Portrait Photography | Child Photography Tips

© 2011 Wazari Wazir | Portrait of My Son | Tasik Perdana | Kuala Lumpur

The truth to be told is that, child photography will never be easy, at least for me. I can only talk about my experience taking picture of my son because I don’t do child photography business. I think the most important thing that we must have if we want to photographed a child (I’m talking about our own children) is patient, lots of it. I’ve been photographing my son for almost four years already, I’ve been taking picture of him just few minutes after he was born and never get tired of it.

It never easy to keep that passion for that long period, but I love what I do so much. There’s no pressure, I’m doing it wholeheartedly. Enough about my history, let’s talk about some few tips that I’ve use for taking picture of my son. Since my son will be  four years old this coming August 2011, God willing, “InsyaAllah”, I will share tips photographing child at my son age. There is a few that I like to share and something that work for me…

Location : Since children like to play, choose a location where our child can play freely and most importantly safely, safety should be the number one concern. In this case nothing can beat children playground, local park or maybe at the beach, just make sure you keep a very close eye on your child. The reason why location is important is that, we want our child to enjoy, having fun playing and running here and there. The best thing is, let them play and just follow them around and take candid picture of your child having fun, usually when they are having fun, they are not aware being photograph and talking about child photography like my son age, candid picture always work best, it shows their personality or character.

Be Fast : By fast, I mean we must be very quick taking picture of our child, they will never sit still for a long time, as you can see my son picture above, he just about want to stand up and running and I manage to freeze the moment before my son left the wooden bench there empty. For that photograph I use fast shutter speed to freeze the moment, I use 1/500 for that shot. Be always remember to use fast shutter speed to captured a child in actions, if our shutter speed is slow like 1/100 and below, the possibility to get blurred picture will be high, there is nothing wrong getting a blurred picture once in awhile to show our our child movement but we definitely don’t want to end up having all of the pictures blurred when we get home. Blurred picture that shows a sense of movement does have its place but get the sharp picture first. Once again keep in mind about the shutter speed, set them high, set them fast, your child is not a statue but fast moving creature.

Clothing : Some people never pay close attention on this one but for me clothing plays an important factor whether any photo shoot of my son will be good or bad. Always choose the clothing wisely, we don’t want our child to be like a camouflage, blend with the environment, we want our child to  stand out from the background, so choosing the right colors of clothing is very crucial. If we plan to do a photo shoot at the garden where the surrounding full with green foliage, then choose something that will make our child stand out, choose a red shirt or maybe a yellow T-shirt. The idea is, think about “Contrast”, we must have a good contrast between our child and the background, the contrast will make our child stand out from the background. Just to let you know I always carry a different set of clothe for my son whenever we go out. If the clothe that my son wearing at the time doesn’t quite match the surroundings, I will change it to make it stand out from the background. Please keep in mind also that if  possible choose a plain color shirt, we don’t want the T-shirt to have a lots of characters, too colorful or have lots of words because this things will become a distraction. Choose a plain color.

Background : Apart from the location, choose the background carefully, a plain uncluttered background always work great. Avoid the crowd, stay away from the crowd, let your child play first at the children playground and after awhile, take him somewhere where there is less crowd. We don’t want our beautiful portrait of our child get ruined by someone wearing bright color of clothes running behind. Always remember that the right background will make or break a good picture. Choose a background carefully, simple and plain background always work best.

Equipment : You don’t need super high end camera for child photography, any entry level DSLR nowadays is more than good enough but if you have extra money, I would suggest to get 50mm lens with aperture f1.8 or f1.4. This lens is not so expensive but work great especially if we want to use fast shutter speed. Because of their big aperture, we can use fast shutter speed to freeze the action. I use 50mm f1.4 lens for the picture above and set the aperture at f2.0. It is better if we have a telephoto lens like 85mm or 70-200mm, so you can captured them from far away but is not necessary, 50mm will do and the good thing about working at a close distance within 50mm range is that, if suddenly your child fall to the ground or just about to get close to the lake or pond, you are very close to them to make a quick action to save the day or to save your child from jumping into the lake. We don’t want them to get wet before the photo shoot end.

Get Close : To captured our child emotion or expression especially after he or she is tired running all over the place, try to get a close up shot of them. Get close to them, usually they will get tired after awhile and when their “battery is weak” and have less energy to move fasts get close to them and get a tight shot of their face. A picture of a child sweating will always look great to end the day.

Just before you pack and leave or let your child continue with their running, just share the picture that you’ve just taken with them, smile with them, have fun with them and if possible “guide” them for the next photo shoot, just say to them like, “if only you stay there a little bit longer, I can get a better picture of you” or something like that. I’m not very good at making a dialogue but I think you get the point.

If you have any suggestion or any tips about photographing a children, maybe you can share it with me and other people visiting here through the comment section below, I can only talk about my own experience and I believe everybody have a story to tell. The more we share, the better we become.

* About the photo editing of my son above, I use a technique from my Photoshop Tone secret eBook to get the tone, you can find out about he technique from the banner below..

Get The Secret HERE