Casting is the first critical step when producing a photo that requires models, whether they’re professional talent or real people. Two years ago I won a project to photograph babies who were to appear in an ad for MAM Pacifiers. Al Schmidt, agency creative director and partner in Fairman, Schmidt & Hurley, Inc., liked the idea of treating his audition for 6 to 12 month old babies as if they were final photos. I lit the casting session as I would for the actual shoot day. Also, I shot high resolution digital instead of low res jpegs (which I would normally do for an audition). The reason for shooting this way grew from my vast experience photographing babies and discovering they weren’t always as happy at the photo session as they were at the audition and vice versa. I felt we might get that happy accident I’m always looking for in a final shoot because of the energy created by many children moving in and out of the studio during an audition . We needed 3 shots of different babies and for the final ad and Al actually used one of the audition photos.

I photographed more than three dozen babies in the course of an 8 hour audition, making between six and thirty six exposures of each child. At any given time during the casting there were two or more babies with as many as five arriving simultaneously. This kept the more alert, outgoing babies excited and interested in their surroundings and I got some great photos both for the ad and my portfolio.