Ben’s 10 tips for photographing toddlers

By PA Team

12 September 2011 09:14

1. Act like a child
Yee-haa! Woo-hoo! Oh wow! Etc. Kids respond to excitement, big smiles and lots of waving and clapping – not a huge leap for yours truly, as I’ve spent 16 months communicating in squeals and gasps, but you really have to embrace your inner toddler if you want to talk the talk. Play the fool, relax and have fun. Oo-goo-ga-ga.

2. Keep it simple
One camera body, two lenses (I’d suggest a 50mm or 85mm prime plus a 70-200mm zoom) and endless patience are all you really need. Select aperture-priority, shoot at f/4 for a nicely blurred background, use your camera’s AF points for all they’re worth, and don’t worry too much about ISO (you’ll be fine up to 800).

Look into my eyes
Canon EOS 30D, 18-50mm @ 50mm, 1/200sec @ f/2.8, ISO 200

3. Choose your moment
Toddlers (and certain journalists) have unbelievably short attention spans, so knowing when to start and, more importantly, knowing when to stop is hugely important. So recognise the signs, don’t push your luck and don’t be surprised if they spontaneously burst into tears mid-exposure for absolutely no reason. That’s just what they (and certain journalists) do.

4. Get on your knees
Yep, while your kid learns to walk, you need to revert to crawling. Why? Because my lad’s roughly 2ft, I’m roughly 6ft, so there’s 4ft between our relative eyelevels and if I want to capture life as seen through his eyes I need to adopt a whole new viewpoint. Your knees will ache, your elbows will ache, and you’ll get a cricked neck, but your pictures will be awesome.

At the allotment
Canon EOS 30D, 18-50mm @ 18mm, 1/1250sec @ f/2.8, ISO 100

5. Take lots of shots
This is what the rapid-fire button was really designed for. I’ve learnt that getting a toddler’s eyes absolutely pin-sharp as they dart around is nearly impossible, and my success rate is probably around the 5% mark (yep, that much). So I now shoot bursts of images in continuous mode in an effort to up the success rate. I reckon I’m up to 10%...

6. Don’t be precious
Yes, we want every shot to be pin-sharp, perfectly exposed and compositionally flawless, but we’re dealing with kids here, and kids don’t pose, they maraud. At times I’ve consciously had to remove myself from the day job, and have gradually accepted the fact that sometimes capturing the moment, even if the shot is only ‘acceptably’ sharp, is good enough.

Up to no good
Canon EOS 60D, 18-50mm @ 18mm, 1/320sec @ f/2.8, ISO 400

7. Get a fluffy zebra
Props. They’re a photographer’s best friends when working with toddlers. My little man has a fluffy zebra called Bernard, and Bernard never leaves his side. Wave him around and you’ve got an attentive sitter. Leave him behind and you’ve got a gremlin with ADHD. And I’m not adverse to bribes – a slice of cheese in exchange for a smile seems like a fair trade to me.

8. Get help!
Hold a camera, watch the light, zoom in, select AF points, change aperture, compose, wave a zebra, make silly noises, pull daft faces… If mum/dad wants a few cute shots of little Jimmy, make ’em work for it! Ask them to stand behind you and do the daft ‘parent’ stuff while you concentrate on the nitty gritty photo stuff.

Free rein
Canon EOS 60D, 18-50mm @ 18mm, 1/1000sec @ f/2.8, ISO 100

9. Organise your pics
I tend to shoot in fits and starts, and so I might shoot three pictures one week and 300 the next. And being marginally anally retentive, every one is neatly filed away in a folder called ‘Tuesday 13th September, slighty after lunch’ or similar. Which might sound like a cry for help, but the alternative is hard drive chaos and hours wasted trying to find a particular picture. Start as you mean to go (year, month, holiday etc) and you can’t go far wrong.

10. Be prepared
At the risk of sounding like Baden-Powell, you’ve got to have your camera with you at all times to capture those fleeting moments and unique quirks. I’ve had to drill myself to never leave home without at least a compact, just in case the little fella does something magical, and we now have thousands of cheeky photos (very few are award-winning, but they’re special to us). It could be a mischievous smile, a funny look or a moment of madness – just make sure you don’t miss it.

Scream
Canon EOS 60D, 18-50mm @ 28mm, 1/500sec @ f/2.8, ISO 100