I love looking at photos of my family and seeing how each of us has grown and changed over the years.
So many memories captured in a single frame. And many of these memories would have been forgotten if I hadn’t pulled out my phone or camera and snapped that photo.
Before I started blogging, I had no idea how to take good photos.
My dad used to dabble in photography when I was young, so I’m very fortunate to have so many beautiful photos of myself as a child and my mom (and a few with my dad! Photographers don’t get to take their own pictures very often!).
Without these photos I would not remember all the places we went and all the experiences we’ve had as a family.
So being able to take good photos was something I personally wanted to do for my kids and for me and my husband, as well as for this blog.
Tips for Taking Better Photos of Your kids
These tips are a few of the tricks I’ve learned (mostly through trial and error and spending lots of time staring a picture and figuring out what I liked or didn’t like about it.
The best part is, they’re easy to start doing right now to get better pictures.
Sidenote: I’m not going to go into photo editing (that’s a whole other nightmare, I mean, post…). Just simple things you can do with your phone or camera.
1) More Light
Chances are, your photos will improve DRAMATICALLY with more light.
With more light you could potentially eliminate:
- blurriness
- dark shadows on the face
- grainy photos
- focusing issues
- color balancing issues
The best light is natural light like from a window.
See how much clearer the photo on the right is compared with the photo on the left?
Moving everything to be right next to a window also improved the color of the photo. The whites look more clean and white and not as dingy as in the photo on the left.
The next best for me would be daylight/cool white artificial light.
I’ve found that I don’t like warm yellow light for photographs as I think that it ages the photo in a bad way.
In the photo on the left below, I had only the overhead (yellow) lights on.
In the photo on the right, I brought in lamps with white lights. I like the color in the photo on the right so much better and you can see Lia much more clearly with the extra lights.
Here’s a little secret of mine that relates to this first tip: Find a spot in your house that gets great light and ALWAYS take your photos there.
If you’ve been following us for a while, you’ll notice we do most of our activities either in the kitchen or in the sunroom.
This is a big reason why. The sun room is the brightest room in the house!
2) Avoid Direct Sunlight
Now, more light is good, but if you’re outside, look for shade rather than direct sunlight.
Direct sunlight can cause too many weird shadows and wash out a person’s face.
Shade provides even, filtered light and gives more depth to a photo.
With photos taken in the shade, your focus is more on your child’s cute smile and not as much on the wonky shadows in the background.
This applies to indoor photography, as well.
When indoors, stay away from direct sunlight coming in through the windows to avoid distracting shadows.
Cover windows with a white sheet to filter direct sunlight if you can.
Cloudy days and shade from direct sun are the best!
But we can’t always find shade or take photos on cloudy days.
In that case, if you can’t find shade or clouds, try to shade your subject as best you can and snap the photo anyway.
It’s always better to have a photo of a special memory than none at all.
3) Remove Distracting clutter
This was a big lightbulb moment for me.
I love taking pictures in the moment, and often I don’t notice the distracting half-eaten PB&J or spills on the counter lurking in my photo until it’s too late.
Train yourself to do a quick scan of the WHOLE photo before you snap it and take distracting clutter out of the way quick.
How much better would this photo be if I’d moved the napkins and cups out of the way?
4) Move in close (or crop photos)
If you have a lot of distracting clutter you just can’t move right away, move in closer to your subject before snapping the photo.
This is my biggest trick for getting nice pics without random clutter in the background or foreground.
Remember the photo above with the napkins and cups?
Look what happens when I crop that out.
Now all the focus is on Elena doing this Jello Ocean Animal Rescue activity.
As an added bonus your focus will be drawn more to your kid’s face since they will be more prominent in the picture.
I’ve also found creative cropping can be really helpful if you have picture with distracting elements.
Tap the edit button if you’re on your phone and try cropping your photo different ways until it looks good to you.
5) Take photos during activities (have Kids DO something)
My girls are not say-cheese girls.
Elena will put on a forced smile when asked, but she hardly EVER looks at the dang camera. So I usually end up with a toothy smile and her looking off to the side.
Lia just runs away when I say “Say cheese!”
If your kids want to model for you, that’s awesome, and I’m so jealous!
But if your kids are less inclined to smile and you still want great photos, try taking photos during a fun activity!
(This is a kids’ activity site, after all, so I can’t NOT mention it!)
You’ll be nabbing two birds with one stone:
- making memories
- getting great photos
Kids let down their guard so much better when they’re busy playing, and you’re almost guaranteed to get a great shot of them being themselves.
Ready to Take Better Photos?
I hope these five tips help you take better photos of your kids.
These pictures grow more and more precious to me as the kids get older.
But I also hope you take all this information with a grain of salt.
As I said earlier, it’s always better to have a photo of a special memory than none at all.
I’m excited for you to make memories and take great pictures! Leave a comment if you have any questions or want to share some photography tips of your own 🙂
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