How To Take A Great Picture Of Your Kids
Step 1: Find an inspiration shot from some fancy photographer with actual skills and credentials and convince yourself you can totally recreate it yourself.
Step 2: Collect necessities like matching kid outfits, a back drop, light reflectors, and an assistant to help keep the kids under control.
Step 3: Remember you don’t actually have ANY OF THOSE THINGS.
Step 4: Lay down a dog-hair covered quilt, grab squeaky toy to get the baby’s attention and tell your husband to stop laughing at you because you are CREATING MAGICAL MOMENTS.
Step 5: Arrange the baby on the blanket.Watch her roll away.
Step 6: Arrange the baby on the blanket. Watch her roll away.
Step 7: Arrange the baby on the blanket. Watch her roll away.
Step 8: Decide to start with the toddler. Convince him to lie down for two seconds before he realizes the baby is going to lie down next to him and runs away shouting “NO BABY! NO!”
Step 9: Bride toddler with promise of a cookie (that you don’t actually have), a toy, chips, ice cream, pizza (that you also don’t have) and eventually an ice cube. Yes, an ice cube.
Step 10: Pin the baby down on the blank with one foot while shouting “LOOK HERE! LOOK AT ME! WHEEEEE!!!” and shooting blindly with the camera held above your head.
Step 11: Tell both kids to stop whining so much and look happy! Be sure to use a nice firm loud voice so they understand just HOW HAPPY they’re supposed to be.
Step 12: Give up in a huff. Flounce away with your camera to pout about how uncooperative your children are.
Step 13: Spend two hours staring at the shots in Photoshop, trying to decide exactly which of the 12 different slightly vintage, washed out, lightened filters makes the photos look the fanciest. Then spend another two hours deciding which kid looks best upsidedown and wondering if there’s a name for the specific brand of crazy you seem to have.
Step 14: Enjoy your treasured memories. ENJOY THEM. DO IT NOW.
(Just in case you were ACTUALLY looking for information, the photos were taken with my Nikon D90, my Nikkor 18-105mm f/3.5-5.6G lens and edited in Photoshop Elements 9 with the Watermelon Blues free action from My Four Hens Photography)
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Tags: Caroline, little evan, photography, pictures
u crack me up on the daily! these two together could never take a bad photo!!
i LOVED this post. so so funny and yes, exactly how it is! x
Ha ha attempted this myself the other day. Mine involved trying to ensure the toddler didn’t kick the baby in the end (accidentally I hope!) and me shouting “look at meeeeee!!!” the resulting shots were less than impressive to say the least.
ohmygoodness. this is SO funny…but then again it’s not. ;) here’s to hoping the kiddos will look cute AND cooperate next time (if there is a next time)!
Well now see … all that stuff at the end & the adorable children… You are a real photographer. Mine would say, “shot with expensive camera that I’ve never taken off of the auto setting and edited (too much) in picnik.” haha!
Honestly, I “learn to use my fancy camera” at least once a week…but get so so so so annoyed at missing shots while I fuss around with the settings that I use the auto settings 99% of the time. Even my husband knows more about ISO and aperture at this point. It’s kind of sad.
Ignoring the husband’s mockery is key. Also, learning to delete the bad ones. Photos, not husbands.
I need to learn to delete the bad ones BEFORE I put them on my hard drive, since my computer is literally FULL of blurry, crooked shots. For every nice photo I have 99 bad ones.
Awwww, sweetness. Except for all the crazy stuff that leads to getting like 2 good shots out of 100.
At least you can take decent photos yourself. I have to pay $300 to get family photos taken! Ugh.
The only reason E let me buy the Nikon is because he found out what a real photographer charges for prints after we got a “free” session. It was cheaper to just buy a DSLR and set up our own shoots – especially with TWO kids. And I don’t even know what you’re talking about, your photos are great too!
They couldn’t take a bad picture if they tried, they are ADORABLE! I am learning with my first child right now what it is like to get pictures of a toddler on the run…. not as much fun as when she was a baby and would just sit there and COULDN’T get away from the camera!
They are SO cute!!
Love this post! Mommy does exactly the same kinds of things – except she only has a point and shoot :)