Exploitation . . .

By John Terence Turner
Stock Asylum Columnist
July 2, 2007

© 2006 John Terence Turner

“I know that I worked from morning until night, with common men and boys, a shabby child. I know that I lounged about the streets, insufficiently and unsatisfactorily fed. I know that, but for the mercy of God, I might easily have been, for any care that was taken of me, a little robber or a little vagabond.” –– David Copperfield by Charles Dickens

I didn’t think there was much chance of my son becoming either a little robber or vagabond, but I did think it might be a good idea to put Michael to work for me under conditions far more gentle than those experienced by David Copperfield. Michael is, if I might say so, a good looking lad, thanks to his mother's genes.

Employing your own children in front of the camera has several advantages. Model agency kids sometimes have trouble getting used to you as a person and a photographer. Your kids are already comfortable with you, meaning you often can jump right into a shoot with few preliminaries.

At the same time, you know your child's capabilities and limitations. Your child also is available on short notice as you will see below when we discuss the successful stock image of Michael reading on the couch.

And, unlike children from modeling agencies, your child does not come with an extra parent in tow, which leaves you with one less person to manage during the shoot. Moms and dads can't resist telling their children what to do, which may be unwelcome interference during the shoot. Being the photographer and the parent eliminates this source of potential conflict.

Kids do like to ham it up for the camera, so modeling doesn't really feel like work to many of them. As a result, you may find that your own children can be among your best subjects. It is good for your business and they love it when you pay them at the end of the shoot. The remuneration can make them feel a more grown up and respected by you –– their photographer/parent.

Handled well, shooing your own kids is not exploitation. It can be a fun time for parent and child.

One word of caution: even your own kids can have a bad day in front of the camera. When it happens, don't slip into the parent mode. Remain the professional photographer and solve the problem the same way you would if your model were someone else's child.

The author was pleased to learn that his 15-year-old son did not know how to light a cigarette for this image. ( © John Terence Turner ).

The first photo shows Michael as close to being a little vagabond as he ever got.

I had been asked to do a shoot about street kids (see also Real People) for stock. All of Michael’s schooling had him wearing a uniform, so he took the opportunity to make himself look like a street kid with great enthusiasm and careful attention to detail.

We shot in and around the Seattle Public Market. This shot of him lighting a cigarette was done in Post Alley. I was happy to see that at age 15 he didn’t know how to light a cigarette because he’d never done it.

I didn’t want Michael to be a little fashion model; I just wanted him to do real life types of things, Including the sports that he was good at.

Fortunately, one of my regular clients, Patagonia, had a kid’s line of clothes that was a great match for Michael.

As we will see below, I made good use of Michael as both a stock and a outdoor fashion model. While the conditions in which he worked weren’t exactly Dickensian, the results were all I could have asked for.

One afternoon, I returned home from some endless, silly meeting about being “cutting edge,” at an ad agency in downtown Seattle. I found Michael reading a book on the living room sofa.

Finding his son reading on the couch led to this best-selling image. ( © John Terence Turner ).

I was happy to see him reading, but as a photographer, I had a lightning bolt of appreciation of the scene I beheld. “Don’t move.” I said, as I ran upstairs to my equipment storage room.

I returned with a camera bag and tripod. I used a 50mm lens and added a warming filter. I shot half a roll filtered and half a roll without.

In relation to the cost (about $15.00 for film and processing and a couple of bucks for Polaroids), this has been probably the most profitable picture I ever made. It became a runaway best seller and paid for half of Michael’s degree from very good liberal arts college.

The reasons it sold so well are multiple and vary according to the use.

First, it is a photograph of a young boy (age six) reading a book — a universal theme, and it became very popular in many education-related uses.

It is also a warm, homey image that appealed to anyone selling products that needed to project those qualities (financial services, insurance, etc).

Finally, it was popular among anyone selling health-related products. It sold for virtually any family-oriented use you can imagine.

Some pictures require lots of planning and organization and staff services but others just require recognition of what is there. That is what happened with the reading picture.

