The Three Biggest Mistakes in Photographing Children

This is not an example of a mistake! I think this is an example of a photograph with a great subject matter and soft lighting and a simple background.

Over the years I have seen so many potentially wonderful photographs of children. Parents often have the opportunity to capture the best expressions of children, but render "merely" snapshots unless they have either some kind of organic intuition about composition or have picked up a tip or two along the way. What I have noticed are the following common mistakes.

1. Too much information! Pay attention to where your eye roams when you are looking at a photograph. Track it. If they don't first go right to your subject, ask yourself WHY. Most often it is because there is too much clutter in the background. When you make the CHOICE to click the shutter, really look first. Is there something that takes your eye that you can move out of the way?
Can you walk around the child and find a better, simpler background? Your focal point should be the child, particularly the face and more particularly the eyes. Now go and look at some of your favorite photographs and see if you can see what I mean. Another thing that effects the background is the depth of field, or what is or is not in focus or blurred. Generally speaking the less depth of field the better in a portrait. When you set your camera on portrait mode if you have one, that is what will happen - the background will be thrown out of focus more. If you have any idea of how to make that happen on your camera (without being too technical here), just do it. For those of you who are real beginners, I will throw out the word, "aperture." That is the size of the hole in the lens and it is not fixed. Aperture controls what is or is not in focus. Later, later later.

2. Too much Flash. Try this on for a philosophy. Just say NO. No flash. Unless you really know what you are doing with a flash (and are much more left-brained than I am) it usually blasts too much flat light into the subject. Usually that not only washes out the subject but flattens it out too. In my book I talk about how to find flattering and sculpting light - natural light, from the sky, from windows, doorways, under trees. This philosophy will test you for sure. When you are inside with no light, this is not going to work. However, if start thinking about light, direction of light, etc., instead of setting up the flash as a default, you will learn quickly when you must turn it on. There are ways to finesse the use of flash in a more natural way, but I will talk about that later. By that time, you won't ever want to use flash again, I promise.

3. Overexposure. Something I learned way back in my early years of professional shooting is that good photographs are often more saturated and darker than the "default" of what your camera gives you. Just take one of your photographs that you like but don't love and either bring down the curves in photoshop or just try darkening it in any way that your software provides.
You might have to bump up the contrast a tiny bit, too. That should make all the difference. If not, try another one until you see what I mean.