Kids, how to take a good photo.

NorwayPhoto · Mar 5, 2016

Hi all.

Help!

I am lucky got twins and like to take some photos of them, yes I taken some, but the hard part is to get a good portrait, not one taken in a studio, rathe one showing/reflecting who they are. Natural smile.
Any tip.
If I have them to play with some toys, they fokus on the toys......aaaa, no toys, well they move a bit to fast for me.
Looking at the old photos my father did take, I wonder if they did add some kind of drug in my my food.....
All help is welcome, needed.

Thanks.

winger · Mar 5, 2016

I finally accepted that a blurry shot because he moved really did show who he is - a perpetual motion machine. If I take pictures of my little guy with film, I usually use something with autofocus. No matter what I use, I try to get down at his level and try to be patient. Giving him a toy like duplo blocks gets him sitting in one spot a little better than a truck. I'll lay on the floor and just try to catch a shot when he looks up or something. Or at least show how engrossed he is in the blocks.
And I wonder how my dad did it, too. He didn't have autofocus or auto-anything.

Sirius Glass · Mar 5, 2016

My father would take out the light stands and the dog would tuck his tail between his legs and under his body while he would beg to be let outside. Then regardless of what we did, we got spanked. Then when he took the photographs our eyes were full of tears. People would always ask how he was able to take photographs of us with our eyes so bright.

NorwayPhoto · Mar 6, 2016

Hhehehhe, thanks for the reply and help. Bright eyes, yeah, now it all comes back to me....
But, honestly, I find it VERY hard to take good photos of my kids....but will not give up, not yet...
(Oh, maybe these is a really good excuse to buy a new camera, maybe a RF is not the "best" camera, maybe I need a SLR....)

Sirius Glass · Mar 6, 2016

Sirius Glass said:
My father would take out the light stands and the dog would tuck his tail between his legs and under his body while he would beg to be let outside. Then regardless of what we did, we got spanked. Then when he took the photographs our eyes were full of tears. People would always ask how he was able to take photographs of us with our eyes so bright.

That aside, when our first child was born, I kept a loaded Minolta SLR camera with a mounted automatic strobe out and available at all times. That way my ex- or I could always use it to get photographs. Even the ex- learned to quickly compose and focus the camera. As a result we took many great photographs of the children. When a child does not pay attention to the camera and is just himself or herself, you will get truly great photographs.

adelorenzo · Mar 6, 2016

How old are they? It was really hard for me to get photos of my little guy for the first few months but now at almost 4 months he's a little easier to get in a shot. I even shot 8 frames yesterday on my 4x5!

Sirius Glass · Mar 6, 2016

Mine are 35 and 31.

Bill Burk · Mar 6, 2016

winger said:
Giving him a toy like duplo blocks gets him sitting in one spot a little better than a truck.

Priceless advice.

p.s. I have twins boy and a girl and they're teenagers now. I may have some advice but can't be sure it's any good.

NorwayPhoto · Mar 6, 2016

Thanks for the advice.
My twins are 3 now, two girls.

I will keep the camera ready and around them, so that they get used to it.
For me, all tip/advice is welcome.

jeffreythree · Mar 6, 2016

Definitely keep the camera around, out, and in use. Once my daughter stopped paying attention to the camera, I started getting those natural, relaxed pictures.

NorwayPhoto · Mar 7, 2016

I will do.

pbromaghin · Mar 7, 2016

Use a lot of film.

Fixcinater · Mar 8, 2016

Could you add a bounced flash to be able to stop down the lens more and get more DOF?

Rudeofus · Mar 11, 2016

When my first daughter was about two years old, she utterly rejected any of my attempts to take pictures of her. She would instantly throw a tantrum whenever I got my camera ready. In this time, I was not even able to get pictures suitable for a passport from her, and trust me, both my wife and I spend hours trying. This whole "no pics, please" thing lasted for about 1 1/2 years, during which I took very few pictures of her.

Then we went on a summer vacation trip. When I scanned in the film strips after the trip, she would sit on my lap and suddenly ask: "Why do you have so many photos of my sister and so few of me?", at which point she got a very stern talking to. From this moment on there were no issues whatsoever with me taking pictures of her, to the contrary, a real competition developed between the two, later three of them, who got more pics taken.

Since you have twins in about that age, you can achieve full, and voluntary cooperation very quickly by taking advantage of their vanity: take pics of whoever is more willing to cooperate, show the resulting pics to friends&family, thanks to social conventions every single one of them will cheer "oh, sooo cute! What a boy/girl!", and this will provide the necessary incentive for both of your twins to demand that you take pics of them.

mark · Mar 11, 2016

NorwayPhoto said:
Thanks for the advice.
My twins are 3 now, two girls.

I will keep the camera ready and around them, so that they get used to it.
For me, all tip/advice is welcome.

3 yr olds eh? Duct Tape, industrial velcro. Autofocus, fast lens wide open, lots of film, learn to pan and lots of patience. If you want them to sit, early in the day is better than late. Get it all set up and ready to go before you try to get their participation. Make sure mom is on your side and calm. or wait for mom to not be there. You will have only a few seconds to get the shot. NEVER GET MAD AT THEM because they moved. If you start to get flustered QUIT. My boys are 14 and 10 and I still can't get them to sit still for a photo. They'll sit at a computer for hours, not moving if we let them but ask them to sit or stand for a photo and they can't sit still.

Sirius Glass · Mar 11, 2016

mark said:
3 yr olds eh? Duct Tape, industrial velcro. ...

Super Glue

TSSPro · Dec 13, 2016

To maintain attention or get attention of small pets and small children is the same: rip out the squeaker from a dog toy and keep handy for grabbing the attention of very distractible subjects. One lives in my camera bag all the time.

benjiboy · Dec 13, 2016

When my sons were small I had a Nikon auto focus compact camera around the house all the time available for me or my wife to use.

Sirius Glass · Dec 13, 2016

benjiboy said:
When my sons were small I had a Nikon auto focus compact camera around the house all the time available for me or my wife to use.

That is what I did. The stobe was attached, the shutter and aperture preset so we turned on the strobe, focused and shot.

Kids, how to take a good photo.

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