Tips For Photographing Children

June 7th 2010

Having spent the last weekend photographing my young niece I thought I’d pass on what I learnt as the day went on. This was my first time shooting someone so young, and it was a great learning experience.

It was quite daunting to shoot my first child portrait session as I wasn’t sure how it would go or what I was looking for. There were’t really any specific requirements of it other than cool candid images of Ella playing. Due to it being on location I didn’t have chance to shoot any studio portraits but they are saved for another shoot/blog. Hopefully this blog will allow you to be a little more prepared than me if you do start shooting children.

1. Let them see and play with the camera – This is a mightily important step for them to get used to and accustomed to your camera. To them it’s just a massive black box being shoved in their face and the majority will be somewhat wary of it. By getting them used to it and showing that it’s nothing to be feared will in turn make them more relaxed when in front of it. Hold it down on their level, point to the silver shutter release button and let them press it. I found setting your camera to continuous shooting mode and letting them hold the button down works best. Let them press some other buttons on it, show them their picture on it, the important thing is to show them that it’s nothing to be afraid of or nervous about. That way when you come round to shooting them they’ll be interested in looking at the camera and not looking puzzled and confused by it.

2. Get down to their level and get closer – As Robert Capa always states “Get closer.” One of the most important things to do is get down to the child’s level. Just in the same way you wouldn’t get up above an adult and take a photo of them bending their neck up to the camera. No-one likes the the looming feeling that sometimes typifies children photography. The important thing is to make the world look like it does to them. Get down on their level, never have them lifting their head up to look at the camera. Whether this means getting down on your knees, or lying down on your belly do what it takes to make the surrounding world look as it does from their level. Even take this one step further and using a wide angle lens make it look like the child is looming over you. It’s a good play on the mental expectations of a child’s photograph that works really well. By doing this you will be able to fill the frame with their face, and convey their emotion/personality all the better.

3. Keep clothing simple and plain – This is important so that the clothing won’t distract the viewer and make the photos highlight the child. This is very important when trying to create timeless photography. Have you ever looked back through old photos and you’re wearing some hideous labeled jumper that was a dead giveaway to the time it was taken. By wearing clean plain clothing you can really try to capture who they are as opposed to what they are. Below are afew tips from the Family Online website about what to get children to wear for a photoshoot. :

• Strip your bed until you only have a white sheet.
• Place all the outfits that your family members have chosen to wear and place them in the way they would be worn on the bed.
• Go to the kitchen and make yourself a cup of tea.
• After you’ve had a change in focus go back to your bed and look to see if there are any outfits that jump out at you as being distracting or a mismatch.
• Look for colours that complement and place them together.
• The whole picture should be pleasing to the eye.

4. Interact with them, but also back off and become a spy – I found the best way to get them accustomed to the camera was to get all the interaction out of the way early in the session. Children are very easily bored and distracted, so use this to your advantage. Once you have got them interested in the camera begin your interaction with them, try to get your posed shots, or at least one’s of them looking at the camera in the early stages of the shoot. They’re still intrigued by this big odd black box you’re sticking in front of them at this point, so they’ll still be looking at you and engaging the camera. Obviously it’s difficult to direct small children as they’re inclined to do anything at any moment however the earlier you can get your posed shots the better as they’ll soon lose interest in the camera and go back to doing whatever they like.

This is when you can attached your long telephoto lens and become a photojournalist style photographer. Now they are used to the camera and used to the noise it makes and the fact you’re constantly pointing it at them they’ll go back to being their natural selves. This is where you can really take the time to capture their personality and any quirky nature. By having them oblivious/bored of the camera means they’ll be completely uninhibited with their actions.

5. Get the parents involved with them. They don’t know you as well as they know their parents. If the parents look and act at ease then so will the child, this is critical to getting uninhibited photos. By now they’ll be used to the camera, but engage the parents too. Get them in the shots and their interactions will normally make the best photos. Remain in control of the photos you’re trying to take but this is the point where you can let the parent dictate the childs emotion. They know how to make them smile, make them laugh, make them giddy with excitement, but also what they don’t like and what will make them nervous and shy. Obviously it’s difficult for you to learn that in the short space of time you’ll have with them so allow the parents to do the hard work for you whilst you sit back and capture all the action.

To get the best shots of just the child make sure the parents are standing to one side of the camera or indeed behind it. Get them to do a silly dance that the child will follow and giggle at! If your positioning is wrong all you will get is shots of their back. The main thing to capture with children is their emotion which is of course all in their face, so make sure they’re facing the right way!

