Get On Your Knees, Crouch, Crawl

Get on the same level with your child. Don’t make her look like a dwarf When you get on the ground you’ll most likely catch the attention of your target. Not to mention more interesting shoots you will get.

Try continous shooting mode. Toddlers tend to move around quite fast and it’s often matter of a fraction of a second whether you capture the moment or not.

Photographing While Playing

Let the children play! You’ll get the best shots when she is enjoying what she does. Obvious? Could be, but worth mentioning Take the photos while she’s doing something that she really likes.

• Ask your child to show you her favourite toys. Let her play with them. Ask her to introduce her most precious toy to another adult while you’re taking shots.
• Take her out to play. Go to the park. Take a few photos while she’s swinging and sliding down a slide.
• Ask her to jump off a bench, somersault on the ground, run towards the camera, etc. Let her express her personality!

Have Some Fun

As Darren Rowse wrote about photographing children:

The key to good kid shots is to rediscover your own inner child. Kids love to have fun, they do the unexpected, they love to experiment and test things out and they love to play. Approach photographing them in this spirit and you’ll find your pictures take on a wonderful childlike quality.

Choose the Best Shots

As always, remember to pick the best shots right after transferring the photos to you computer. The less you have, the better. Try to eliminate 90% of the shots immediately. It’s tempting to include yet another photo to the album. You’ll thank yourself later for doing the elimination. Trust me! You’ll probably take hundreds or thousands of photos of your child during the first years. It’s a mess to later find the good shots.

There’s a good article on Phototuts+ on how to choose your best photos in a series. Section 3. has a nice example on narrowing down any group of pictures if you wan’t to quickly skim the best parts.

Share Some Fun

After you’ve had some fun photographing your beloved toddler and chosen the best shots it’s time to let the close ones to enjoy the photos as well. Write a heartwarming stories behind the photos and share them privately with family and friends.

Photo credits to Flashbax Twenty Three, *clairity*, jfinnirwin and Susan NYC.