Taking Portraits of Children - focus on the Kid!

I have taken many photos of my kids, relatives, and friend's kids. Photographing squirmy kids is hard, and you need to move fast to capture moments. These lessons/set of tips for photographing children are things that I wish someone had told me years ago.  These are the set of rules or guidelines that I try to follow. However, this set of rules evolves, and every rule does not apply for every shot.

Only 1 shot at birth photos

Capturing the moment is what is most important. When I first got my digital SLR, and being the tech geek that I am, I spent so much time fiddling with my camera that the kids wandered off, I annoyed my wife, and my relatives were laughing at me. Looking back, I should have shot more automatic mode shots, until I was ready This would have saved a lot of "Oops! one more time" instances. This shot of my son when he was born is a good example of just get the shot - I can't worry too much about composition, lighting etc, I just need to quickly snap the shot.

Try and plan the shot in advance. Obviously this does not work for every shot, but many shots benefit from thinking ahead. Place your subjects in a good spot (in the shade, in front of a nice backdrop etc.), and move anything that distracts from the picture, before you get the relatives to stand behind you and make silly faces at the baby. Also there are certain photos you know that you want to get ahead of time - like this one of my niece. My sister told me that the shot of the cake with the candle was important, so I planned my shot and was ready when she brought the cake out. I think it came out pretty good considering the chaos that is prevalent at kid's birthday parties.

Rule of thirds and blurry background

Make sure the kid/baby is the focus of the photograph.  Some people like to use the rule of thirds (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rule_of_thirds) which draws the eye to the subject.  I sometimes use the rule of thirds, and sometimes I try and fill the frame with the subject. I also like blurry backgrounds - I think it brings more attention to the subject, so I use as wide open an aperture (small number) as I can get away with. I will have a future post on how to get nice blurry backgrounds.

See the world from their perspective. Experiment with getting the camera really low. Try different perspectives. Kid's like supermodels look great from any angle, so experiment with different viewpoints. Sometimes this makes a more interesting picture. The picture of my son above I took while laying on my belly in the grass. You sometimes get weird looks laying down, but it's worth it for a good photo. After awhile you don't even notice you are making a spectacle of yourself.