++ The Karate Kid ++

What started out to be a photo shoot with a mother who wanted some shots for an upcoming CD cover became a much more exciting session with her young son. Once I finished up with mom – her son came out in his karate uniform. I agreed to take some shots of him – the day was nice and he was ready to go. I took the usual shots of different stances. Being that we were in his backyard somewhat limited the excitement of the shots (since he had a fence all around the back yard and the background did not lend itself to some really striking shots (no pun intended).

After taking a few mundane shots I glanced over at the trampoline and got an idea. I asked him if he could do some kicks while up the air. He said he could. I then asked him to jump up and down on the trampoline to get an idea of weather my vision would work. While he jumped I stationed myself in various locations and took some test shots. I wanted a picture of him in the air doing a kick with nothing but clouds in the background.

After taking into account such things as the position of the sun, how close to the trampoline I had to be and which way he kicked – the time came for him to ‘do his thing’. While it did take several shots – mainly due to the timing of the kick, his expression and the lighting – we were there in no time. In looking through all the shots I took – this one is the one I am most happy about. I think his expression is self explanatory. He had a blast. I showed him the shot in the viewfinder but of course a viewfinder does not do a final photograph justice. Once he got the print – he and his mother were very pleased.

While this was not a difficult shot – several things had to be considered for it to work. I could have used flash for fill-in but I don’t really like the look of flash. I wanted to see if I could do it with natural light. Another key is your position relative the trampoline. I did not want to get too close because it would look like I was shooting right up his nostrils but yet I had to get close enough to miss the background behind the trampoline. Of course the fact that he could jump fairly high helped.

I hope you enjoy the shot as much as I enjoyed taking it. This setup could be used for several other shoots as well. Perhaps some cheerleader shots would be interesting taken the same way.

So next time you see a trampoline – jump on the opportunity to take a different shot.....