The Eyes the Eyes!
The Eyes Are The Window To The Soul, Make Them Stand Out In Portraits
Remember the central focussing point? If you can, and it takes some practice, keep it pinned to the eyes of your subject! If the child or children are sitting fairly still, keep the eyes in focus. Can you see me and my camera in the eyes below?
My tip here is to place the central focussing point over one eye and depress the shutter lightly. Do this so it focuses on that eye and then, whilst keeping the shutter depressed, re-compose and shoot. This way, you get perfectly focussed eyes and a nicely framed photograph. Again, it takes some practice, but when you get it right, you also get a lot more keepers!
One of my favourite shots is a tightly cropped photograph of a young child's face, with absolutely pin sharp eyes. When enlarged and hanging on a wall, these can capture the attention of any passer-by. Have you ever seen a lovely photograph where the subjects eyes are blurred? Not good unless again, you are going for some artistic approach.
Note: NEVER give out bad photographs. Even if you think the picture itself is sweet, but
...bin it. A parent (including myself) loves any photograph of their child. However, a friend of the parent, or potential client, will just see a bad photograph!
Got all of that?
If all this seem a lot to take in, don't worry. After a few sessions, and after reading through this a few times, you will get the hang of it. Why not bookmark this page in your favourites for reference?
Once you get comfortable with child photography and people in general, you can start to experiment and advance on to more creative photography. For now, of all my tips on child photography the most important one is…
ENJOY YOURSELF!!!!
...and the work will keep on coming in!
If you would like to see our advice and tips on Photoshop, or digital imaging, why not go there now and see if we can help. Once you have a set of nice photographs, it is amazing how you can cash in on getting creative on your computer.
This post may contain affiliate links. For more information, visit my disclosure page.