How to take good photos of your toddler

I’m one of those moms who are always camera ready because dammit, my children are gosh darn cute! I love documenting all the weird and wonderful stuff they get up to and literally have tons and tons of photo folders on every computer and hard drive that we own. Fortunately the older ones know to smile when I say “Smile!” (“Nowwww! Or else no XBox!”) But grabbing photos of your toddler can be a bit tricky. Right? 

The littlest one is not prone to bribes (yet) so it takes a bit more to get her to respond to my crazy mom eyes. The secret, my friends, is to know when your kid is up for playing photoshoot. If baby wants mama to chill with the photos, then Mom, for the sake of all that is sacred, CHILL with the photos.

As fate would have it, my girl loves taking photos! She’s super active at the moment though, so if you check my camera roll you’ll find a lot of blurry “action shots”. Fortunately, my spreadsheet brain never sleeps nor slumbers and has devised a couple of (totally genius papa!) ways to get the best pics out of Curly. It takes a bit of creativity, quick thinking and a lot of patience, but we get there!

Here are some tips:

A small sticker on her hand helps to get her to sit still for more than few seconds. You could use clear cellotape if you don’t want the sticker to show up in photos. The other day I took a couple of pics of her wearing her fabulous Schnooky Pie creations. (The review is on SA Mom Blogs). And I found the sticker trick to work wonderfully.

I’ve also found that putting a sticker on your forehead (yes, like a wack job) or wearing something bright and interesting on your head, works like the bomb dot com. Sometimes I pull funny faces (picture me snapping away, looking like a baboon) and sometimes I get her brothers to do something silly. Bless their souls. The kid loves to be entertained, so I make it work in both our favor.

You could also try using props which would compliment your photo but also serve as a way to get your kideo to sit quietly for a couple of seconds.

Alot of the pics that I take of her are natural shots. In a nutshell, I would wait for a peaceful moment (most times while she is inspecting something), call her name, and snap when she looks up. Ta daaaa!

You could also try blowing soapy bubbles. It helps with getting their attention and the bubbles look really pretty in photos.  Don’t want bubbles in your pic? Take the pic at a wider angle and then crop away!

When all else fails, we take a selfie! She finds it hilarious to see herself on the screen and when I say “smile for mama!” then she gives us a big toothy grin. How adorbs is she? (snotty nose and all). I’m her biggest fan 🙂 *and the crowd goes awwwww*

Do you love taking pics of your kids? How do you get good pics out of them?