8 Tips for Documenting Your Children

Your everyday moments with your children are a treasure. Beauty if often found in the subtlety of life, isn’t it?

Here are a few tips to think about when for documenting your children.

Tip One: Record for Them: When my son is grown, I want him to be able to look back at the photos I took and see the love but also to remember his favorite  things at each age and stage. For example, a favorite stuffed animal, the shirt he insists on wearing everyday, etc. These are moments that will likely slip from my memory if these details are not recorded! So when you’re taking photos of your children, think like a documentarian and what are your children’s favorite things currently and snap photos of those! 

Tip Two: Play Along: It always helps to play a long and be silly with my son. If he’s rolling around in the grass, I'll roll around too. This not only helps me photograph in a more authentic way, but it keeps me present and living fully with my son which comes first, always.

Tip Three: Get Low: To photograph kids-on-the-go, I always like to get low! Shooting at a child’s eye level will allow your photo to be framed at their perspective – I think this angle helps to portray that sense of wonder they have about the world.

Tip Four: Consider Your Positioning: To eliminate distractions within the frame, sometimes it's as simple as panning a few degrees to the right or the left to crop out a group of people or a pile of unfolded laundry. Other times I need to move to a new position so that the lighting is on the right side, or the backdrop is less busy. And sometimes, I just get up and move the pile of laundry.

Tip 5: Choose Your Favorite (or Two) from the Bunch: When it comes to choosing which photos to keep, I try to save only the ones that really move me (I know, every photo of our child really moves us). In other words, if there are a sequence of 50 photos that all look similar, I pick just one to keep. It’s like applying the Kon Mari approach to images — “does this photo bring me great joy?”

Tip 7: Stay Present (even if it means less photos): I sometimes guilty of not staying totally in the moment and shooting too many photos. I try to anticipate moments that will photograph well, snap a few photos, and move on. There's no point in taking a photo to remember a moment that you missed because you were too busy taking the photo!

Tip 8: Teach and involve them in the process: Let them see how it inspires you – talk about your favorite photos and why you love them, have fun when you’re taking pictures and invite them to be part of that fun. When you get a great shot, call your kids over to look at the screen and gush about the light, their smile, those magic freckles, how awesome it is that you caught the swish of their hair mid-jump. They’ll learn something from you. They’ll take a bit of ownership for being part of that photo that brings you joy. And they’ll happily comply with the occasional, “Ah! That light! Those colors! Will you run by that again so I can get a picture this time?”

If all else fails, take pictures of your kids while they sleep. So still. So quiet. So beautiful.