  In total her photos were views over 60,000,000 times (and I guess they were viewed outside her profile some 60 million more).

Something about her photography struck a chord with almost everyone, photographers, mothers, father, young and old. I guess the innocence and feeling of childhood that projected from her photos were just irresistible.

Elena shared some great advice on photographing kids with the crew at Smugmug and agreed to share them with DIYP readers.

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Stock Photography or Just Awesome Family Photos?

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One of the things that I love about creating stock photography is that it gives me an incentive to create very artistic and polished photographs of my own family.

I have been shooting for Stocksy for nearly a year now, and a sizable portion of my portfolio are photos of family members – to steal a line from Chase Jarvis:

“The best model is the one you have with you”

When I look back on my portfolio, I see a whole year of family photos that are completely different than the snapshots I would normally take.

In this article, I am going to share a few of the stories behind some of my favorite family photos.

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How To Take Magical Family Candids

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Some time ago the wonderful images of Elena Shumilova went viral. Suddenly there were dogs, rabbits and cute children everywhere. And I have to say – these images are extraordinary – we instantly begin to dream and to fell fuzzy. Something is going on with us while looking at these images. In some way, her work is magical.

After a while threads started popping up in forums, asking about the secrets and post production in Elena’s work.

The stuff I usually do is definitely different from soft warm portraiture, also I am not the photographer on the team – my job in the process has to do more with the technical planning of shots, lighting and retouching.

As a father of a two-year-old girl, owner of a DSLR and with a girlfriend who’s blogging, I had to expand my principles. So I started analyzing Elenas images and wrote some key elements in her images down. I did not want to copy her compositions,  or wanted to recreate her image ideas – which is technically not possible, because I don’t have a big dog, or rabbit around.

The idea was “applying some of her key elements on a normal family trip”.

Last weekend the family went out, the light was quite pleasing, I had my D800 and a 85mm f1.8 lens with me and so I was following my own “ basic shumilova-rules”:[Read More…]

Capture The Moment Photography Does Exist!

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I’m not big on “capture the moment”.  It just sounds so lame and cliché – accidental even. 

Plus the whole idea of capturing the moment is ridiculous.  I mean, as if I am ever going to be in just the right place, with just the right equipment, with just the right models, wearing just the right clothes, with just the right light, at just the right time…?

Well as it turns out, every once in a while you can capture the moment!

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