5 tips for great family photos (with a self timer)

As our baby turns 6 months, I've realised we don't have a single photo of the four of us.

Getting some professional pictures taken is definitely on my to-do list but we've just not got round to it. Life has been busy.

Last weekend I was determind to get a picture - the four of us, our little family, my camera and a self timer. Easy right? 

It took patience, a lot of patience with a toddler running into the garden after every shot and being dragged back to the sofa for 'just one more!'  We got there in the end though.

Here are some of my tips for getting that family shot:

1. Choose your weapon - you may have an SLR or compact camera and a tripod. You may be looking to balance an iPhone on a pile of books. Choose what works for you and work out how to use the self timer function.

2. The set-up - my advice (particularly if you have young children) is to decide on your location in advance (ideally close to a window with some natural daylight). Clear away clutter and any distractions. Use an adult to pose for a trial shot and see how it looks. If you have everything set up in advance, you just literally need to bring the children in and get going.

3. Patience- we bribed our toddler with a biscuit and entertained her with songs. She was not playing ball but we just kept persevering with the self timer, taking numerous shots.

4. Eyes to camera? Do you want everyone looking at the camera? We tried shots some looking at the camera and some away. The image I chose was less posed and more natural. This is the style we prefer but the beauty of the self timer is that you are in charge and you can try lots of different options.

5. Editing - my editing for clients is done on my desktop computer with Photoshop software. Increasingly for day to day family pictures of our life at home I upload my pictures straight to my iPad using an Apple card reader. I then use the VSCO or Snapseed apps to crop, tweak colours and contrast or change to black and white. 

 

Before & After

Before

Before

After

After

As you can see I chose to be close to a window with plenty of light. I had originally tried to include a painting we have in our kitchen but in the end decided the painting was a little too distracting and cropping in closer would work better. I also decided without the painting, I preferred the picture in black and white form.

Using the self timer is definitely something to try out. It takes a little planning but great to have a family photo ready for framing on your mantelpiece. 

 

 

 

 

The magic of stories

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Bedtime stories are a big deal in our house.

Stick Man, Not Now Bernard and Giraffes Can't Dance are just some of the favourites on loop each evening. They take pride of place at the end of our 2 year old's bed. 

Some of her books are gifts, recommendations from friends and their children (Goodnight Moon).

Some are stories I loved as a child and have tracked down on eBay late at night (There's a Hippopotamus On Our Roof Eating Cake).

Then there are some new discoveries that caught our eye in a local bookshop.

Stanley's Cafe by William Bee I found when pottering on a lazy Sunday morning in Wimbledon Village. This particular morning I put myself in charge of the book selection, refusing to be sucked in to buying another book with a certain pink pig on the front.

It was the beautiful illustrations that first caught my eye.

The book tells the simple tale of Stanley the Hamster and his day to day life working in a cafe.

Setting up the cafe for the day, cooking breakfast, baking a birthday cake, washing up and home to bed. Stanley's routine was quickly picked up by our 2 year old. It wasn't long before she knew the character Myrtle (regular customer) likes 'a nice cup of tea' (much like mummy).

When our little girl wakes up in the morning she will often be heard (on the baby monitor) reading Stanley to her toys in a kind of gibberish language but with the intonation of an adult narrator.

 

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A few weeks ago I discovered Stanley's Colours. It's a smaller in size board book introducing little ones to colours through modes of transport. Our little girl would listen intently and I could see the penny drop as she gradually started to pick up and repeat the names of the colours in front of her.

The end of the day always feels the toughestThe exhaustion of having two children under 3 kicks in, the caffeine has worn off and my bed is calling. But storytime and watching our toddler devour the words and stories in front of her is magic.

Before you know it that 'just one story' has turned into five and a happy little girl full of imagination has nodded off to sleep.

 

A photo a day

When I got my phone upgraded to an iPhone 6 at the end of last year, I made two decisions. Firstly, I would learn more about iPhone photography.  Secondly, I would use the iPhone camera daily.

The iPhone is definitely no replacement for my DSLR.  Let's face it, my Canon camera is big, very expensive and when going from A to B with children, pushchairs and a change bag stuffed with nappies, it isn't always coming with us. 

With a camera so easily accessible in your back pocket, taking pictures everyday has never been easier.

I've put together some tips on photographing family in and around your home:

1. Catching the light. Get close to a window with daylight. Turn off any lights in the room. Remove clutter that might show up in the picture. You may need to move furniture a bit closer to the window. Try using a piece of white card or a reflector to reflect the light and brighten faces.

 

2 . Photographing your children? Have time and patience. Getting our 2 year old to sit still and smile at the camera? Not going to happen. I actually prefer pictures I have taken of her happily playing. My advice would be to clear some space near a window & choose some toys or an activity. Or let them happily play in garden, avoiding harsh direct sunlight. Let them play and have fun and photograph the results. Be patient and take lots of pictures.

 


3. Phone vs camera? Use what works for you. I use my iPhone 6 to take most of my pictures for Instagram. A few times a week I will plan things a bit more and take pictures with my Canon 5d Mark III DSLR camera. I have a fixed Canon 35mm lens that is great for capturing family moments.


4. Get in the picture yourself. This is something I'm trying to do more. I realised recently it's never me in the pictures with my children. I want that to change. Last week I dusted off my tripod, attached a Joby GripTight GorillaPod and hooked up my iPhone. I set up the shot while our toddler was asleep, clearing background clutter but intentionally including one if our favourite paintings in the frame. When our 2 year old woke up, I gave her a lolly and we had about ten attempts at the shot with a self timer until I found one I was happy with.

 


5. Take time to edit. When I do a baby or family shoot for a client, I'll spend the equivalent of 1-2 full days editing the images in Photoshop. When I take pictures for Instagram (usually on my iPhone) I'll always use the apps VSCO or Snapseed to lighten and brighten shots before publishing. It takes just a few minutes and looks much nicer than slapping on an Instagram filter.

 

6. Printing and sharing. Artifact Uprising remains my favourite printing site. We chose them for our new baby thank you cards and their stylish square print sets. I'm a big fan of Apple coffee table books and they do great personalised photo calendars that don't cost the earth. I'm hooked on sharing pictures everyday through Instagram. It's also a fantastic way to get inspiration from people all over the world.