Have a pro at your side - online, all the time
Learn to capture unique, creative, and exciting pictures of kids. Instructor Vik Orenstein, the celebrated author of
Creative Techniques for Photographing Children will help you get great pictures of newborns, babies, toddlers, teenagers - kids or grandkids of all ages - before they grow up. If you want to become a skilled family, child, newborn, or baby photographer, join this exciting online course.
Key Features
- Looking and Laughing
- Extreme Close-ups: Imagine Your Child as a Flower
- Capturing the Moment
- Using Parents and Other Props
- Manipulating Natural Light
- Eliminating Distractions
- Shooting Black and White
- Capturing a Full Range of Expressions
- Course Updated and Improved for 2009!!
- Unique and creative photos of children.
- Natural expressions and memorable moments.
- For parents and professionals alike.
What You Get
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Benefits:
You get direct feedback on your photos from world-acclaimed, professional photographers. You can learn photography in this way from anywhere in the world.
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- Learn at your pace, with structure.
- Be guided by a real pro instructor.
- Get your photos critiqued every week.
- Join students from around the world.
- Go far beyond any book or DVD.
- Make great pictures, again and again!
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Instructor
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Vik OrensteinPhotographer / writer Vik Orenstein owns and operates KidCapers portraits (formerly Kidshooters) and three Tiny Acorn Studios - both nationally recognized photography studios specializing in hand-colored child portraits. She has consulted as a child photography expert and shot for Nikon and Pentax.
Vik has shot commercially for such clients as Microsoft, 3M, and Hormel. She makes frequent television and radio appearances to give advice on how to make great portraits of kids.
She is the author of the Photographers Market Guide to Building Your Business and the classic Creative Techniques for Photographing Children (second edition).
Join Vik to learn how to make truly creative and wonderful pictures of kids or how to make the most of a studio lighting environment.
A Couple of Photos by the Instructor
© Vik Orenstein | 
© Vik Orenstein |
A Couple of Student Photos
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View photos by previous students. You can make pictures like this too!
© Tracie K. Radtke
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© Tracie K. Radtke
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Course Outline
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Week 1: Looking and Laughing
Lesson: How amuse and connect with your young subjects.
Assignment: Get a shot of a kid (or kids) laughing and looking directly into the camera
Week 2: Extreme Close-ups: Imagine Your Child as a Flower
Lesson: How to create graphic, abstract, or "botanical" portraits.
Assignment: Shoot extreme close-ups of babies' or toddlers' napes, faces, bottoms, hands, feet, belly buttons, and more.
Week 3: Capturing the Moment
Lesson: How to isolate a child at the decisive moment of an action.
Assignment: Shoot a child at the pinnacle of a jump in the air, a twirl, or in the act of throwing a ball.
Week 4: Using Parents and Other Props
Lesson: How to use the parents to help visually or physically anchor the child and create a simple, uncluttered image.
Assignment: Make a portrait of a child clinging to his parents' legs, with his head in his mother's lap, or resting his head on his father's shoulder.
Week 5: Manipulating Natural Light
Lesson: How to make the sun do what you want it to do.
Assignment: Make a portrait in natural light using environmental elements and homemade reflectors to highlight your subjects.
Week 6: Eliminating Distractions
Lesson: How to isolate for the least cluttered background.
Assignment: Make a portrait of a child in her home environment using focal length, perspective, and forethought to eliminate clutter from the background.
Week 7: Shooting Black and White
Lesson: The how, why, and where of shooting black and white photos of children.
Assignment: Use a fast, high grain black and white film (or your digital camera and Photoshop) to create a dramatic, ethereal quality in a portrait.
Week 8: Capturing a Full Range of Expressions
Lesson: Smiles and laughter aren't the only expressions portraits can capture.
Assignment: Use your knowledge of and rapport with kids to depict contemplation, concentration, wonder, surprise, and more.
Review: Voting on Best Work
© Vik Orenstein | 
© Vik Orenstein |
Requirements
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- Digital or film-based camera.
- Ability to control aperture & shutter speed.
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FAQ
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Is this course intended only for photographers who use regular, film-based cameras or can digital photographers participate as well?
This course is open to any photographer who wants to learn how to make better photos of their children or their clients' children. As most of the principles are the same whether you use a film camera or a digital camera, the class is open to both.
Specifically, what kind of camera and equipment will I need to take this course?
I recommend an SLR camera, at least one zoom lens, and a tripod.
Can we use photo imaging software like Photoshop?
Yes, that is OK by me.
© Vik Orenstein | 
© Vik Orenstein |
Do I have to be online at any specific time?
No, you do not need to be online at any specific time. The lessons are sent to your email and you are also provided the Campus Square - where you interact with your classmates and instructor. This is also where you upload your photos to be critiqued by your instructor. The instructors are very punctual and respond quickly.
Will I have access to the instructor to ask questions during the photo course?
Absolutely! Students can ask questions in the special Q&A forum set up in the course's Campus Square, or can ask the instructor via email.
Do you offer a money back guarantee?
Yes. We are confident that you will fully enjoy our courses. All the same, for our 8-week classes, we offer a 100% money-back guarantee before the Wednesday that Lesson #3 is sent out. If for any reason, you are not satisfied and let us know that you would like to withdraw before the Wednesday that Lesson #3 is sent, you will be promptly refunded.
For our 4-week courses, we offer a 100% money back guarantee before the Wednesday that Lesson #2 is sent out from BetterPhoto. If for any reason you are not satisfied and you let the ordering department know that you would like to withdraw before the Wednesday that Lesson #2 is sent, you will be refunded within 7 days. After the second lesson has been sent out, no refunds will be given.
If you have further questions about this course, feel free to contact us via the Contact link below.
Only $297.00 USD
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