Friday Finds: Child Photography

Children are the reason a lot of people ever get into photography in the first place. It may not start out as their intention, but with a child on the way, many parents-to-be invest in a good digital camera to capture their little bundle’s every milestone. Then they realize they don’t know how to use all the camera’s fancy knobs and features and they start learning, using the most beautiful model bestowed on mankind: their own child.

Whether or not a parent feels a calling as a photographer, most want to take good pictures of their children. Digital point and shoots yield much better results from the average person than any 35mm camera available when I was a kid. Due to the instant feedback digital cameras provide, we’ve mostly done away with super blurry shots or thumbs obscuring the view.

There’s more to capturing good photographs of a child than having a good camera or even knowing how to use it, however.

Below you will find tips and videos to photograph and edit pictures of children along with some amazing examples I found through my Friday Finds Flickr Group. You can check out 18 of my favorite submissions from this week in the Friday Finds: Child Photography Flickr Gallery.

Child Photography Tips

• Children’s Photography Tips from Photographer Lena Hyde. This nine minute video at SilberStudios.tv interviews Florida based child photographer Lena Hyde, where she talks about her preferred methods and techniques to get amazingly natural portraits.
• The Complete Guide to Children Photography Part I (and also Part II!). The first article in the two-part series explains how to get a child in the mood to be photographed. The second article in the series gives some great creative tips for unique and professional-like shots. While some of this series is geared toward professional child photographers, most of the tips can be applied by any parent with any camera, even a cell phone.
• Newborn Photography Tips for Beginners. This Digital Photography School article contains a lot of golden tips for shooting newborns, mostly aimed at people with digital SLRs. The first tip is one I liked the best for any parent who wants to take some unique portraits of their brand new baby: compose a shot list.

  I never got a lot of photographs of my children as newborns (I was way too busy breastfeeding, trying to combat a low supply). One day with Boa I decided I really wanted to get a shot of him surrounded by a bunch of stuffed animals, so I just grabbed my point and shoot and made it happen. Once the idea was in my head, it was really easy to execute. So take a day or two or even 10 minutes to think about anything you’d like to achieve and then try it!

• 10 13 Children Photography Tips This article contains some easy, practical advice most parents can use to enhance the photos of their children even if they don’t own an SLR.

Video Tutorials for Child Photography

This is a short video with a few quick tips for photographing children. You get to see how one professional child photographer approaches her work, which is a great way for parents especially to apply to photographing their own children.

The second video is kind of an advertisement for HP printers and cameras, but it features Tracey Clark of The Shutter Sisters giving some great tips for photographing babies and toddlers. Some of her advice can be used for older children as well. I remember watching this video on On Demand during those middle of the night feedings shortly after Mr. Serious was born before I knew much of anything about photography.

Kids with Cameras

The Flickr pool this week had several awesome photographs of children with cameras, one of which is pictured above highlighted in my Flickr Gallery picks. I want to showcase all the “kids with cameras” photos submitted to the pool this week, so here they are! If you have a photograph of a child with a camera, you can add it to the Friday Finds group and tag it: kidswithcameras and within a few minutes it will magically appear in the thumbnails below.

I also found a nice Digital Photography School article on Introducing Children to Photography if you want to see your own kid with a camera in his hands soon!

We bought Mr. Serious a Fisher Price Kid Tough Digital Camera for his 3rd birthday and while it’s a novel idea, the image resolution is SO BAD (it’s 0.3 megapixels) that 99% of the photos taken don’t really turn out. I hate this camera and think he’d do just fine with an old cell phone or a pencam, both of which are cheaper options with better sensors than this $40 piece of junk.

Tips for Editing Photos of Children

• 7 Photoshop Tips for Better Portraits. These are great editing tips for any portrait, not just children!
• 50 Free Photoshop Actions for Portraits If you use Photoshop or Elements, actions are a quick and easy way to work on your photos. These are some nice looking Photoshop only actions to give your portraits a unique look.
• CoffeeShop Baby PowderRoom Free Action I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Rita has nearly 100 FREE Photoshop and Photoshop Elements Actions and Presets on her blog. This is one of my favorites for making skin look smooth and making eyes pop.

More Child Photography!

There were 143 photographs of children entered this week in the Friday Finds group on Flickr! There are so many awesome shots, I’d love it if you took a moment to tell me YOUR favorites! Please feel free to browse through all the submissions this week in the gallery below.

Next Week’s Theme is: Landscape Photography!

Photo Credit: me

Texas has some beautiful landscapes and I’d love to learn more about how to photograph and creatively capture the beauty of the land. I know I’m only “supposed” to shoot at sunrise and sunset, but as an amateur when can I break these rules and what other rules are there?

If you have any suggestions for upcoming themes I would love to know! If you made it this far and enjoyed this week’s Friday Finds, I’d also love it if you felt like commenting!

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