5 ways to capture beautiful portrait images of your child

I have always loved photography. I remember my very first camera – I was 12 years old.  It was one of those old school disposable cameras that I received from my family to take photos of our adventures at Expo 88.

Fortunately, along with technology, I have come a long way since those blurry photos with my brother’s heads missing.

Although I am by far a professional, I have had plenty of practice with my copious amounts of digital pocket cameras, an old school SLR and of course my trusty iPhone!

A few years back I bought my very first Digital SLR. After much googling I decided to go with a Canon EOS 650D. I remember the day she arrived on my door step, all fresh and new and full of possibilities! I even posted a photo of her on Facebook announcing the arrival of the latest addition to our family!  I may not BE a professional photographer, but I sure do FEEL like one!

One of the things I love about photography is that there are always new things to learn. At the moment I am learning all about how to take beautiful portrait images of my kiddies. They are growing up way too fast and I want to make sure I have life lasting beautiful images of them to freeze them in time.

For portrait photography I am using the Canon EF 50mm f/1.4 USM Portrait Lens which has taken me to a whole new level. It’s so reasonably priced (this lens retails for around $474) for the effects that I get from it too and it takes way better pictures than my kit lens. I can’t tell you how super excited I am by the result!

Isn’t she a beauty!

With my trusty new lens and some research I have come up with my:

Top 5 ways to capture beautiful portrait images of your child

So let’s get to it!

Number 1

Make it FUN! Kids are not interested in looking at a camera and saying cheeeeeeese and let’s face it, they are never the best photos anyway.

The best photos are the ones where your child looks happy and natural. I always try to make a game of something – in the photos above, my little girl thought taking the ‘light reflector’ (which I’ll talk about shortly) off me was hilarious so I went with it and got some gorgeous, happy (and cheeky) shots of her!

It’s always fun to ‘tickle’ them too! Sometimes I’ll get the kids to do it to each other…

Precious.

I told my little man to ‘act silly’ which is pretty much has favourite thing to do. By doing this, I not only got some funny and goofy photos of him, it also gave me some ‘compromising space’ so I could snap him in a more ‘serious’ light.

I always have a ‘Lens Friend’ on hand too… it always seems to get an extra smile or two out of my kids!

Because kids wriggle, bounce & move around a lot, it’s a great idea to put your camera on ‘sports’ mode – you know the image of the little guy running? Well that’s sports mode! It will shoot bursts of photos at a time and it helps get rid of any blur whilst your little ones move about.

Number 2

Get up close.  Get right up in their little faces. Their face is their most precious part, so get on in there and capture all of their beautiful expressions, dimples, freckles all the little things that make them them. The best thing about this lens is that the closer you get to your subject, the better the background blur is! It really makes your precious one stand out (whilst making you look a little bit professional…WINNING!)

Number 3

Take photos of the child NOT looking at the camera. When they are looking elsewhere, this draws you into the photo and makes you wonder what they are looking at. It makes the photo interesting, playful and also natural.

Number 4

Light is your best friend when taking photos! The best light is outside so it’s a great idea to hit the back yard, the park or the beach for fantastic photos. If you can’t get outside, the natural light streaming in from a window is also beautiful. To add extra light to their already radiant faces, you could try using a ‘light reflector’ like the one pictured above (I bought this one for around $20 on Ebay). Simply place it underneath their face and the light will reflect up. If you don’t have a light reflector, a white sheet will do the trick!

My 50mm Portrait Lens let’s in 16 times more light than my kit lens which is such a bonus for me. I can spend less time thinking about the lighting situation and more time focusing on getting that winning shot!

Whilst we’re on subject of light, it’s always a nice idea to try to take some photos of your child from above. That way, the light will reflect into their precious faces making their eyes ‘sparkle’

Number 5

Fill the frame. You child is the most important subject so don’t fill your photo with anything but! Simple but so so effective!

I was so glad I took these beautiful images of my kids and I was so lucky to have my Canon 50mm Portrait Lens to continue in my quest to take awesome Portrait images of them!  This really is the perfect lens for portraits (especially for beginners like me). It creates a beautiful ‘look’ to any point and shoot image which is perfect for kids.

To show you a comparison, I took a similar photo one after the other. The first with my standard kit lens and the second with the Canon 50mm Portrait Lens.  I didn’t use any filters on these…

You can see that the 50mm Portrait Lens has a more refined, crisp and ‘dreamy’ softness to it. You can see how the Portrait Lens blurs out the background so well which brings your subject into sharp focus.

With the amazing technology we have these days, I can capture pretty darn good photos with my trusty iPhone, but it’s always nice to have a DSLR camera for those special occasions to capture crisp, professional photos!

I have been using my kit lens a lot for blogs and I really wish I had of used the 50mm Portrait Lens for some of my up close and personal shots. In our Frozen Silly Putty Blog, you can see that if I had of used the Portrait Lens for those cute little pics of my little girl, it would have told a completely different story. The Silly Putty itself would have been more prominent and would have had more of a sharpness to the images. I am certainly happy with my original shots, but I can see now how changing lenses can really help to change the story of what I am trying to portray.

With a beautiful lens like this one and a few simple tips, you are on your way to creating your own beautiful portrait images of your kids!

If you want to become a Fellow Fun Mum Member & receive all of our fun craft, recipes & activities as well as special offers & promotions – click the button on our home page 🙂 

Oh, and why not pop over and ‘like’ us on Facebook OR perhaps Twitter is your thing. . You can also find us on Pinterest & Instagram too!       

This post is coordinated by The Remarkables Group

This post is sponsored by Canon