Five Helpful Tips for Child Portraits

Photographing people, especially when they are not models, can come with some challenges. Not many have the experience of being in front of the camera. Throw some kids into the mix, and it can become a lot more difficult with a different set of obstacles during your session. What can you do?

Coming from Creative Live, Tamara Lackey shares five tips in this short video for posing and directing that can help you on your next shoot with children — or even adults. Every child is different, but the first tip is crucial when shooting them and can be applied to any person: make sure your lighting is set up.

If you are using any equipment to help with lighting, whether it is continuous lighting, strobed lighting, or even reflectors, have them set up and ready to go. It’s hard to predict what will happen next, and you want to be ready to take that shot of that moment. Once your subjects are ready, you need to be ready as well to capture that moment and not waste time trying to get your lighting set up. Models and even some adults may be more understanding about waiting while you are setting up, but with kids or anyone with shorter attention spans, you need to be ready when you have their attention.

Make sure to watch the complete two-minute video for the rest of the tips Lackey shares. What are some other useful tips from your experiences shooting children?

Alex Ventura's picture

Staff writer Alex Ventura is a professional photographer based out of the Houston area that specializes in automotive and glamour with the occasional adventures into other genres. He regularly covers automotive related events for Houston Streets & Spekture with some publications in the United States.

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