Portraits by Helen Whittle

Hi, I’m Helen Whittle. I’m a mum to three beautiful and exhausting children, currently living on a farm in the Central West of NSW. My background is veterinary medicine, but photography is my creative outlet. I specialize in fine-art child portraiture and I am inspired by dramatic and natural light. With a style consisting of mainly black and white, I just love to produce simple, emotive and authentic images. My passion is to capture raw and genuine emotions, and I spend my time finding beauty in my every day.

This image was taken with me standing outside and the kids standing inside looking through an open window.

My gear

Currently I shoot with a Nikon D750, I have the 24-70mm f2.8 which is my ‘go to’ lens, I also have the 35mm f2, and the 50mm, 1.4 and the sweet35 lensbaby. I use Lightroom and Photoshop for post processing.

Where did it all begin?

I have carried a camera around with me since I was a teenager. I would spend hours and hours arranging my photos into albums. I used photography very much as a way of documenting my life.

I came to Australia in 2004 as a backpacker and met my husband. My son was born in 2008 and, tragically, in that first 24 hours of life he had a brain haemorrhage, and we found ourselves in Intensive care. To cut a very long story short, he survived, but because of this initial event, it meant that he was constantly being monitored by paediatricians and had weekly hospital visits. To keep my family informed, I decided to write a blog.

This blog was pretty basic. A few photos of my son, at the hospital, with various doctors and updates on his latest progress. The blog was both therapeutic for me, and informative for my friends and relatives.

This meant that my camera was with me a lot of the time. It was just a little canon point and shoot. I was always thinking about the next blog and photos to go on the blog.

It was a miracle to us that he survived, we literally feel so blessed to have him without any abnormalities....we were told me might never walk or talk.....so I really felt the need to capture every moment.

My first born son, aged 10.

My photos were pretty terrible for many years, so I decided to do a few online courses and in 2014, I decided to up-grade to a DSLR and do a 365 project. I’m sure you all know, but basically you take a picture every day for a year. I joined a website, and started uploading and posting. Every day.

This image was taken in my house, with my daughter lying on the floor next to the window. She lay the dead butterfly on her eye and stared right into the lens.

It was an incredible year. I was seriously addicted.

In that year, I think my photography dramatically improved. I was practicing every day which made me ask myself lots of questions....... What did I like to photograph? Why am I taking a picture of this car, or this raindrop, or the washing line????

The 365 project turned into the 1,020 project. I took a photo religiously for 1,020 days. And I learnt a lot. It was in this time, that my love of child portraiture grew and my style developed.

What makes a remarkable portrait?

This light effect was from the sun shining through some shutters in my office room.

Creating remarkable portraits is not as easy as it seems?! It can be extremely tricky. When we start out with photography, we learn how to use our cameras, all the technical elements of exposure, and we learn the rules. And if we are lucky these can help us to create something that will move our audience. This special element that gives a portrait a ‘wow’ factor is often indescribable and also is unique to each individual viewer. Then when we succeed, it is time, practice and reflection that allows us to increase the frequency of this remarkable work.

Here are three things I think are essential to create a remarkable portrait:

A/ Connection– between the photographer and the subject – when this doesn’t work, we can end up with a forced looking image.

This image was taken in my living room, with the side light coming from a window to the right.

You want to be able to make the viewer feel like the subject is connecting with the audience not just the photographer.

B/Originality and authenticity– be different, be original, this will help your images stand out from the crowd.

My daughter was lying on the floor and I was leaning over her when she put her feet up to the camera.

C/Narrative– what is the story? This is sometimes obvious with the image itself, sometimes a text with the image can change your feelings about it. What is the story you want your viewers to see, and what emotion do you want them to feel?

What is the story behind an image, what do you want the viewer to take from it or learn from it?

What is my process?

This is the process I need to go through to make a portrait that has an impact:

1/ Vision and idea. This is often the hard part. What is your vision for your portrait, what is the idea? This can start as something small and develop during your session, or you can spend weeks thinking about this and planning down to the final details. Or sometimes it just happens in the instant you pick up your camera.

2/ Styling. This can be on location, or at home, or in a studio. Is this going to be inside or outside, what clothes, what colours, what props have you got around your house – is this going to be a vintage or modern image, bright, or dark? Collect images that you like in pinterest or Instagram, eliminating what you do and don’t like over time. Sometimes styling or a thought process doesn’t occur, it’s just a case of seeing something I love and grabbing my camera.

3/ Light. For me, this is the key to every image you ever take. The light is the key to the story you are trying to tell, and if it isn’t right the image can fail. Always think about your light. What are the advantages of using natural vs artificial? Or being inside or outside? Using soft or harsh, dappled, low light, torch light or maybe you want to use mobile phone light? Practice and practice in all of these different situations.

4/ Connection– This is a difficult thing to teach, it often comes with your own personality and theirs, and may not always happen. It can be how you talk to your subject, how you give guidance, your general demeanour, staying calm, not getting frustrated – children will pick up on this and get upset or difficult. Do lots of waiting, timing is crucial – waiting for the time when they relax.

Sometimes waiting a few seconds until you feel the right moment arises can be crucial.

5/ Composition– This can vary again with the story you are trying to tell, it needs a feeling of balance - for me, I generally like eyes straight, balance around the outside, rule of thirds, but also subject in the middle, leading lines, and using negative space effectively.

I love to capture raw emotion.

6/ Editing– This is your final touch, make it unique. Editing allows you to have consistent style, know how to use the tools in post processing to allow you to have the effect you want. But you need a good have a good raw image.

This image was taken in my living room, using natural light from a window to the right.

Final image, after processing in lightroom and photoshop.

I really hope you have found this lesson useful. Its been a pleasure to be here any share my tips and tricks. Please feel free to ask me any questions! Happy snapping, love Helen xxx