Take it from the pros — moms who make their living creating portraits of other people's children: There's more to getting great photos than just saying "cheese."
"My own kids either ham it up so I don't get the true smile, or they're just, like, 'Oh no, here she is again with that camera!'" says Heather Barr, a Boston-based baby and child photographer and mother of two.
For Barr and other photographers, getting great shots is no accident. They've learned the best ways to photograph squirming infants, busy toddlers, ham-it-up preschoolers, and balky grade-schoolers, whether theirs or someone else's. Their best-shot advice — tips and tricks of the trade — can help you capture memories to last a lifetime.
Tip #1: Cut the cheese
Who hasn't shouted it, said it, or cried out for it, but urging your child to smile or say "Cheese!" seldom gets you what you're looking for, says Laura Brophy, a child and family photographer in upstate New York and mother of three.
"Those commands to smile and say 'Cheese' — all of that tends to undermine your ability to get really authentic snapshots," she says. "We teach our children to make very strange smiles that don't really capture who they are."
Still, once a child has learned to say "Cheese," it's a hard habit to break. One way to capture the real kid within the kid is to just start snapping away and not make a big deal about the fact that you're taking your child's photo. "Don't ask them to freeze everything," Brophy advises.
Annapolis, Maryland—based baby and child photographer Connie Groah, a mother of two, often chats with her young subjects as she takes their pictures. "This morning I was talking to a child about Batman and Lex Luthor and Superman," she says. "I talk with them about whatever their interests are. That usually gets them, especially the ones who have learned to say 'Cheese!' You can get their real smiles that way."
Tip #2: Quantity begets quality
"If you want a couple of fabulous pictures of your child, you should plan on taking 75 photos," says mom of two Heather Forbes, a photographer who splits her time between San Francisco and New York City. Like many other baby and child photographers, Forbes shoots in digital because it's so much more cost effective than film.
"If I were to take 300 pictures of a child with film, I would be so conscious of each click that it would take away all the spontaneity of the photo session," she says. "I'm often editing or deleting 50 percent of my shots." With a digital camera, she can just "snap away," she explains, "and it becomes a much more fluid experience."
Likewise, don't give up too easily when you have a goal in mind — like getting a photo good enough to include on your holiday cards. Like most everything else about raising a child, improvisation is key. "You may sit your child down and think that you want a specific photo — like hands crossed in their lap, looking forward, and smiling — and they're not going to do that for you," Forbes says. "You could try ten shots of that, and then put down your camera and say, 'I give up. How am I ever going to get this Christmas card portrait?'"
"But if you take your child outside or have your husband read a book to her or have her play a game on the floor or blow some bubbles or even get her in the bathtub, and then you go ahead and snap 100 photos, you're going to have a money shot in there somewhere — once your child forgets you're taking photos. So the biggest mistake would be giving up too quickly."
Natasha Cuevas, a baby and child photographer based in Fort Myers, Florida, aims to photograph her 4-year-old daughter, Dakotah, at least once a week, and always likes to keep her camera handy "just in case."
Cuevas says her style is to photograph Dakotah as she goes about her day, not necessarily posing or doing anything special for the camera: "If she's doing something that I haven't seen before or she looks cute in an outfit or her hair is all messy or she's doing something unusual" — any and all of these are occasions for Cuevas to reach for the camera.
Bottom line: Always have your camera ready — you don't want to have that once-in-a-lifetime moment pass you by.
Tip #3: Get real
Though most family photographers aim for snapshots of happy, smiling children, the pros aren't afraid to throw some serious photos into the mix.
"Sometimes, my favorite images are of a child who is not smiling," Barr says. "You look right into their eyes and you see so much."
"The shots I love of my children are the ones where I have their attention," says Groah. "Their eyes are sparkling, and they're giving me a genuine, warm look. It doesn't have to be a smile, just a familiar look — like how I see them every day.
"The goal with all of Groah's candids is to be able to later see her children as they once were. Groah documents the tender moments as well as the tough ones. She has sometimes snapped her children's pictures as they lay sweetly sleeping. She's also made photos of them throwing tantrums.
"I feel cruel," she confesses. "I try not to take too many, but a few crying shots are always good to have because kids are not always happy."
Tip #4: Let the sun shine
Perhaps the number one thing you can do to improve your family photos is this: Turn off the flash. Steer your child toward natural light sources — place them next to a sunny window or go outside. Get in the habit of opening the curtains when you're taking pictures during the daytime so that the entire room is illuminated.
