Creative Portraits: Digital Photography Tips & Techniques

Chapter 5. Kids and Families

Photographing Kids

Life, as political philosopher Thomas Hobbes put it, may be "nasty, brutish, and short." On the other hand anyone who spends much time around young kids—who has a family, or who photographs children—might think that a better description is "dirty, chaotic, and surprise-filled."

Faced with the chaos that kids leave in their wake and all around them, the photographer—like the parent—has really only two options. You can attempt to control the kid energy and precisely position and pose kids as you would with adults. Alternatively, you can go with the flow and take advantage of the creative urges of your pint-sized subjects.

I strongly urge going with the flow. There's nothing to stop you from giving minor assists to the direction of the shoot, perhaps by setting up lighting in advance, providing appropriate props, or suggesting themes for playing. But you'll get photos that are more interesting, and truer to life if you give up the photographer's eternal quest for control—and just let kids be kids. Be ready to take advantage of the inevitable surprises with quick thinking and improvisation, but don't try to turn kids into little wooden statues in formal clothes. It just doesn't work.

The key thing when photographing children is to capture gesture, emotion, mood, facial expression, and fleeting fantasy.

I have to admit that my standards for a ...