Photographing children can often be a challenge. I know this first hand, I’m a photographer and more often than not I find myself working entirely too hard to get a decent photo of my two.

Let them be kids
Start by putting them in a situation that will let them play and have fun. If they’re engaged in an activity the photos will be more natural and you’ll have a lot more fun taking them. For the image of my daughter Paige above we went out into a field on my uncle’s property in Lake Wenatchee. It was a beautiful fall day and I just let her and her brother run around the field picking wild flowers.

Use a long lens
Using a zoom lens lets you capture the action while filing the frame. If I had a short lens on my camera for the image of Paige above I wouldn’t have gotten that shot. She was running right towards me and would have run me over before I was able to get that composition. Try to fill your frame with your children and their activities. Using a long lens makes this easier to do. It also keeps you from directing.

Don’t Direct
About that whole direction thing.. Don’t do it. Let them play and don’t ask them to pose for the camera. Put them in the situation you want to photograph and let them interact with their surroundings, not you.

I do this with my couples all the time. You’ll come away with more natural photos that draw you into the image and actually give you the feeling of capturing a moment in time rather than looking at a posed ‘cheese’ type of portrait.

That should get you started. If you’d like more recommendations on gear or the technical aspects of photographing kids please feel free to ask in the comments and I’ll write a follow up article next week to answer your questions. That is, if anyone other than photographers and my mom read my blog….

Hi mom!

What are the big things they say to splurge on? You guessed it, your setting and your photography. These two things alone are what you remember the most about your wedding day and I wholly agree that if you’re going to splurge on anything make sure you put yourself in beautiful setting and have a great photographer there to document it.

Here’s a quote from the article:

SPLURGE: PHOTOS

A wedding is only one day, but the photos last forever. Even on a budget, brides rarely lament the amount spent on a quality photographer.

“We really love our wedding photos and still get compliments on them to this day. She was worth the extra cash we spent,” Cochran says.

Photos were so important to Kalkay, she spent $50,000 to bring in photographers who regularly shoot celebrity weddings.

While I’m not a $50,000 photographer like Denis Reggie, it’s still important to budget a bit more than the 10% that all of those wedding budget calculators would have you put towards your photographer.

Proposal photography is a growing trend in wedding photojournalism. Recently I photographed Jed and Courteney’s proposal and engagement session out at Cape Flattery on the tip of Washington state. KOMO News radio reporter Jon Repp caught up with me yesterday for a story on Proposal Photography. We chatted for a few minutes about my views on photography, photojournalism and the growing trend of proposal photography.

The short radio story will be broadcast this morning, October 10th on KOMO AM 1000 (listen to the live stream) at about 40 minutes after the hour and will also be available on KOMO News Radio’s website on their Audio Center Page. Here’s a direct link to the audio on KOMO’s website: KOMO News Radio – Proposal Photography.

You can also find a link back to my blog post about Courteney & Jed’s Proposal on KOMO’s Hotlinks page.

If you’d like to talk about having your proposal documented, please feel free to email or call me at the studio. I would love to be there!

Local file for archive: KOMO News Radio – Proposal Photography