Nine-year-old Michael and Lilly worked together to help create this image. ( © John Terence Turner ).

The third picture required a little more effort, but not much.

Glazer’s Camera Supply in Seattle has bold red stucco walls. We styled Michael (now age nine) to complement the vivid red of the front of Glazer’s and brought him, his skateboard and our Standard Poodle Lilly to work for their keep on a sunny summer Sunday in Seattle.

My wife stood off-camera with a supply of dog biscuits to entice Lilly and I set up a tripod in the street.

The shooting was easy and we did many versions in less than an hour. Michael rode the skateboard with aplomb, Lilly towed him dutifully toward the ever-available dog biscuit and I blasted away.

This too, became a best seller. It sold particularly well in Europe. Our neighbors across the street came home with a grab-shot done through a windshield of a rent-a-car in Spain. The picture was of a billboard featuring a horizontal version of this image.

They made the snapshot on a freeway in Barcelona, Spain. “We were headed for the airport,” they told us, “ all of a sudden, there’s Michael and Lilly on a billboard!”

Michael flips into a snow-filled pool for this Patagonia shoot. ( © John Terence Turner ).

As Michael grew older, we continued shooting whenever I had ideas that seemed appropriate for him.

I harnessed and roped him and dangled him off a cliff in the San Juan Islands, had him do somersaults into a snow-filled swimming pool at Crystal Mountain, shot him getting big air on a mountain bike in the Cascades, skiing powder at Crystal, ski racing in the Rocky Mountain Division in Colorado, and playing lead guitar and singing for a rock band in college.

All in all, it was a far cry from a Dickens workhouse existence.

In the fourth shot here, we see the snow-filled swimming pool shot (age ten) which appeared in a Patagonia catalogue. All told, he appeared a half dozen times in Patagonia’s various catalogues. The shot of him skiing powder (age 14) in a steep bowl was also in a Patagonia catalogue.

The young model enjoyed this shoot, but the photographer got a little dizzy. ( © John Terence Turner ).

Another photograph that was extremely easy and had considerable success was the shot of Michael on the merry-go-round (at the age of 6).

I sat in the middle with a 24mm lens, the camera set to 15th of a second. My assistant spun the carousel while I shot. Michael did fine.

As for me, looking through a wide-angle lens while spinning on a merry go round, made me nauseous, but I controlled the impulse to throw up and got the picture.

One of the sales of this picture was as a greeting card. Inside it said, “Time flies when you’re having fun.” We got 50 of them and have used them for special occasions ever since.

An older Michael is seen skiing Washington State powder at Crystal Mountain for this Patagonia image. ( © John Terence Turner ).

The skiing shot was another Patagonia project. They sent a one-piece ski suit for Michael. The weather at Crystal Mountain was new snow with a little sunshine coming through the flakes at the end of a storm.

As soon as the lifts opened we headed to the aptly-named Powder Bowl and skied down the narrow chutes that feed into the main bowl.

This shot is of Michael handling some wind-blown powder by making the turn in the air instead of under the crusty surface.

The final photograph is of Michael in college.

Among other things, he was singer and lead guitar for a still-legendary band modestly named, "Excalibur-Gods of Rock," in college and this is a photograph of him practicing in the atrium of one of the buildings.

It was done using a strobe with a soft-box.

I used a long exposure during which I zoomed the wide-angle lens.

I picked the location because of the numerous light-sources in the space, which turned into laser-like streaks of light during the zoom.

There are a number of ways of handling the finances of shooting your child.

Keep in mind, the money you pay them is deductible, it can go into the college fund and they will pay a lower tax rate than you do.

Also, you’ll end up with a lot of pictures of them as they grow up.

(John Terence Turner has been shooting stock photography for 20 years. His work can be seen at Getty Images, Alamy and, of course, The Stock Asylum, where his column appears twice a month. He lives and works in Seattle, WA.)

Turner's web site can be found at: http://www.johnterenceturner.com.

For more of his images: click here.

For all of Turner's columns: click here.