Children Photography: Capture your Children's Childhood in a Picture

Do you struggle to take good photos of children as well as babies. Children photography can be very challenging, but it is also incredibly rewarding. So how do you take beautiful photos of children. How to capture the magic of childhood in a picture

1. Choose a location for your photoshoot

The child is most important element in your photo, you also require to chose a location for your shoot. Even though the background often appears blurred in a portrait photo, It is still an important part of the final image.

You can actually make magic out of the most mundane environments. They key things to consider is texture as well as color, you must look for a backdrop, which adds detail to your photo, if there is no detail or texture, you will not have anything to create that beautiful background blur.

Great outdoor locations include beach, woodland or open field. You can also shoot in urban environments using buildings to add detail to the background.

2. Shoot in natural light

Good light would add a magical quality to your photos. The same location can look completely different in different kinds of light. And certain kinds of light are more flattering on your subjects than others.

One can shoot in natural daylight, there is no need for expensive studio lights or flash guns.

And the best kind of light is soft or diffused light. This type of light helps in softening details is flattering on the skin.

It also helps in softening the overall mood of the phot, which perfect for creating magical photos for children.

You could shoot during the hour before sunset, when the sun is low in the sky, the light is soft and the colors are beautifully warm.

3. Use sidelight or backlight for children photography

Most people think its best to have the sun behind you when taking photos, but for beautiful child portraits, this is not the case. If the sun is behind you, it would shine directly onto your subjects face. This would cause the child to squint and you would definitely don't want that.

Bright light on the face of your subject can also result in skin being over exposed too bright. So where, you should position the light in relation to your subject. Most people consider it is best to have sun behind you while taking photos.

But for beautiful child portraits, this isn't the case.

4. Include some props

Props are wonderful tool for improving your children photography. They add visual interest to your photos. They help you tell a story. And they keep older babies and children entertained during the photo shoot.

When photographing the new born, you would require props for posing the baby. It could be a bowl, a basket or even a cushion covered with a soft blanket.

You can then use other props, such as flowers or soft toys, to decorate the scene.

For older babies as well as children, there are numerous different props that could be used. Great example include toys, teddy bears, balloons, cakes lanterns and flowers.

For example, if you are shooting at the beach, give your subject some large shells to play with. If the child has a favorite toy, they could bring that along to use as prop in the photo.

Props which blend in with the overall color scheme of the photo are perfect, but you can also use props to add a contrasting pop of color.

Remember, props can be very simple, but they can have a big impact on the final image, hence choose your props very carefully and also ensure you add to the story of the photo.

5. Capture natural poses and photos

Getting children to pose for photos is difficult and it usually results in unnatural poses and forced smiles. Hence how do you capture natural poses and expressions that show the real emotion of childhood.

The trick is not to ask your subject to pose or smile, instead, you must try to give the child direction with simple instruction.

Once the child feels at ease, they would start moving around more naturally and you would able to capture real joy as well as emotion as they play.

For best results, you want the baby to be sleeping, this will enable you to capture the serenity of those first few weeks after they have born.

Gently lay the baby down on a soft blanket and curl them up, keep their hands as well as feet visible. You can also wrap the bay in a blanket with just their face and hands on the show.

Once the baby is in the perfect position, one can take lot of photos from different angles. This would help capture many different shots from just single pose.

6. Capture photos of moving subjects

Children neve stay still, they make wonderfully energetic as well as dynamic images.

It can be challenging to capture good photos of the moving subjects. The subject might appear blurred as the camera captures the motion and it can be difficult to capture the precise moment where the subject is perfectly poised.

Shutter speed refers to the amount of time the camera's shutter remains open. Fast shutter speeds freeze motion, while the slow shutter speed capture movement as motion blur.

If you are shooting in a manual mode, check your camera manual to find out which buttorn or wheel adjusts the shutter speed.

For jumping shots, one must use shutter speed as fast as 1/1600.

You might require to use Burst/continuous mode, when photographing moving subjects. You can then keep the shutter button held down, taking a series of shots in quick succession.

This increases your chances of capturing the perfect moment as your subject moves through the scene.

Expose the child image

You do not want images that are too dark, for a photo having great color as well as detail, you require to be correctly exposed. Expose the subject's face, they would ensure that, portrait photos are well-exposed.