Since it was Easter last weekend, I went home and spent some time with family. Because of this I got to spend some time with my boyfriend’s twin nieces, who are 16 months old. Of course I tried to take some pictures of them walking around and being held by various people. It’s so important to have nice pictures of the different stages of children’s lives. They grow and change so fast that you want to remember when they were little. However, taking pictures of them is so hard. If you’re trying to take a nice picture of them with someone else, they’re always either not looking or not smiling or doing something else. Cute candid shots are extremely hard to get. For some reason, they love to turn their head as soon as you push the shutter. It’s like they know exactly when you’re going to take the picture and that’s when they break their cute pose. So I ended up with a lot of pictures of the back of their heads. Not all that great. There were a few in there that happened to be cute, but I thought there have to be some tricks out there that would help with photographing children. Getting someone to make a weird face behind the camera is a classic, but that doesn’t help with candid photos when they’re interacting or just playing around. I looked through some websites about photographing children and found a couple of tips, although much of it is still going to be up to chance.
Some suggestions were: use a long lens so that you can stay further away and just zoom in – this will keep them from getting distracted from what they’re doing; try to shoot outdoors if at all possible, this prevents red eye and allows you to use a faster shutter speed, making it more likely that you’ll capture the shot than get a blurred turning face; take a LOT of pictures – if you just keep clicking away your chances of getting a cute expression or action will greatly improve. Don’t keep your camera in a bag or on a table and go to grab it when they’re doing something cute. Chances are that by the time you get your camera and turn it on, they’re already doing something else; get down to their level, always taking pictures from a standing position will make all your pictures look the same and might keep you from getting good facial expressions in your photos since their faces won’t necessarily be seen in the shot; some people also say to avoid “say cheese” at all costs, it causes kids to focus too much on smiling and usually ends up with that huge teethy grin that we all know from our elementary school photos. Instead, some people suggest coming up with a word that your children find funny, or using and inside joke to get them to laugh. Getting a real smile or laugh is always better than “cheese”; try to use a digital camera that has a fast recycle time – this refers to how long it takes the camera to be ready to take another picture; try to keep your gear/equipment simple – the more stuff you have to fiddle with while you’re shooting, the more likely it will be that you’ll miss a great shot.
I’m sure there are plenty of other tips and tricks out there to use as well. I plan on trying some of them out the next time I see the twins. But I think when it comes to young children and babies, a lot of it is going to have to come down to chance. All you can really do is be as prepared as possible so you have a greater chance of getting that cute expression of funny pose.
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