Fantastic Travel Pics: How to Take Beautiful Photos of Kids
Make beautiful photos, like this portrait of a baby boy, with ease.
Perhaps, like me, some of your absolute favorite travel pics are of kids. But I’ve learned that taking beautiful photos of children requires patience, sound photo technique and a good measure of psychology.
Taking beautiful photos of kids, while traveling, isn't easy. When photographing strangers, ensure you have permission. Make sure the child’s face is illuminated, focus on their eyes, strive for a good composition and seek the decisive moment to achieve the optimal expression on the child’s face.
Who’s got the cutest little baby face?
Putting aside the beauty of your own face, or that of your pet, this is such a subjective question that the answer, should they meet the rather obvious criteria, may be your own child.
I think a parent, most usually a mother, will identify certain behavioral aspects associated with their child and consider them as characteristics unique to that child.
When endeavoring to make beautiful photos of a child, it’s certainly worthwhile trying to record such moments for posterity.
The above photo features a baby boy, Ashton, gazing out of the frame. It’s a lovely, candid moment showcasing the curiosity and joy that we associate with life at that age.
I traveled back to my hometown to make the photo, which was made inside the entrance to a church, immediately after Ashton’s christening.
I opted for a black and white rendering of the original color image, as it draws attention to his big, beautiful eyes and curious nature.
As Ashton is my great nephew, no permission was required for me to make this quick, candid snap.
Sadly, I’ve only met him on three occasions. But I really hope that will change and many more photos will follow.
Beautiful photo of a young boy, at a temple, in Bali, Indonesia.
Beautiful Photos Start by Lighting The Child’s Face
Have no doubt, beautiful photos begin with the application of soft, gentle light.
It’s that particular soft quality of light that you should always look out for, and be sure to situate the child you want to photograph in that light.
After getting permission from his father, I made this travel pic of a young boy at a Hindu temple in rural Bali, Indonesia.
The day was hot and the sun intense, which makes it extremely difficult to produce beautiful photos outdoors.
The solution was to ask the young lad to move a few meters back, out of direct sunlight, and into the shade.
I love making portraits in this way.
The intensity of the light is reduced, while the size of the light, relative to the subject’s face, is increased.
It’s essential to understand that soft light is a direct outcome of a large, diffuse light source.
And that’s exactly what you’ll get when you move your subject a few steps back into the shade.
Can you see that his eyes, ears and the collar of his T-shirt are oval in shape?
Shape is an important element of composition and, when you remove color from a photo, as I’ve done here, the importance of other elements of composition, like shape, are elevated.
How to Take Beautiful Photos with Soft Light
Soft light is achieved by taking photos, both inside and outdoors, with the aid of a physically large light source.
When inside, illuminating your subject with window light works a treat, providing the light is not so bright that your subject squints.
Pulling a curtain or privacy blind down will reduce the brightness of the light, without changing the size of that light source.
Alternatively, you can reduce the intensity of the light coming through the window by moving the subject further away from it.
Just be aware that, by doing so, you’ll be making the light source (i.e., the window) smaller in relation to the size of the subject’s face.
Doing so will, unfortunately, reduce that lovely, soft quality of light you’re trying to achieve.
When outdoors under a bright, sunny sky, I’II often move my subject into the shade to situate them in less intense and more diffuse lighting.
The fact that the light is more diffuse is a result of it being a larger light source. And that’s what you want. Right!
Just be careful not to situate the subject too far into the jungle, where overhanging trees can introduce a greenish color cast.
That could really compromise your ability to produce accurate color in the subject’s skin and clothing.
I’ve found that, moving your subject just a meter or two inside the shade, is usually enough.
This allows light to illuminate your subject, but at a lower level of intensity and in a softer, more diffuse form than would be the case if you’d situated your subject in bright, direct sunlight.
A tip for the ages, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Beautiful photo of a child, against a green and yellow wall, Kolkata.
Illuminate and Focus On The Child’s Eyes
As well as using light to bring the eyes to life critical focusing on the subject’s eyes will further draw viewer attention to the face of the child you’re photographing.
The application of a shallow depth of field will further enhance the effect by de-emphasizing the out of focus surroundings.
If in doubt, always focus on the eye that’s closest to your camera’s lens.
In the case of an extremely shallow depth of field, this technique ensures it’ll be the eye that appears sharpest in the resulting photo.
This is exactly the process I undertook when photographing this beautiful child on a train platform in Kolkata, India.
After gaining permission from the child’s mother, I directed the subject a few metres back from the edge of the platform and situated them, in gentle side light, against a yellow and green painted wall.
