Totally natural photography – taking photos of your kids

Ive been scrolling through a lot of images recently, both my own and online just for a bit inspiration. What I have noticed about my images compared to others is how natural they are. How I never get my son to pose for a photo, I always let him do his thing.

How do I capture them? it really is easy, as long as you know your camera and you know what type of shot your looking for then you should know what settings to use, unless your using your mobile of course, by settings im presuming your using a SLR.

Settings can vary so me telling you what settings to use might be wrong. Settings change with every scene, different weather and the speed in which our children move.

The only thing I can help with is telling you my settings.

If you want high action shots, like the picture of my dog below. Then you need a high shutter speed, and a mid range ISO. So for example, this image was shot at 1/1600 – F8 – iso 650, I also set the camera on high speed shutter, when I hold my finger down on the shutter it will take multiple images in quick succession. These settings were used to capture how fast the dog was racing through the water. The same settings can be used for children running, jumping, climbing, swinging, you name it.

Gear I used here was the Sony A6000 – Sony 55-210 

I generally take up a seat somewhere and let my son play, this way he kind of forgets im there and just enjoys his play, this way I get better photos, as he is at that age now where he gets a little camera shy, or when he realises his photo is being took, he will pull silly faces.

Its not rocket science on taking images like these, but it still requires patience as we all know how things pan out when we plan something when children are involved, but you just need to let kids be kids.

This was set up using a tripod, and I left it there, connected my Sony A600 I was then able to watch him play then snap a photo when he came close the camera. Because I had this set up I wanted to use my wide angle lens, as if I had a zoom on then it wouldn’t have worked, so I set this up using the Samyang 12mm

My settings here were totally different, As my son wasn’t moving quickly there wasn’t a need for a fast shutter, this was shot as 1/1000 – f8 – iso400.

I love this photo taken from the same location as above, I personally think it portrays what our kids should be like in todays society. Here he has his Joules Wellies on, Oliviers Boutique foxy leggings, and Zara puffa coat, its a great miss mash but just look how much fun he is having. and thats what I love about totally natural photos.

This is what I love about photography. sometimes its not always about the gear you have its about time and patience, going out with your family and having fun and just taking images, of course having a dedicated camera helps due to the quality of images they produce and if you are wanting prints doing – then having a decent cameras helps.

Adventure Brown

Im Lew – A blogger and father of two boys, three if you include the dog, living in Sunderland. Not sure I have the hang of this blog niche thing but hey ho, I’m doing it anyway – expect all sorts of randomness.

http://adventurebrown.co.uk