Taking Awesome Pictures of Kids: Se7en Tips

Beautiful pictures of kids always turn out fantastic because they are usually taken from the eye level (or lower) of the kids. This means you, the photographer, must squat down either on one knee or a simple bottoms-touch-the-heel posture. This works best if the model (child) is staying fairly still in one position or one area. This technique will allow you to get better view of your child's facial features, facial expressions, and even the curls in their hair or freckles or that twinkle in their eyes.

As you are looking through the viewfinder or the camera monitor, imagine as if that image in front of you is sliced into 9 different equal pieces by two vertical lines and two horizontal lines that divide the image into thirds both horizontally and vertically. Where these lines intersect, those intersections are the key spots where the human eyes are naturally drawn toward. Place your child's eyes or face on any of the four intersections. Never put the child's face or body or any significant object right in the middle, right at the top, right at the bottom, or away in the corner. But hey, rules are meant to be broken. So experiment as you wish, but as you see on some of the pictures posted on this article as well as other amazing pictures all over the online web galleries, they usually follow the rule of thirds.

Let your kids wear clothes and shoes or hairpins with bright colors, especially if the background is boring or blah. This will make the whole picture stands out better. However, if the background is already full of many bright colors, you should go for the opposite. For instance, if you are taking pictures of the kids on the pile of golden-red-yellow maple leaves on the green-grass-ground, the kids will look much better if they wear muted color clothing such as white, grey, black, or earthy tone clothing. This will make them stand out from the background as well and bring their faces out even more. ~ KingArthurPhoto.com

Aim the camera at the child's face the entire time while pressing the shutter button continuously and say silly things to stimulate their reactions. Our two-year old daughter would always break into laughter when we say silly things like, "Did Donald turn into frog?" (from the Disney's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse Storybook Surprises) or "Honey, do you like chocolate or grandpa?" "Did Daddy get a fresh diaper?" If you are photographing a newborn or a toddler, a simple Elmo or Barbie doll sitting on your head while you are taking pictures will cause enough interesting facial expressions from your child, particularly the cute curious smiles. Unless your child has missed his/her nap and has been crabby, in most cases, their faces will lit up or they will attempt to respond to the silly questions.

Obviously, you, the photographer, must also be in the same positive, laughing mode when taking the pictures because the child(ren) will pay attention to your facial expression to determine how things are going. If s/he sees that you are having fun, most likely s/he will trust that all is fine and she can laugh as well.

Out of the thousands of pictures I have taken as a photographer, the cream of the crop, the best of the best, have always been the ones that I captured during these "fleeting moments." It may be the two seconds your child had when she made that super cute facial expression and you just happened to snap twenty pictures. It may be when your child is running toward you and you kept pressing that shutter button over and over and over for continuous exposures. Unless you are taking pictures of a wedding and you are running out of space in your memory card, delete the obvious ones, but leave the rest in the memory card and only sort through them when you are in front of a PC/Mac with big screen in front you. Out of ten or thirty pictures, one or two will be priceless. Delete the rest or make a collage. Look at the collage that I put at the top of this Squidoo article of our daughter, Princess Adrianna Dancing. All the pictures there were taken between 7:06AM and 7:08AM with the morning sunlight behind her and she twirled around with her favorite new orange dress. If you pay close attention you can notice from hair and her eyes that she just woke up like five minutes ago. Not many parents would be ready with a dslr on their hands to capture these fleeting moments, but boy was I glad that I grabbed my camera. She only did this dancing thing for two minutes and after that she moved on to something totally different and wouldn't repeat that dance even when I begged.

So remember, digital age means memory card can take tons of pictures, unlimited (technically) and you can always delete them later. Snap, snap, snap. Live on continuous exposure rapid fire mode (read tip #7 below) because once it's gone, it's gone. So capture these special moments. Get super fast high capacity memory card like the one I handpicked below, the Transcend 32GB Class 10 SDHC. Class 10 allows you to take super fast pictures and videos with high quality compared to the lowly Class2, 4, or 6 memory cards. Unlimited. Keep snapping and capturing priceless memories. Sort them later.

The simplified explanation is that artificial lighting like fluorescent light bulbs, neons, etc. are bad in general for kids photography. They make their skins look pale because they only emit blue and green light while deficient in red light. To make matters worse, they make dark shadows under the model' eyes. Natural or available lighting makes the most pleasant effect on anybody's face or body. So, the best time to take pictures of kids are early morning and late afternoon. Dawn and dusk. Sunlight during these times are diffused, flat, and produces great images that are vibrant in colorr. In contrast, during the middle of the day, when sunlight is strongest, several bad things happen: models always squint their eyes, excessive dark shadows under the eyes or chin, and the skin may appear too white or overexposed.

Try to take pictures of your kids from different angles in relation to the sun during dawn or dusk. My favorite angle is when the sun or sunlight is exactly behind the head of my models, so the models are in between my camera and the sun that the head blocks most sunrays that may project into my camera. I usually squat down for this position. This technique always make my daughter's hair turned goldenish brown. It's like pixie dust effect. It's pretty!

If the child is mobile, the best way to capture them is by lowering your camera to their eye level or even their chest level while you move the camera along the same direction the child is moving toward. The camera set up for this situation is by changing your camera's (Digital SLR preferably) "release mode" into a continuous mode or also called rapid fire mode. Your user manual--or if you Google "release mode button"--you'll see a rectangular shape with multiple lines next to it. This lets you take multiple pictures in one second like an automatic machine gun just from pressing the shutter button once.

If this is happening in a low light situation, understand that flash will not be able to keep up with the rapid fire mode because there is a delay in between flash as the lightbulb recharges itself from the batteries. The best way to work with this is to increase the camera's ISO to 800, 1000, 3200, or even higher, depending on what type of camera you have. Just remember that the higher you bump the ISO, the more grainy the images will be. But, the benefit is you won't miss any big moments. It will also help if you have a fast lens or lens with really big maximum aperture which has smaller f number, like the ones with f/1.4 or f/1.8 or f/2.8. These kinds of lenses allow more light intensity to the focal plane of the camera, therefore a faster shutter speed. I know it might sound geeky but if you just click one of the links below to the fast lenses on Amazon, you'll be set. I handpicked these lenses and obviously if you have a Nikon camera, pick a Nikon lens, and Canon dslr camera, pick a Canon lens. It's not a must, just a recommendation.

Remember, kids usually move fast. So, you have to be ready to move as well and follow with the camera. If you have just want a simple "point and shoot" camera that is user-friendly and pocket-sized, get Canon Powershot or Panasonic Lumix for $100-$200. These cameras will do fine in most situations. If you are willing to spend a little bit more ($500-$800) so you can consistently produce high quality pictures, get the Nikon D40 or D90 or Canon40D for the beginner level prosumer digital SLR camera. I provided the links below for your convenience.

You always get what you pay for. Get the right gear and you'll get fantastic pictures. Don't get too crazy and start spending thousands of bucks. Just start with the ones I have handpicked below. Good luck!