Photographing Your Superheroes and Princesses

I'm excited to bring you a post today about photography. As mum of two little ones, I'm always looking to improve my photography and capture their joyous outlook on life! Today, my friend and photographer Connie will be showing you how you can create and capture special moments with your children.

Hi! I'm Connie Hanks with Clicky Chick Creates, where photography and crafting come to play! I'm a mommy to two girls (6 and 4), wife to one amazing husband, photographer in love with details, instructor at my local scrapbook store, volunteer extraordinaire at church and school, forever student and eternally grateful for the many blessings from the good Lord above. Melissa was kind enough to ask me to guest post, and I'm looking forward to sharing some photography tips with you today...

I've always loved photography, and over the past few years, my style as a photographer and scrapbooker has evolved and continues to do so. I started blogging earlier this year when I realized my studies for certification in photography were about to be completed and I had buckets and buckets of knowledge and photos I wanted to share with the world. So here I am now, sharing lots at my blog Clicky Chick Creates and loving time behind the lens. Today, I'd love to share my top tips on photographing little kids with BIG personality! I know we all have those in our lives!

1. Get on their level
I cannot emphasize how important it is to add variation to the shots you get of the little ones in your life. So many times we get stuck in the same, comfortable shooting style (read: standing). Many of my best shots of kids (mine and clients') are when I'm at their eye-level. Whether that means sitting or laying on my tummy, being as close to eye-level with them makes a huge difference.

2. Exaggerations
There are moments when exaggerating the differences in size is important. So getting a shot while the kiddo is above you and they're looking down at you or looking off in the distance will show and emphasize how much they've grown. Or on the other end, getting a shot while you're looking down at them will show how little they are still. Adding big wide open spaces*, as well as tight shots really help show proportion as well. Again, be sure to get lots of variations in your shots. {* I learned how to add text in shapes from Melissa's tips and adore how this came out with subtle text in the clouds!}

3. Play time
True fact: All kids love to play. Hard to believe, right?! So capture them while they're doing just that. My girls adore all things girly: princesses, ballerinas, make-up and so on. Many times I'll steer them ("wanna play beauty salon?") and I'll just sit in a corner of the room with my camera in hand and watch them as they do their thing. As much as I love getting eye contact in our shots, I sure do love the authentic, in-the-moment shots of them being them, totally messy, totally loud, perfectly themselves.

4. Details
Kids go through so many phases. One month they're all about tiaras, or boots, or tutus or firemen hats; the next month "ewwwww, I don't want to wear that!" Don't miss those moments - capture the details before they move on to the next! And besides the "stuff" they fixate on, be sure to capture the stuff they "do" - little tongues hanging out while concentrating, bouncing all around (is their a Tigger in your family, too?!), facial expressions, a blankie or lovey they won't leave the house without. We think we won't forget these details, but we do. It's so important to get those detail shots!

5. Engage
How many "cheeeeeeeese" smiles do you have in your stash of photos? I bet there are tons! One way to get more authentic smiles it to chat with the kiddo - ask them to show you what they're playing with, or what their favorite part of the day has been, or what their favorite toy is, or what they're hoping Santa might bring them for Christmas. Or you want a big laugh? Make a fart joke! Kids give you the best expressions when you ask if Daddy just farted : ) Anything to get their mind off the black hole of the lens looking at them, and onto some of their favorite subjects. It also helps you to live in the moment and not get so bogged down trying to get the shot! It's amazing the changes you'll see in your images with this one little tip! I wrote a whole post about that here.

I hope I provided a few new tips to help you get great images of your favorite little ones! I post photography tips on my Photo Fridays series, so be sure to follow me over at Clicky Chick Creates to get future tips to improve your photos for your scrapbook pages!

Have a joyful, creative, blessing filled day!
Live creatively!
xoxo,
/c