How to best take a group photo with very large differences on height?

Question

My family will be together for the first tome together. We want to take pictures. My family has very tall (6'6") and short (5'2") adults, and 5 kids, ages 1-12. What can I do to make pleasing photos?

Answer

A lot depends on the number of people and how formal/informal you want the photos to be.

If everyone is the same size, you end up with a straight row of heads, and nothing is les pleasing than that, so differing heights can work well. Unless the tallest or shortest adults are sensitive about their height, I don't think putting the shorter ones on stools to make them about the same height as the larger adults is the way to go. In a very large group you might use benches and so forth to make many rows of people visible, but with a family shot I wouldn't.

There are endless possibilities. You could have most of the adults in the back, and have a few (perhaps the talles/shortest adults) sitting on the ends of the front row, with the kids in the middle.

You could have the adults sitting and the children standing.

For a fun shot, you could try getting up on a ladder and shooting down on them all. The angle of view would put less emphasis on their differences in height.

I like Anisha's last idea, that could be fun. Depends on the family and how traditional a photo they want.

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What solution should I use for cataloging photos for private sharing?

Question

I'm seeking a solution for cataloging many thousands of images. Each photo will be tagged and categorized to become searchable by a small group of private people. I've considered any combination with Lightroom, a custom Wordpress theme, and a private Flickr gallery. Does any one have any additional suggestions?

Answer

Picasa Web Albums work best. It meets the following of your requirements:

• You can catalog a large number of photos (you may need to purchase additional storage from Google based on image resolution, but its relatively cheap)

• You can tag individuals and add categories.

• You can customize your privacy settings and sharing options.

• It's really easy to set-up, use and share.

I have experimented with SlideShowPro, Flickr and Facebook but found Picasa the best option for private sharing.

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Is there a trick to shooting large group portraits without blinkers?

Question

When shooting large group portraits, is there a trick to getting everyone to not blink (other than taking many shots)?

Answer

A couple other tips:

1. Bounce flash, and don't use red-eye reduction mode for your flash
2. Don't be predictable with when you take the shot. Some folks have a special talent for blinking at the wrong time, so don't let them know when the shot is happening
3. Try to avoid having a bunch of other folks taking pictures at the same time. All those other flashes will cause people to blink.

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How does one best deal with shaded faces in bright sunlight?

Question

When photographing people in bright sunlight, parts of faces are often shaded by hats or by their own contours. This creates highly-contrasted faces, and either a very bright background or very dark faces.

Using flash doesn't always help, especially when photographing a large group (~10 people) from a little distance.

What's your solution for this common situation?

Answer

For me, I have reflectors which can be positioned (sometimes with help) so as to fill in the light on the subjects. There are some reasonable 5-in-1 options out there, I have a 43" version of one of them and it works very well, folding up to a pretty small package and giving lots of options for cooling or warming the light as needed.

If you don't have reflectors, but do have larger, bright, surfaces you use, then that too is an option. What it really boils down to is getting some of generally available light redirected to the place you want it and, for that, many reasonably reflective items will help a great deal if sufficiently large. Heck, it can even by some bristol board or shiny wrapping paper, I've done both.

Anyways, those are what I do and, to be honest, I prefer that sort of light over a flash anyways. Fill flash can harsh, especially when it is on camera, and so I prefer to avoid it.

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How do they shoot wide television-show cast photos?

Question

For large ensemble TV show casts, the typical promo photo tend to be a wide shot with everyone standing, with minimal body overlap. It seems like you would need a wide angle to get the whole scene if they are shooting in a studio, but the verticals are perfect at the edges.

How would you replicate this? And is it possible these are photoshopped together from separate portraits?

Examples (you can find many more by image searching for "cast photo"):

http://i.stack.imgur.com/nfGDm.jpg

http://i.stack.imgur.com/HVeDN.jpg

Answer

These are Photoshopped. Each actor is photographed separately or in small groups as appropriate. Then each actor is cut out of their original image and placed in an empty background (either photographed or computer generated).

You can see in some cases that the angle at which the subjects' feet meet the ground isn't quite right (take a look at Christina Hendricks' feet, the red-head in the Mad Men shot, and Kiefer Sutherland's feet in the 24 shot), and that there is no interaction between any of the subjects (apart from where they've been photographed together, as in the guy sat down on the right of the Mad Men shot, where you can see the woman's skirt being pushed in by the chair).

Overall it's pretty simple stuff. The trickiest bit is making sure the lighting of the subjects is consistent (both between subjects and with the background: the 24 shot is a bit dodgy in this regard, it looks like the Kiefer Sutherland shot is from a completely different shoot); the Photoshopping is elementary stuff.

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