Children’s photography can either be a very enjoyable and rewarding experience or a difficult and challenging one.  Here are seven tips to achieving the former and avoiding the latter. 

1)      Choose a proper setting.  One of the more recent trends in children’s photography is using a natural setting rather than a studio setting.  A park, beach or mountain setting not only provides a better backdrop but will make it more fun for the child.  To the child, going to the studio may feel a little like going to the dentist’s office.  Of course a studio provides for a more controlled environment, but in a natural setting you have a better chance of capturing the child smiling on their own.  Let them play and explore the world around them.  This will provide for some great candid photos rather than posed ones.  Of course if you are using a studio setting there are still several things you can do to make your pictures amazing.

2)      Get to know the child.  Successful children’s photography is about getting the child to work with you, not forcing them.  To do this they need to like you and trust you.  Although there are exceptions, most children would rather do a thousand other things than get their picture taken.  They need to see that the experience is going to be better than they had first though and that you are not the dentist.  Talk to them.  Ask them how old they are, ask about their school, ask about their favorite things to do in the summer.  What you learn from the child can help you as you start to take pictures.  For example, if the child is small you may want to ask what their favorite animal is and then use that animals sound to grab their attention when they start to lose interest.  Children establish relationships much faster than adults.  With only a few words you can build a relationship with a child that will help them trust you.  Keep the conversation going and interesting as you start to take pictures. 

3)      Let them choose a pose.  This is especially important when the session is first starting.  Let them sit, stand, look at the camera any way they want and snap a few pictures.  Maybe the pose is a good one, maybe it isn’t, but let them pick a pose or two at the start.  After they have done that they will typically be much more willing to let you have a turn telling them how to sit or stand.  If they start to become frustrated, let them pick a pose again to loosen them up and then go back you instructing them.  Children’s photography takes patience and that sometimes means yielding a little control.

4)      Make it fun.  Children’s photography is a different animal, and needs to be fun for the child.  This is much easier in an outdoor setting but can work in a studio as well.  This also ties into the previous point of letting them choose a pose.  Maybe they want to stand on their head, maybe they want to have a picture of them jumping in the air.  Whatever loosens them up and gets them to smile. 

5)      Go to their level.  Don’t tower over small children.  Stoop down and talk to them.  Let them see and talk to you at eye level.  This also applies to how you talk to them.  Talk to children in a fun tone and more like a friend would talk to them rather than an authority figure.

6)      Use props.  Stuffed animals, squeaky stuffed animals, feather dusters, noise makers.  These are all essential in grabbing and holding the attention of a small child.  The smaller the child, the more important it is to have a good inventory of props at your disposal. 

7)      Respect the child.  Let them guide the session.  If they are hungry it isn’t going to work, if they are tired it isn’t going to work.  The smaller they are the more difficult it is going to be to force them.  Don’t try until they are ready.  Children’s photography is about getting great pictures of children and that happens most easily when they are working with you instead of against you.

For more information about children's photography visit Mary Kim Photography at

 www.marykimphotography.com

But there are many other situations where the flash could be used such as:  fill-flash situations when the background is brighter than the subject, using the flash to light up a room and creating better coloring, or using the flash to freeze a moving object in a dark situation. 

In typical indoor situations there will probably not be enough light to take a normal hand-held well-exposed photo.  There are many indoor flash photo opportunities you may be faced with.  You may want to cast light on a group of people for a portrait photo.  You may want to throw light into a room for an architectural photo.  Or you may just want to cast light on certain objects in a lighted room that appears too dark for an exposure.   

If your camera’s auto-exposure settings say that the photo would require a shutter speed slower than 1/60 of a second then you probably shouldn’t hand-hold the camera or the photo would come out blurry.  The reason it would come out blurry is because the shutter would be open long enough for any minor hand shake to distort the composition.  The use of a tripod or faster film will probably be needed but many of us do not regularly carry a tripod.  Most photographers simply use their flash bulb when they are inside.   

In order to take effective indoor flash photos there are some techniques you should keep in mind.  When using the flash do not point it directly at a mirror or glass that will create a lens flare or just ruin the photo.  Stand close enough to your subjects so the flash is actually effective (four to ten feet).  Try to make sure your main subjects are about the same distance away from the flash as each other or some that are closer to the flash will appear brighter than ones that are farther away. 

Fill flash fills in the areas of a photo that would normally appear too dark.  Fill flash can be used for sunny day portraits for shadows on a subject’s face or to fill any shaded area that is out of the sunlight.  Fill flash can also be used to cast light into a room where there are no windows.  Fill in flash is ideal for back-lit and side-lit situations.  In a backlit situation there will be a lot of light in the background but no or little light cast on the front of the subject.  This would normally create somewhat of a silhouette effect, but with a fill flash it would balance the photo nicely.  But in order for this technique to work, you must be careful to stay in flash range which is usually around four to ten feet.  With common cameras in order to add fill flash to a photo just toggle the flash to go off when it normally would not be needed. 

Many newer cameras now have a red-eye reduction mode where the flash may fire before the picture is taken in order to cause the subjects’ pupils to contract.  The red-eye reduction modes in newer cameras are surprisingly effective and many work in different ways to contract pupils. 

A slow sync flash is for more complicated exposures and is used commonly to create blurry long exposures.  The flash fires at the beginning of the exposure, but the shutter still stays open for a moment after the flash has fired.  This can freeze a car at dusk and create a blurry streak in the cars path.  Or the slow sync flash could capture a sunset and freeze a closer subject that is moving through the frame.  There are countless situations where a slow sync flash could possibly be used to enhance an exposure.  There are also other versions of the sync flash such as the rear sync flash (where the flash fires at the end of an exposure) or the stroboscopic flash (where the flash fires multiple times throughout an exposure). 

Many photographers also choose to bounce the flash off a wall or ceiling to get a softer diffused kind of light commonly sought after for portraits.  This kind of flash technique requires a flash that can be aimed in a direction that the camera is not pointed.  It takes practice to refine this technique and only a small percentage of photographers actually use it. 

Practice using flash in your photos even when it is not necessarily needed and pay attention to your results.  The best way to become better at flash photography is to analyze your photos and try to figure out what you could have done differently in order to create a better flash-filled exposure.