6. Novel positions, not always focused on the child – Whilst of course you main subject is the child in all of this, it’s also great to get some abstract shots that aren’t neccesarily focused on the little one. It adds to the collection of images in the same way that photographs of rings/dresses and details help to pad out a wedding photography shoot. Take photos of their toys with them blurred in the background, or their parents with the child out of focus in the foreground. Perhaps something they have created with their toys. If you were to turn the photos into some sort of photobook these shots are brilliant for adding some perspective and different idea.

7. Lighting styles – I mainly work on site at a location of the clients choosing, this is more often than not somewhere outside giving the child free reign to run/skip/hop/jump wherever they choose. This obviously makes artificial lighting difficult to use. I love backlighting the almost angelic halo effect it gives when filtered through childrens hair. It gives the photos a timeless innocence that is difficult to recreate artificially. Also by keeping the light behind the subject, you avoid the all too often seen squinting that outdoor photography can capture. Of course the normal lighting procedures should be followed such as trying not to shoot in overhead bright sunshine as the harsh shadows won’t create the soft feel that child photography should have. To counter this, either shoot late in the afternoon when the sun in lower in the sky, or find area’s in the immediate vicinity that will diffuse the light onto the child.

Of course if your shooting in limited natural light, I’m a very strong believer in trying to make portrait photography look as natural as possible even when speedlights get involved. Whilst I’m not going to run down how to do this (Neil Van Niekirk has an absolutely brilliant blog here that explains it far better than I can) unless you’re going for a specific stylised look with your lighting I’d always advise bouncing/diffusing your lights to keep the photos as natural as possible.

8. Make sure the focus square is placed on the eyes - This probably is rule that should be adhered to all types of people photography. The eyes are where the emotion is, the rest of the image can be blurry as hell as long as the eyes are sharp. It sounds cheesy but the eyes really are the window to someone’s personality and you can capture so much in just a simple shot of someone’s eyes. Over at DPS, there’s a post about capturing who children are when you’re taking photos of them and I firmly believe that who they are is in their eyes.

This is more difficult than it seems if they’re running around. If you do get them still for a minute or so and can take the chance on a 1.4 or 1.2 aperture setting then give it a try, it gives the image a great soft feeling. However with such a shallow depth of field make sure you’re set on the central autofocus point and when you’re composing the shot that it’s on their eye. You have to be quick because the sliver of focus on their eyes can change as soon as they move a little. For the longer shots bring the aperture back in a little to give you a greater field of focus so you’re not worrying all the time. With an aperture of anywhere between say 2.8-4.5 you’ll still get the nice blurryness behind the subject but you don’t have to worry about exact focusing, which leads me onto my next tip.

9. Shoot in burst mode -With children running around and being so active it’s difficult to get great shots in one off shooting. They could close their eyes or be facing the wrong way, or the lighting might not be right. After you’ve got your portrait shots at the start of the shoot and the child has gone back to playing and generally running round, set your camera to burst mode and snap away. As I mentioned earlier, back off your Depth of Field a little to give yourself a little more room for manouver when focusing. Set your camera to continuous focusing so that it will try to track the child as they move across the frame.

I used this method to get some of my best shots. With the camera set in manual mode to create similar exposures I place the camera on the ground pointing up to the child tearing towards it and just hold the shutter release down hoping for the best. You’ll slowly learn to point the camera in the right direction (it always seems higher than you think) and get some great action shots that wouldn’t be possible without burst mode active.

10. Bring some toys/props to keep them amused – A great article over at DPS highlights the need to give the children you’re taking photos of something to play with and something to do with their hands. This works with adult portrait photography too, I find something to do with your hands puts you at ease. Something to do, something to hold, something to inspect and discover makes people and children more comfortable. But another idea suggesting over there is give them something completely random as well as their own toys.

• Just before snapping some shots, hand them something they’ve never seen before. Kitchen gadgets, tools, electronics work a treat.
• Get your manual settings set in advance so when they stand there inspecting for a moment, you can take some great shots
• After a few moments, I usually try saying their name or just “look at me” to get a portrait of their face.

This advice is something I have always followed and works well to get a brilliant portrait of them. The wonderment will remain on their face as they look up and you’ll get a beautiful thoughtful image in the process.

So there you have it, hopefully you’ve found something useful in this post that you can take away and use when you’re shooting children, but feel free to add any tips of good ideas you have yourselves, I’d love to hear them!

This was posted on June 7th 2010 in advice, photography and tagged with children, photography, portraits, wetherby, yorkshire. You can follow responses to this blog post here.