Chrissy Powers is a
wife to a surfer, mama, marriage + family therapist, lover of design and travel and a family and lifestyle photographer at Chrissy Powers Photography. She is joining us to share some tips for photographing your kids. Chrissy!
Thank you so much for joining us on The Mama Blog! You’ve been shooting families and kids for years.
What if a parent is just starting out photographing their family and they want some affordable equipment to get started. What three items would you recommend most?
Yes I love capturing family moments and it's so easy these days....well I should say easy because capturing children has its challenges but equipment is more accessible and user-friendly today! I would say the 3 things I recommend the most are an iPhone (most iPhones now have amazing cameras built in), a Mirrorless Digital Camera like the Sony Alpha a600 or the Fujifilm X-T20 Mirrorless Digital Camera, or if you want to make the full investment you can splurge on a full frame digital camera like the Canon EOS 7D Mark II SLR.
What are your best tips for getting the best family pictures? How do you get kids to smile (and hold still!)? We’ve always heard it’s a good idea to dress in bright colors. Is that right?
I love capturing families in their natural habitat. I find that if you let kids be kids then you get much better photos. We took our family photos at the beach this year with minimal effort. I let my boys including my husband wear their swim trunks and I wore a casual but cute outfit and we let our kids run around us while we snapped photos. They turned out to the be the best photos of our family because they really represented who we are. But I do get that some photos of everyone looking at the camera is priceless so I usually let kids run or jump around for a few seconds and then ask them nicely to stand next to their mom or dad or to hold their hand...if you're working with babies and toddlers you just have to kinda go with their mood and let mom or dad hold them. If you're the photographer then dress in something fun like bright colors or a shirt with Elmo on it...kids love when you speak their language. Also, it helps to have a squeaky toy to get everyone to look at the camera.
Such good tips! Do you have any tips for easy ways to improve our candid photos of our kids?
It's amazing what you can do with a smartphone and a few good editing apps! I love candid photos of my kids the most; try snapping candid shots from a different angle...ie get down on their level, shoot from above at your level, and a view from the top is also fun too. When snapping candid images consider the lighting and if possible set things up to have the best light you can, like draw the curtains or blinds if the light is too hard or pull them back to let more light in if it's darker inside. Take into account the lighting and exposure first when editing. I always adjust exposure and contrast first before adding any filters.
Smart! Thank you, Chrissy! Connect with Chrissy on Instagram to see her darling family and photography.
