In this post I will cover tips and some of my favorite tips for photographing children and photography prompts to help them smile naturally! No child (or adult, really) wants to stand still and smile for a photograph, right? They have important work to do elsewhere! If you are lucky enough to start your photography journey photographing a baby, you’re lucky! They can’t move and it’s real easy to get them to smile at their favorite person, mama! Plus, you get to ease into learning how to photograph a moving subject as they grow. If you start learning with a toddler, it can be so frustrating! This is the biggest pain-point experienced by my mothers learning to photograph.
The biggest thing to consider when taking a photograph is WHY you are even taking it. When I talk about using photography as a vehicle for living intentionally, I’m talking about slowing down to look at your life–but I’m also talking about engaging with it. Approaching your camera with intention as means to engage with your children when you use the camera.
So, here are some specific ways to engage with your child and have fun taking photos with them! 💖
Tip 1: Let go of the sit and smile expectation
Do you like standing still doing nothing but smiling at a camera? Me either! Asking children to sit still and smile for a photo really isn’t fair. Do they know how to smile? Yeah, sure. But are they used to doing it on command? You CAN get great candid photos of your child that you will cherish just as much as (and probably more than), a “smiiiiiile.” Get down to their eye level and be willing to follow their move. If you have them sitting, make sure you’ve got a back of engaging tricks to keep them there! (Pst, see below!)
Tip 2: Expose them to the camera often
I’m not suggesting you need to use it all the time. But, the more your children see you casually working with your camera, the less of a big deal it will be. They may be very distracted by it at first, and even want to mess with it. You decide what your boundaries are, but for my child it worked to let her sit in my lap and explore it a few times, and then she decided she had better things to do (she was about 10mo at the time). She doesn’t mind when I have the camera out now, she carries on or engages in playing with me. In fact as she has gotten older, she almost instinctively smiles at the camera and then moves on because she used to seeing it so much.
Tip 3: Be honest
I recommend being really honest ahead of time with older children. Tell them how important it is that you have pictures of them and how grateful you are. Thank them when they do smile and show them the back of the camera. Show them the photos you have displayed around your home. Remind them when you took it, and how happy it made you. Tell them why photos are important to you. I can’t promise this will work for every kid but I bet it will work better than, “smile or I will take away xyz.” Now let’s talk about things you can say or do when you are behind the camera!
Prompt 1: Play a game
Peek-a-boo, call and respond (clap, wave, dance, lift-your arms, say hooray, etc to prompt a response) and funny animal sounds are usually great for babies and young toddlers. Tickle fights (with permission), simon says, asking for jokes, and dance competitions and are great photography prompts for children who are a little older! I also frequently ask my daughter to show me what she is playing with or doing to get her to pick her head up.
Prompt 2: Ask for help
I love asking children for help! One of my favorite prompts is to ask for help finding something that might have crawled in my camera like a bug or animal. You can also ask for help remembering silly animal sounds or words, or help remembering crazy dance moves. Or you can approach this as asking for help doing a task that you want to actually do together and photograph. Ideas include creating something, baking, scavenger hunts, building a fort, or building something else!
Prompt 3: Look at something
Again, so many things you can ask children to look for! Examples include, look at a specific family member, look for someone’s eye color, look at the person with the best jokes, stinkiest farts, etc. I also like to do rapid fire prompts like look up/down/at me/down/up/down/left/up until they giggle. A lot of times young toddlers who feel uncomfortable respond well to me saying, “can you point to mama/dada/etc? where are they?”
Looking for more help?
Read the rest of our free blog posts for more photography tips and tricks for moms!