In this post I’ll give you some ideas for How to Take Great Pictures of your Kids. I’m not a great portrait photographer, in fact I try to steer clear of photographing people, but being a parent has meant I’ve had on and off a willing or not so willing model to practice on. Here are some ideas that will help you when you are photographing kids of your own that have worked and given me some great shots of my child without the cheesy grin or hands over her face.
Photographing Kids at Play
Kids of all sizes love to play, whether is playing a game at home or running around and exploring a play park or on the beach. These times offer great opportunities for natural un-posed photographs of your children. While they are distracted with the business of having fun you should be able to find plenty of opportunities for shooting photos.
In the park get on the play equipment with them, sit on the opposite side of round-a-bouts so you have a good view, or get ready at the bottom of the slide to take an action shot. This will take practice or you can make good use of the burst mode if your camera or phone has it, that way you will be more likely to get a good framed photo with a nice natural expression.
Photographing Kids, Caught Of Guard
Another way to photograph natural photos of children is to catch them off-guard. When your child is doing something or watching something they will not notice you setting up your picture. The trick is to get your shot lined up, then at the last minute call their name so that they turn to look at you and the camera. Be ready to take the picture as soon as they look at you before they have time to realise what you are doing and the cheesy grin or blocking hand appears.
To get the best out of this technique don’t use it all the time or your child will know what you are up to.
Photographing Kids Showing off
Most children can be huge show-offs. Use this to your advantage and get them to demonstrate their skill, posing ability or new thing to you.
While your child is demonstrating or showing you something they will be less focused on the camera so you will get more natural looking shots.
In Conclusion
The above tricks were all used to capture the photographs on this page. The younger the child is generally the easier it is to photograph them looking relaxed and natural. That isn’t to say you can’t shoot your teenager using the same techniques, you just have to be a bit more devious.
The Last Word
A couple of final general tips that apply to most photography, take lots of photographs and delete to ones that don’t work and invest in a simple editing tool that will help you crop your pictures so that your child is the main focus of the picture.