What you're looking for is the way light is reflected in your child's eyes. "It's something called 'catch lights,'" says Brophy. "It's what makes people seem really alive. Sometimes it's just a matter of slightly repositioning yourself or the child to capture that light.
"Though you can create catch lights with a flash, natural lighting gives you a much softer look. And not only can a flash startle and distract your child, it can cause red-eye.
Do watch out for glare and harsh shadows if you're taking pictures outside. "In the middle of the day, when the sun is directly overhead, you end up with dark eye sockets," says Groah. "What you want to see when you're looking at your child is their eyes. If you have to take pictures during the middle of the day, try to get your child into some shade."
"Your best light is going to be in the morning hours, a couple of hours after sunrise," says Groah. "I also really love the light in the evening, a couple of hours before sunset.
"Be aware of artificial lighting, like bright lamps, in the shot. "The eye is drawn towards light," Barr says. "So if you have something bright in the background, your eye is going to go to whatever is brightest in the photo — you're not even going to notice the child. Simplify the background and you'll take dramatically better portraits.
"Finally, if you have to use your flash at night or inside a dark interior, Barr recommends buying a flash modifier. "You can pick one up at any camera store, and it costs about eight dollars. It fits over the flash and really softens the outcome." Those who want to get more technical (and spend more money) can invest in special lenses that let in more light, which are good for situations where a flash can't be used, like in a museum.
Laura Brophy urges parents to get to know their camera so they can use all of its functions. "Knowing how and when to override the automatic flash and how to adjust the ISO (film speed) to allow you to avoid flash will make a huge difference in your photographs," she says. "Read the manual!"
Tip #5: Know when to say when
When you're busy snapping away, it can be tricky to know when to give it a rest. Brophy has learned through trial and error how children may signal that they've had enough.
"Depending on their age, they will start to get fussy or they won't make eye contact with me," she says. "Sometimes you can kind of pull them back into the session by doing something different, like bringing out a lollipop or bringing out a new toy for them to play with or having Mom and Dad come in for a few pictures. Usually you can get a few more, but sometimes not."
"I had a situation with a client last week where, if it had been my own child, I would have called it a day," says Brophy. "But I'd driven an hour to get there, and they had taken a day off work and planned a lot of things.
"So I just backed off for a while, and then I pulled out a long lens and was able to hang way back and capture a sweet interaction between a tired but cuddly little girl and her mom. Then, finally, she got very distracted by all of these wonderful dandelions blowing around her, and I just followed from a distance until she was ready to re-engage."
Tip #6: Make time for fun
Like many photographers who are parents, Brophy often uses her child as a subject when she wants to experiment and try something new, whether it's a new camera, a new backdrop, or new props.
"One day," Brophy says, "my daughter Rachel was just sick of the camera. I had used her too much to experiment, so it was no longer fun for her to get her picture taken. So I said, 'Okay, let's go have fun.' And we went to this beautiful stream and we played in the stream and I let her get all wet and just have fun.
"Once her daughter was fully engaged, Brophy was able to surreptitiously pick up her camera again and start clicking away.
"It was one of my favorite sessions ever, and she didn't notice the camera," Brophy says. "In fact, she was so thrilled that I was letting her do what she wanted that when I did occasionally say, "Hey, Rach, look this way," she'd just give me a big, very authentic kind of grin. It's really about true engagement, and the photos need to be secondary to that."
Tip #7: Don't forget the milestones
While capturing the everyday leads to great shots, don't let the special days slip by. Even Barr, whose sons have well documented childhoods, admits to feeling neglectful of their milestones.
"Their pictures grace the walls of my house," she says. "I have canvasses of them. I have metallic prints of them. I have collages of them. I try to capture them in studio. I try to capture them outdoors. I try to capture them playing together — I even have pictures of them playing together in the bathtub, splashing water on one another." Still, Barr says, she feels at times that she hasn't taken their pictures often enough.
"They're kind of the shoemaker's kids," she says. "They'll go through long periods of time when they have no shoes — meaning no portraits. And then I realize that I'm missing out, that they're changing.
"Recently, Barr noticed that her 6-year-old's front teeth were getting loose. So she hurried outside with him one evening to do a special "before the tooth fairy" photo session with him.
When it comes to babies, things change so fast — from what your child looks like to what she's able to accomplish, like smiling, sitting up, pulling up, and so on. Groah says a good rule of thumb is to make a formal portrait of your baby at the newborn stage, then again at the sitting-up stage, and again at the one-year mark.
"After that, once a year for professional portraits is about right," she says, "as long as you're documenting them in between" with informal snapshots.
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