The side lighting emphasizes the shape of the child’s face and upper body, while the yellow and green colored background brings a sense of positive energy to the photo.
By situating myself, and the child, at an angle to the background I’ve been able to add a greater sense of three dimensional space to what is, otherwise, a two dimensional photo.
It’s a small change that’s brought an extra visual dynamic to the photo and, to my way of thinking, produced a more visually interesting result.
Beautiful photo of a young girl at a Hindu temple in Chennai.
Composition and Beautiful Photos of kids
When thinking about composition it’s important to pay attention to all parts of the frame. Indeed, it’s important to treat the frame like a painter’s canvas.
When it comes to photographing portraits, I most often like to situate my subject against a background that’s, for the most part, darker than they are.
Doing so helps to bring out the shape of the subject’s head, particularly when the background is de-focused through the application of a shallow depth of field.
You can see how well this simple technique is showcased by looking at this beautiful photo of a young girl in the grounds of a Hindu Temple complex in Chennai, India.
She was a lovely child and I wanted to make a photo that spoke to the joyous spirit we often associate with childhood.
After receiving permission from a guardian, I went about making some photos.
But it was a crowded, public space and the young girl became shy, as a result of the attention that was being placed upon her.
It was a very bright and hot day. Fortunately, she was already situated in the soft light of open shade.
The fact that she was seated was helpful, because all I had to do was to move around and gesture to her to turn towards me.
Doing so improved the quality of the light on her face and avoided, what might otherwise have been a rigid, square shoulder pose.
Unfortunately, the background was quite chaotic, with lots of people dressed in typically colorful clothing.
I know that level of color is one of the things so many of us love about India. But, when you’re trying to concentrate attention on a subject’s face, reducing distractions becomes paramount.
Given the child’s shyness, asking her to move seemed risky.
The only other option was to bring out my fast glass portrait lens.
Doing so allowed me to create an extremely shallow depth of field, thereby providing significant visual separation between the subject and the background.
By rendering the photo into black and white, I was able to further diminish distractions and, as a consequence, draw viewer attention to the young girl’s eyes.
Notice also how the black and white version of this photo allows the light tones on the top of her head and dress, and her bright, sparkling jewelry to frame the child’s face and draw attention to her eyes.
People often express a bias for either color or black and white photos.
I love black and white photography, but it only works when the photo in question is strongly underpinned by elements of composition other than color.
Likewise, color has to be the primary element of composition in a beautiful color photo.
Great color photography is, in fact, a significant topic. That’s why I’ve written numerous posts on the subject. You’ll find the following article to be most informative:
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The Decisive Moment: Timing Is The Key to Fantastic Travel Pics
Once these fundamental aspects of light and composition are addressed, it’s simply a matter of concentrating on expression and gesture to elevate your photos to the next level.
When it comes to portraiture, particularly of younglings, timing is the key.
I can’t underestimate the importance in having your camera ready to go, and being able to immediately react to a decisive moment.
Being able to anticipate such a moment, before it unfolds, is the next level that an aspiring portrait photographer should, over time, try to reach.
Don’t Worry Too Much About Your Camera Gear
Making beautiful photos of kids, like so many other endeavors, is as hard as you want to make it. This is one of the reasons why I rarely discuss equipment in my regular blog posts.
These posts, for the most part, are about the art of photography of which equipment, while important, is by no means the be all and end all.
To help understand what I mean, please consider the following:
Do you like classical piano music?
How much of your listening experience is determined by your knowledge of the particular piano being played?
Will owning the world’s best piano make a huge difference to the music you play if, in fact, you can actually play?
Balance Photo Technique With Experience
Great photography exists in the space between technique and experience.
When it comes to performance, there’s technique (e.g., what a rock guitarist might refer to as chops) and then there’s the more intangible concepts of feeling and emotive playing.
For the most part, I believe the posts I create on the Travel Photography Guru blog, live in the space between technique and experience.
But the context in which I’m using the word experience isn’t about leaning, over time and at the school of hard knocks.
I’m talking about the state of simply existing, in the moment, much the way we do during heightened states of connectedness.
Intense moments of love, bliss and joy are great examples of what I mean by experience.
I’m referring to our very best experiences of the world in which we live, and our connection with the sublime beauty that exists on the edge of our understanding.
There’s so much beauty in our world, and the art of making beautiful photos is the way by which I tap into and preserve the most blissful moments along the journey.
I’m glad to have shared with you a little of my approach to making beautiful photos of kids.
You're most welcome to return for more inspirational travel photos, and the techniques and philosophy underpinning them.
Be well my friend, and enjoy your own creative journey through the joy of photography.
