Children's Portrait Photography Handbook

using the same color space for maximum control of the
image subtleties.

Exposure.

Latitude.When it comes to exposure, digital is not
nearly as forgiving as color negative film. The latitude is
simply not there. Most digital photographers compare
shooting digital (JPEGs) to shooting transparency film,
in which exposure latitude is usually ±^1 / 2 stop or less.
With transparency film erring on either side of correct
exposure is bad. When shooting digitally, exposures on
the underexposed side are still salvageable, while overex-
posed images—images where there is no highlight de-
tail—are all but lost forever. You will never be able to
restore the highlights that don’t exist in the original ex-
posure. For this reason, most digital images are exposed
to ensure good detail in the full range of highlights and
midtones and the shadows are either left to fall into the
realm of underexposure or they are “filled in” with aux-
iliary light or reflectors to ensure adequate detail.
Evaluating Exposure.There are two ways of evaluat-
ing the exposure of a captured image: by judging the his-
togram and by evaluating the image on the camera’s
LCD screen. By far, the more reliable is the histogram,
but the LCD monitor provides a quick reference for mak-
ing sure things are okay—and particularly if the image is
sharp.
The histogram is a graph that indicates the number of
pixels that exist for each brightness level in an individual
image. The range of the histogram represents 0 to 255
steps from left to right, with 0 indicating “absolute” black
and 255 indicating “absolute” white.
The histogram gives an overall view of the tonal range
of the image and the “key” of the image. A low-key
image has its detail concentrated in the shadows (a high
number of data points near the 0 end of the scale). A
high-key image has detail concentrated in the highlights
(a high number of data points near the 255 end of the
scale). An average-key image has detail concentrated in
the mid-tones. An image with a full tonal range has a high
number of pixels in all areas of the histogram.
In an image with a good range of tones, the histogram
will fill the length of the graph (i.e., it will have detailed

shadows and highlights and everything in between). De-

tailed highlights will fall in the 235–245 range; detailed

blacks will fall in the 15–30 range. A histogram repre-

senting good exposure will expand to the full range—but

without it going off at the ends of the scale.

Overexposure is indicated when data goes off the right

end of the graph, which is the highlight portion of the

histogram. This means that the highlights are lacking

image detail, tone and color. In a properly exposed

image, the data on the right side of the graph almost

reaches the end of the scale but stops a short distance be-

fore the end.

When an image is underexposed, the information in

the histogram falls short of the right side and bunches up

DIGITAL CONSIDERATIONS 21

FACING PAGE—Bruce Dorn, noted filmmaker turned portrait and wedding photographer, created this beautiful image of two young bal-
let dancers. The image was digitally captured and then worked in Painter and Photoshop. Brush strokes cover every square of the image,
layer upon layer, with minimal intrusion on the faces. The effect is beautiful.

MORE ON COLOR SPACE

Is there ever a need for other color spaces? Yes. It depends on your

particular workflow. For example, all the images you see in this

book have been converted from their native sRGB or Adobe 1998

RGB color space to the CMYK color space for photomechanical

printing. As a general preference, I prefer images from photogra-

phers be in the Adobe 1998 RGB color space as they seem to con-

vert more naturally to CMYK.

Ironically, if you go into Photoshop’s color settings mode and

select U.S Pre-press Defaults, Photoshop automatically makes

Adobe RGB 1998 the default color space. Out of the box, Photo-

shop’s default color settings are for the Web, which assumes an

sRGB color space, and color management is turned off.

THE TEAM APPROACH

While children’s portraiture takes unending amounts of patience

and skill, it also takes an extraordinary amount of timing and team-

work. If you pursue this specialty, you will eventually come to the

conclusion that one pair of eyes and hands is not enough—it takes

a team to effectively photograph children. Sometimes it even takes

you, your assistant,andthe child’s mother to make things work.

Often, a husband and wife act in concert to create children’s

portraits. One will be the “entertainer,” using props and a sooth-

ing voice, stimulating the child to look alert and in the right direc-

tion for the camera. The other will be the technician, making the

images, adjusting lighting, camera settings and composition, and

trying to be as unobtrusive as possible. The “entertainer” works at

getting the child’s attention without overstimulation, which often

brings the session to a screaming (literally) halt.