7 TIPS for Taking PROFESSIONAL Looking Photos of your children on Your Phone-OUTSIDE

Picture of a little girl in pool taken on an overcast day.

We all carry a powerful camera device in our phone. They can take amazing pictures of our children that we would miss if we had to stop and go get a bulky SLR camera. With this tool, we all attempt to make those memories, but sometimes we are disappointed that our picture just didn’t quite catch the specialness of the moment. Our pictures are just ok. Not something we would want to share with family and friends. With your phone camera and a few tips, you can learn to take amazing pictures of your children. 

Yes, there are times when you’ll miss a split-second opportunity if you don’t just snap a quick picture. But most of the time you have 3 or 4 seconds to think about the picture you want to take before you lose that special moment.

With practice and these seven tips, pictures of your children will look amazing. 

TIP #1   Notice your light What direction is it coming from? Lighting is incredibly important to the quality of your images. It is the first thing to evaluate when you pull out your camera. Ask yourself, “What kind of lighting do I have today?”

·      Cloudy Day Lighting When clouds cover the sun, the lighting produced is soft, diffused and even light, which is what you are looking for on little faces you want to photograph. The image above is an example of cloudy day lighting. You can take pictures anywhere you want, for the most part.

·      Sunny Mid-day Lighting The most difficult time of day to get good pictures is when the sun is high in the sky. During this time your best pictures will generally be in the shade. Mid-day sun causes harsh light and unwanted shadows on little faces as shown in the picture below. This cute picture would be adorable if it didn’t have shadows on her face.

Image taken in midday sun causing harsh shadows on her face.

There are a couple hacks you can use to help overcome this problem.

HOLD POLARIZED SUNGLASSES in front of the iPhone camera lens as you take your picture. This will help get rid of the glare and gives you more balanced color and less shadows.

TURN ON YOUR FLASH If you are in bright overhead light, use your camera flash. They can fill in those harsh shadows. It may seem counter intuitive to add more light to an already bright photo, but your phone will automatically adjust. If you are close enough to your child, the flash will even out and soften the harsh shadows. Camera flashes aren’t very strong, so you will need to be within a few feet of your child for this to work.

·      Sunny Low in the Sky Lighting An hour or so before sunset is known as the “Golden Hour”. During this time, you can get magical pictures. Allow the golden light to work for you. Stand with your back to the light. This shines the beautiful soft light onto your child’s face.

Little boy smiling by a fence in “Golden Hour”

After observing and adjusting to your lighting, either Cloudy Day Lighting, Sunny Mid-day lighting or Sunny Low in the Sky Lighting, begin using the following tips to make your pictures wonderful.

 TIP #2   Check the background of your picture before taking it. It’s frustration when you capture a great expression on the face of your child and then notice the garbage can prominently displayed in the background. Simple uncluttered backgrounds work best and make the focus be on what your child is doing.

Little Boy peeking around a post. The image has a neutral background. Photographer used “Portrait Mode”.

TIP #3   Try using “Portrait” mode This softens your background and focuses on your child and less on what’s behind them. It also highlights the expression in the eyes and on their face. This mode only works for pictures 2-5 feet away. (It will tell you if you are too close or too far away.) 

 TIP #4   Focus on their Eyes Do this by touching their face on your screen. It will automatically focus on the area where you touch. Most of the time eyes are what bring a portrait to life. Even if you are trying to capture a mouth expression you can’t go wrong by focusing on their eyes.

 TIP #5   Use “Rule of Thirds” Most people naturally try to center your child’s face or body in the middle of the picture, most of the time it looks ok, but doesn’t seem to be as great as you thought it would. It looks average. By simply turning on the “grid” tool you can transform that little face into an extraordinary picture. Turn on the grid tool in Settings-Camera-Grid. Once that’s on, you have lines on your camera screen that look something like a tick-tack-toe grid (#). If you use the “rule of thirds” it will instantly improve your photography. If you move your camera so that the eyes are at one of the four cross points of the grid (+), this immediately provides much more interest. Those are the points your eye naturally wants to go to in a photo and you are making a cute image of a child easy to look at. Glance at the images in this post and notice where the eyes are in the photos.

Iphone screen with grid showing where to focus your child’s eyes.

TIP #6   Ground level images Get onto your hands and knees or lay on the grass. Put your phone close to the ground and take some pictures looking up at them. This provides a whole new perspective. You begin to see the perspective of your child. Be creative and try other angles too.

 TIP #7   Allow your lighting to work for you. Stand with your back to the light on a sunny day. This allows the light to fill your child’s face and put a sparkle of light in their eyes called “Catch lights”. You can also position yourself facing the sun, allowing the sun to cause a glowing rim light around your child’s head. To do this with a phone, you’ll have to have the flash on and be close to them. 

Little boy in “Golden Hour” with “Rim Light” on his hair.

There are so many creative ways to take great pictures of your children. Using these 7 tips will significantly improve the pictures you take. You may even have other moms ask, “Are you a professional photographer?”