Children Photography | Keep it Simple

© 2008 Wazari Wazir | Children Photography | Joy of Happiness | My Son HaiQal

If you are a regular visitor to Hospital Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia or now  known as UKM Medical Centre (UKMMC) since February 2008, especially to those of you who has used the “Surau” (a small room for muslim to pray) at level one will surely noticed this picture of my son hanging on the wall there, it being used as one of HUKM health education poster there. The photograph were taken at Taman Tasik Permaisuri, a large public park just a few minutes walkaway from the Hospital.

If you look at the picture with the eagle eyes, you will noticed that the picture especially on the face is not tack sharp but then again I’m happy to capture the great expression of my son and for me a picture with great emotion or feelings attached to it is a thousand times better than super sharp photograph but have nothing that evoke our feelings or touch our heart.

Back to the title of this post which is “Keep it Simple”, I try my level best whenever I photograph my son or any portrait to find a simple plain background because I want the subject to stand out from the background, I want the subject to be the centre of attraction without any distracting element in the background.

How to do that is pretty simple especially if we have telephoto lens range like 70-200mm or even with 50mm f1.8 lens. If we have telephoto lens like 70-200mm f2.8 lens, it was easy for us to isolate the subject from a distracting background if we use large aperture like f2.8 since the background will be blurred but what happen if we only have kit lens or 50mm lens?

Actually it was also easy also to isolate the subject with 50mm lens shoot at wide aperture like f1.2, 1.4 or  1.8 but maybe a bit difficult if all that we have is a kit lens 18-70mm with aperture f3.5-4.5 but still you can get your subject to stand out from the background. All you need to take care is the background, find a plain background and if possible if you shoot at the park, make sure that the background and your subject is far away, maybe 10-20 feet or more from your subject and shoot at your largest aperture like f4.5 if you use 18-70mm and zoom it at 70mm (I’m referring to Nikon Kit Lens).

Off course you will never get a creamy bokeh like my son picture above but you will manage to isolate your subject from the background. If you shoot with kit lens like 18-70mm, zoom it at 70mm and make sure you fills the frame with your subject, just leave a small headroom for your subject, get real close to the subject, the reason is that, the closer your lens to the subject, you will get more blurry “bokeh” background, provided that the background is far away from the subject. If you re wondering what type of lens I’m s]using for the picture above, it is 300mm lens shoot at aperture f2.8.

The point is to keep things simple, avoid distracting background and if possible shoot your subject under the shade of a tree, so that you will get well uniform lighting on your subject without any harsh shadows. After you find a perfect location and background for your subject which in this case is a child, all you have to do is play around with them, make some silly jokes while at the same time keep your eyes glued to the camera viewfinder, make silly noise and take picture when you think the child express themselves at its best, it is also good if you can shoot with “burst mode”, so that no great moment left uncaptured.

*You might want to check this out : My Photoshop eBook Review by Azfiqs from London