5 top photography tips for parents, take better photos of your kids today!

This weekend it's Easter, i'm sure you know that already dear reader but just in case ;)  

One important note of the day, my website is mobile friendly, check out it's new makeover here, the least you can do is go and admire it on your iPad or iPhone as it nearly made my eyes bleed until very late last night achieving that.

I've always thought that as a parent you should photograph your children and pets as often as humanly possible, of course you may think that it's easy for me to say that but anyone can take photos, not everything has to be technically perfect, to be honest not everything I take is technically perfect but it's about the moments isn't it?  So with that in mind I thought I would offer up a few photography tips and tricks I use in the hope that it'll help you take more photographs of those precious moments you have in your life every day.

1. Light is the very most important thing to note in photography for without it, well photographs are just going to be black aren't they?  For today just do one thing, watch the light, watch how it changes throughout the day.  You'll mainly find that the very best times are the hour that follows sunrise and the hour that proceeds sunset.  As the sun gets higher in the skies you'll find it gets harsher and the shadows get harder.   If that happens try to run into a shaded area.
2. Direction, again this is pretty light focused, I like to photograph people with their backs to the sun, you'll notice when you do this in the golden hours you end up with lovely light on the hair and you'll get great skin tones, one thing you should note with this is that you may need a touch of fill flash to illuminate faces, you never ever want to end up with panda eyes and whatever you do please don't make your kids face the sun in bright sunlight, can you say Squint?
3. If you can possibly avoid using flash at all ever then by all means do so, especially if it's the flash on the front of your phone, it's the harshest most awful kind of light and it's not kind to anyone ever, this is because of where the flash is, if you really want to use flash and you have the means then you want to take your flash off the camera in as many cases as possible.  I actually never use flash on camera anymore, the only time I ever use it is off camera to do clever things.
4. Don't ask your kids to pose or you'll miss out on the moments, the little things that they do, if you do want portrait photographs then hire a photographer, once a year is a lovely time to do update shots and if you have a great photographer they'll just get the kids having fun and doing stuff to with a few portraits thrown in for good measure, that's why I choose to photograph families in the places they love.
5. Sometimes it's not even about photographing their faces, when they grow up you'll want to remember those tiny hands they had or those cute shoes they always wore, sometimes the most beautiful photographs of children are not about looking at the camera
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   

I've included a sprinkling of personal, professional, iphone and dslr in this article to give you a brief over view of whats possible in any kind of situation and something I'd just like to say is, yes I actually have total posers for children, I'm sure they weren't always that way but they've been photographed constantly for the last 10 or so years of their lives. Possibly it's a good thing to also say that if your kids ask them to take a photo, just do it because one day they won't want you to take their photo anymore!

And if all else fails you'll just have to hire a professional and if you're looking for a photographer in Newcastle then get in touch, I have a few spare sessions remaining over the bank holiday and I'm available all next week including Saturday 11th April which will be at Jesmond Dene.

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