The neck-hiding rule does not apply to babies and small children. Most pictures of the younger set are taken by someone who is hovering over them. These are bad pictures. To take a good picture of a baby or child, get down on their level, whether you are up close or at a distance.
For some of the most intriguing pictures, photograph people who aren’t looking at the camera at all.
Up Close and Personal
So you want to take a close-up of your cute kid. Get her in view. Now move closer. Closer. Closer still. Move in just a bit more. Now click.
Most people are sure the best photograph of a face or object is best within a frame of whatever is in the background. Forget about framing (which is to say centering — which is bad!) your subject with background. It’s okay if the entire subject is not in the picture.
Just in case it must be said, do not use a flash for a close-up. It might make a baby or small child cry because it can hurt; and if your subject is old enough, you might just find yourself camera-less after they recover.
Let’s Be Candid
The planned photo is nice. The unplanned photo is better. This better photo is sometimes the result of several shots taken in a row. If your camera allows, use it like a machine gun and pick the best picture(s) from the lineup.
Candid hint 1: Babies don’t ham it up in front of the camera, but even a two-year-old is likely to lose all composure when the black or silver box comes out. I got my kids used to the camera when they were very young by taking hundreds of pictures without film. They eventually came to ignore my camera and me; I have been able to get the best pictures of them ever since.
Candid hint 2: When dealing with someone else’s children — and hammy adults — ask your subjects to discuss something between them. To get the image below, I asked my kids to tell each other something they didn’t want me to know. (I would learn years later the two of them were discussing the day they took a box of popsicles to the playground by our house and ate all of them in one sitting).
Article comments
1 - Joanne Huspek
These are all great tips, and those are some stunning photos! I assume you took them? I'm so thankful for digital. Back in the day, I spent hundreds of dollars with rolls of film trying to get a decent shot. Now trial and error is much more affordable.
2 - diana hartman
thank you joanne :)
yes, i took them all...for years i averaged about two good pictures per roll, the cost of which wasn't as hard to stomach as it would've been had i bought unexpired film...i like digital cameras, but i do wish i had a better one - and one that would be super easy to use...i'll be glad when fisher price comes out with a digital pentax!
3 - Teri Centner
Another alternative to keeping photos on your computer is putting them out on the Internet for your friends and family to see when they have the time and inclination. You can organize by subject, date, trip, location, etc., and people can comment or discuss the photos, which I think makes having the photos more fun.
I use Flickr, and often get comments from people I don't even know. Which is kind of fun! (I mostly take photos of stuff, not people, and I don't have kids whose privacy I want to protect, so I don't password protect my photos.)
Other online options include Snapfish, Kodak, Picasa, MyFamily, MySpace, Facebook and Webshots.