Tips For Taking Beautiful Pictures of Your Kids

With all the time you’re spending with your kids lately, you’re probably taking a lot more photos of them than usual! So we wanted to put together a guide for taking better pictures, which you can utilize again when you get to take them on vacation…someday. Here are 5 tips for taking beautiful pictures of your kids…

Get Low and Close

When you change your perspective, you’ll notice things you never saw before. Get down on the floor, or wherever your kids play, and enter their world. That will also help you get closer to them and take tighter shots, which will minimize distracting backgrounds and focus instead on the details you really want to capture.

Ask lots of questions

As you probably already know, kids light up when you bring up a topic that’s important to them. To help them forget that there’s a camera right beside them, ask them questions like, “What do you want for your birthday? What are you going to be for Halloween? Should we have ice cream after dinner tonight?” They will suddenly look just the way you want them to look—unposed and engaged.

Play

3rd on our list of 5 tips for taking beautiful pictures of your kids…Let your kids play (and play with your kids) when you’re taking their photo. This might mean going rogue and letting them do something they’re normally not allowed to do, like play with their food or jump on the bed. If you let them perform a little, and they see you laugh, they’ll ham it up! And you’ll get an extra special capture that you’ll look back on fondly. 

Give Them A Task

If you like candid photos (because let’s face it, toddlers aren’t the best at faking a smile!), give your subjects a task. Try one of these prompts:

Can you find a bird in the sky?

Can you count the petals on this flower?

Can you see if I have a bug on my lens?

This works for babies and teenagers, too. For a baby, simply give them an object to hold or look at that they haven’t experienced before. For a teenager, try putting out a puzzle or giving them a task related to something they already love to do. When given a task, your kids will get totally absorbed while you capture their sweet eyelashes, chubby cheeks, and adorable looks of concentration.

Create Moments in Natural Light

Most of the time, when you see a photo that strikes you as really special, it’s because of the lighting. Luckily, the windows in your home are a wonderful way to light your photos beautifully! Ideally, you want to bring your kids close to a window, lighting them from the front. It can be tricky to get little ones to stay put, so create a moment near your window of choice—let’s say, by dragging over a box of toys. Have your camera ready and go to town. 

Here are some more tips to keep in mind…

1. Know that those might not capture more than one or two “magic moments” in one session. You’ll know them when you see them! 
2. Mom, you should get in the pictures, too! Moms are usually the ones behind the camera, but someday your children will want to see photos of themselves with you. So don’t hesitate to ask their dad, a friend, or other family member to get behind the camera and snap a couple of pictures of you loving on your kids.
3. Redos are okay! If a great photo-worthy moment passes before you can grab your camera, feel free to say, “Oh, you just looked so cute! Can you stand here and do that again?” This even applies to recreating Halloween, birthdays, and other big events if you didn’t get the photo you wanted the first time around.

We hope you get a chance to try these 5 tips for taking beautiful pictures of your kids! As always, leave us a comment below sharing your experience!