When you're taking photos of children, or anyone else for that matter, get closer! It makes such a difference to the outcome of the photo.
When I look at family snaps that I used to take (before I got more interested in photography), and the family snaps that a lot of my friends take, they tend to look like the first photo below.
I took this photo of my son this afternoon. It's not a particularly good photo is it? You can't really see the expression on his face or the movement in his hands while he's clapping.
Now look at the difference after getting closer.
I changed the mm length of the lens, but if you're using a point and shoot, just use the zoom. It makes a huge difference. And if your zoom is not powerful enough, use your feet. I could have cropped the photo to get the same effect, but then the quality of the photo will be reduced.
You can see the expression on his face now. His clapping hands are slightly blurred, but that's OK, because I was trying to show the movement in the shot.
Feel free to ask questions in comments, or hop over to the Blissfully Domestic Forum!
Jeanette is a South African working mother of 2 very busy boys. She's been taking a photograph every day since June 2007 and you can watch her skills improve at Photography by Jeanette.
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I have a fujifilm finepix. Every time I try to get close up pictures of my kids they are either very blurry or the flash is just too bright and washes them out. What am I doing wrong?
PS: Love the picture of the adorable little guy!
HE is amazingly adorable. Those eyes are gorgeous!!
Awesome advice!
Great Tips Jenty – I look forward to more of your articles.
Thanks for the comments.
Lisa, You haven't mentioned which Finepix model you have. There are a number of reasons for the blurry shots:
You're taking the photos too close to them for the camera to focus, but the most likely issue is your shutter speed.
If you're taking photos of kids, they move around so quickly, that it's best to use the Sports mode on the camera, that way your shutter speed will be faster.
As far as the flash goes, I try everything in my power not to use the flash, I find it really creates too many shadows etc. You can set most camera to turn the flash off, but set it to a shadow setting (so it compensates for low light without using the flash).
HTH,
Jeanette