Top Tips for Photographing Kids

Zulily, the daily deals store for mums, babies and kids has challenged bloggers to come up with their top 3 tips for photographing kids. The thing I love most about Zulily is that when I'm looking at their online store, it feels like Christmas everyday. That's because they get new deals in every day at truly fantastic prices, sometimes with up to 90% off. So each morning when the new deals go live at 6am, you'll find that you can't wait to get online and take a peek at what delights they have on offer for that day. Just like on Christmas morning when you can't wait to get downstairs to see what treats are waiting for you.

Their clothes are truly adorable and I am always ooh-ing and ahh-ing over the cute dresses, lovely tops and oh-so-pretty little skirts that I know would look so fab on Trinity. But it doesn't stop there, they also have babywear, shoes, cloth nappies, toys, homewares, handbags, maternity wear and the list just goes on. These are all from some top brands at discounted prices.

I regularly find myself doing a double-take because I just can't believe the fab discounts and I get so excited that I want to list you some of my favourite items on there right now, but knowing that the deals are updated so regularly there is little point as they may well change by the time you take a peek. So all I can do is to encourage you to pop over to their site right now (well in a few moments once you have read the rest of my post first of course!) and see for yourself.

Now back to the topic of photography. Zulily run a fantastic monthly competition on Instagram where you send in a picture of your little one and you can win up to £100 to spend at Zulily  They love seeing all the cute entries each month.

So why not try out my top tips and then enter the Zulily's cuties competition yourself. I will add this caveat up front...I consider myself to be extremely bad at taking photos. Although I have always loved looking at photos, when it comes to taking them, I am usually a disaster area. But over the past few years I have perservered in my desperate attempt at getting a few decent photos of my children and I actually think that there are a few tricks that anyone can use to improve the photos you end up with.

1. Child's eye view
I love the photos where I have got down on my belly and seen things exactly how my baby would see them. You can then snap away and get a great angle from the same height that they are at without always 'looking down' on them. I managed to get some lovely Christmas ones like this. You are far more likely to capture those natural moments and smiles as they giggle away at how silly you look wriggling around on the floor.

 

You can also get some stunning ones without a smile in sight because sometimes you can capture a certain beauty, naturalness and vulnerability without having to pose with a smile.

 

2. Think about your background
So many times I have somehow managed to snap the perfect pic of my child and then find that in the background there is an overflowing bin/a pair of pants/messy pile of junk* (*delete as appropriate). I find I get really annoyed at myself when this happens because even if I try cropping the photo, it is not always possible to remove the 'offending item' from the background.

So I try to keep an area of the house clear of clutter for when I really want to get a few nice photos (you can always brighten a white background on the computer afterwards if you need to). Alternatively head outdoors. The greenery and scenery in a natural outdoor setting like woodlands, parks, fields or the beach provides a great backdrop to photos and you'll also benefit from the natural outdoor light which can make your photos look so much better.

Keep a blank section of wall as a backdrop for your photo...

...or head outdoors to the beach...

... or the woods!

3. Be patient when trying to get the perfect picture but do all you can to improve the odds!
Sometimes you can get lucky - just pull out the camera at the right moment and get a lovely picture without effort.

A spontaneous shot that turned out really well.

But more often than not, when you are trying to get a good picture of a child you are going to need oodles of patience, but you can try to improve your chances by making sure they are not tired or hungry when you get the camera out.  Learning a few of the basic settings on your camera an prove to be a huge ally in your quest to get great pictures of the kids. For example, we set the camera to high speed burst mode to increase our chance of getting all three children looking at the camera when they were having this teddy bear's picnic in the garden. Within a few minutes we got the shot we wanted but the camera had taken hundreds of snaps in that time and only one of them had them all looking the right way at the right time. If we hadn't used the high speed burst mode I am pretty sure that we would not have had speedy enough reflexes to capture that particular second on film (well on SD card I should say in this digital age).

Using high-speed burst mode enabled us to get one fantastic picture.

Similarly, we would not have been able to capture the exact 'splash' moment if we hadn't used this feature on the camera for this photo.

Splash!

Or how many times have you missed that magic 'twinkle in the eye' moment of a smile? I guess with practice you can get better and quicker at clicking the button at that precise moment, or you could increase your chances of capturing it with a little help from your camera.

A word of warning though - you will need good lighting for this (preferably outdoors) as the flash doesn't work at the same time as using this setting (well it doesn't on our camera anyway).

I hope you have fun trying these tips out. Would love to hear if any of them work well for you. And don't forget to enter those piccies of your cuties into the monthly Zulily cuties competition too!


This is my entry into the Zulily 'Top Tips for Photographing Kids' blogger competition. If you would like you find out more or if you are a blogger and would like to enter, click here.