How to photograph young musicians

How to get great shots with available light

Shooting Musicians
The most important knowledge photographers bring to their craft is an understanding of the subject matter. The technical knowledge is easy. Once you figure out how to expose the film correctly and focus, your main challenges will be related to how well you can communicate the experience of performing. You should pay close attention to the details of your child's instrument and playing. This will teach you the really valuable things. For example, if your child plays the cello you will learn that shots from stage left are much different than those stage right because you can include the scroll of the cello in the shot. You will also know that because of the way the cello works you will be able to get tighter shots when they are playing in thumb position because cellists tend to lean in when playing in thumb position. (You will learn what thumb position is.) You will notice that unless you are cropping very tightly, shots that show both hands of the cellist work better. This means you will wait until they are playing at the frog or at most mid-bow so you don't crop out the bow hand. It is also helpful to know the pieces so you can predict how they will be moving and more importantly how quickly they will be moving. After a little observation you will notice that a string player's bow arm moves faster during louder passages and wind players breath at the end of phrases. Some people tend to take shots at the end of phrases (it sometimes just feels right). They end up with a roll full of shots with a trumpet player's mouth open. This is obvious to musicians but not to everyone. You can go to lessons and learn what good posture looks like for your kid's instrument. Although it probably doesn't make much difference in your own photo album, if you ever do this professionally for a school it is imperative that the photos show good posture. They simply can not use the photo otherwise.

Gear
The first question is always "what kind of camera do you use?" I am a strong proponent of the idea that great photos can be made with any camera but because of the nature of shooting live performances with available light there are some practical considerations that limit the effectiveness of certain types of cameras and lenses.

Flash
You need to be able to turn off your flash. Although most children seem to be immune to stage fright and the concentration problems that plague adults, a bright flash of light coming from a dark hall is impossible to ignore. It can ruin a performance. It is distracting to an audience as well. It also ruins more pictures than anything else that comes to mind. There are many ways photographers approach artificial light to get great results, but never have I heard anyone say "lets put the smallest light imaginable as close to the lens as possible." Unfortunately this is exactly what camera manufactures do when they build a flash unit into the camera. They cause red eye, very flat lighting, and those pesky shadows behind your subject. For this type of photography don't use flash. Everyone will like you more and your pictures will be better.

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