When it comes to kids photography, Dana Whitley, a Click Love Grow Advanced Graduate photographer, has a knack for candidly capturing her boy brothers. Through her delicious portraits, she records their childhood in a way that communicates their essence and connection. As her photos are universally loved in our community, we asked her to share her favourite ideas for capturing her boys!

How To Get Sharp Photos

First up, a word on some basic skills you’ll need for approaching kids photography in this way.

Let’s face it, kids move a lot. When photographing them, particularly at play, you don’t need to ask them to stop and pose. You can capture them candidly and still get good quality, sharp images with good separation from the environment… you just need to get pretty good at a few technical things.

Shutter Speed

A fast shutter speed is essential. Even if the kids are just standing there, try not to shoot below 1/200. It’s much better to push ISO than risk an image with unwanted motion blur.

Increase the shutter speed as their own speed increases.

Focusing On a Moving Subject

Use a continuous focus drive mode so that your camera can track the movement of your subject. It can be a bit hit and miss – expect that so that you don’t feel discouraged, and overshoot to compensate.

Aperture

Use wide apertures to help isolate your subjects from the background, but you’ll need to be very accurate when focusing on their faces. That’s where it counts to get proficient using continuous auto focus drive mode, which is a focusing technique for moving subjects.

This tutorial contains some instruction on how to use it, further down in the article.

Related: How to Take Perfect Action Photos

Manual Mode

You need to be in manual mode in order to control these functions, so if you’re not already using your DSLR in manual mode, take a leap!

Related: How to Shoot in Manual Mode

1. Baby, You Can Ride My Bike

The beauty of capturing them on bikes (or scooters, whatever their wheels of choice!) is they’re just doing their thing. So they can ignore me, and I can shoot to my heart’s content.

This is an activity where you definitely need to use continuous autofocus drive mode.

2. Try Panning!

Small children are always on the move, and most of the time you’d want to be freezing that motion.

Panning, however, if done well, adds a beautiful sense of movement to a brothers’ photography shot whilst freezing the motion of your subject. Panning can be tricky and takes a lot of practice. But if you can nail it, the effect is worth the effort. The motion blur in the background is definitely a plus!

This effect works best if you pan smoothly whilst keeping your subject in the frame and your chosen focus point over his face as much as possible.

A Step-By-Step Guide

1. Shutter speed – 1/25 as a starting point.
2. Aperture f/16
3. Set ISO to get exposure.
4. Choose a focal point that will be over your subject’s face.
5. Set auto focus drive mode to continuous so that your camera will keep track of your subject and refocus as he moves.
6. Set to high-speed continuous burst mode.
7. Once he’s moving, start shooting with your chosen focus point over his face and pan at the same speed as your subject, ensuring the focus point is always over his face.
8. Hold down the shutter button until you’re finished panning.

Experiment

Check your shots and decide if you like the effect. If you have motion blur on your subject, increase your shutter speed or slow your panning. If your background is not blurred enough, but your subject is sharp, reduce your shutter speed.

Bear in mind the speed of motion of your subject will dictate the shutter speed you need. 1/40 won’t work for every subject or set of wheels! But it’s a good starting point.

3. Superheroes

This is a session you won’t need to work for at all. Give a kid a cape, and imaginative play will come naturally… all you need to do is be ready to capture it.

4. Quiet Play…Shhh

Boys photography doesn’t need to be all about gross motor pursuits. My boy brothers have their quiet moments, which I love to record because it captures their sweet, soft side.

But I never pose them. They love the arts – drawing, painting, making, reading – so instead, I’ll put their usual toys or art projects in beautiful light. Then I leave them to it, step back and photograph it.

In a shot like this, where the pocket of light is hard, I would expose for the highlights to avoid any blowouts.

Related: What is Metering

 

Think outside the box for perspectives, framing and composition.

5. Popsicles

Eating makes for great brothers’ photography ideas when you incorporate fun and colourful foods…giant lollipops, fairy floss, milk and cookies…or, in this case, popsicles.

I deliberately gave my boys red popsicles, and in theory, it probably sounds insignificant. But that seemingly small consideration added a dynamic element to these shots composed against a backdrop of more neutral tones.

Also, stripping them back to their shorts meant less work for me in the laundry later. But more importantly, it pared back the shot to as few elements as possible, ensuring the glorious red of those popsicles could really, well, pop!

6. Water Play

This is another activity where you’ll need fast shutter speeds and the ability to use a continuous focus drive mode.

Compositionally, get lots of detail and wide shots as this is a great storytelling type session.

For this shot below, I’d suggest a shutter speed of at least 1/800.

Related: Lifestyle vs. Documentary vs. Portrait Photography

Also, late afternoon daylight reflects off water droplets to create a beautiful, sparkling effect.

7. Everyday Moments

When it comes to brothers‘ photography, I can’t stress enough the importance of having your camera close by as much as you can. That doesn’t mean it should be around your neck all day…but I’d suggest never having it packed away somewhere difficult to get to.

So many of my photos of my boys are unexpected, candid, everyday moments that I never would have been able to record had my camera been safely housed in a camera bag, buried somewhere in the back of the robe.

Particularly when you see some magical light…the most ordinary moments can be translated into amazing photos when they occur in pockets of light like this.

Related: How to Shoot in Low Light

Related: A Day In The Life Photography

That being said, more often than not, everyday moments tend to happen in locations or light that are less than ideal. Moving your subject not only renders the image inauthentic, but when it comes to young children, it can mean losing the moment altogether.

When you have harsh light, position yourself in a way that casts the light most evenly across your subject’s face and don’t worry about hard light shadows falling around them.

 Alternatively, embrace shadow photography and use it like you mean it!

Related: Shadow Photography – Embracing Hard Light 

Awesome moments don’t always happen in ideal locations either (think, clutter!). Don’t stress…just use a really wide aperture to blur the background into insignificance. Or, embrace it and consider it an environmental portrait!

Next time they’re asleep, grab the camera. Images like this one will be treasured forever.

8. Gardening

Gardening offers so many different photo opportunities – think digging, planting, watering, picking, harvesting…

9. Explorers

When you take them on outings in nature, bring more to the shots by encouraging exploration. Point out small details that they might otherwise miss when moving at their usual fast pace. Ask questions to encourage curiosity.

I make sure to get lots of wide shots in this situation to bring context to any detail shots and ultimately tell the story of where we were and what we were doing.

Top Tips – A Summary!

To sum up, my tips for capturing small boys:

• Fast shutter speed to freeze their motion
• Auto focus continuous drive mode for getting sharp focus on moving subjects
• Expose for highlights when shooting in hard light
• Wide aperture to blur any clutter and isolate subjects from the environment
• Change your own position rather than moving your subjects to ensure authenticity and keep them engaged!
• Set up quiet activities in good light
• Be on the lookout for ordinary everyday moments occurring in beautiful patches of light

Related: AF vs. MF…Which One To Use, And When?

 

Lastly… have fun during the photo shoot! Not every photo you take during a brothers’ photography session has to be a stunning portrait…don’t miss moments because the light or other elements aren’t conducive to technically perfect photos. Often, the moment is too important to miss.

 

Join my new workshop and learn How to Shoot Pro-Quality Photos With Your DSLR… and it’s totally FREE to join! Register here…