How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | 20 Day Photography Bootcamp For Moms (or Dads) | Day 17

What is it?

Welcome to RKP’s ’20 Day Photography Bootcamp for Moms’!  What this is, is a 20 day blog series dedicated to teaching and challenging parents to take better photos of their kids!  You will learn some basic lighting skills, natural posing for various ages, some ideas for lifestyle photos, as well as some other basic photography tips that will help bring your pictures up a notch!  The best part?  ANYONE can participate!  Even if all you have is a cellphone!  (Some lighting lessons will be tricky with a cell phone since you can’t adjust settings.)  Each day I will share a tip or lesson with a photo challenge.  You can then share your results in the Facebook group ‘RKPs 20 Day Photography Bootcamp for Moms (or Dads)’, on instagram with the hashtag #rkpbootcamp, or keep them to yourselfs!  You can follow along day by day or take it at your own pace.  You can skip days as well.  There’s no rules, it’s your life.  Haha.

*Note:  I won’t be covering editing but theres lots of free options out there if you want to play around with that on your own.  🙂  If you really want to go all out, I’m a big fan of Lightroom!

If you DO have a DSLR (aka “fancy”) camera, I highly recommend checking out my mini guide, Control Your Camera!

In case you missed it…

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Intro

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 1

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 2

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 3

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 4

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 5

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 6

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 7

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 8

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 9

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 10

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 11

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 12

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 13

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 14

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 15

How To Take Better Photos Of Your Kids | Day 16

Day 17 | Shoot Oudoors | Backlighting / Golden Hour

The Lesson:

Backlighting is my all time favorite lighting technique.  Especially when working with glowy setting sun!  Which is what we’re going to focus on.  Photographers call the hour before the sun sets, the ‘Golden Hour’ because of the incredible soft, glowy light!  As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, beautiful light can make a good shot great!  And the best way (in my opinion) to take advantage of that warm glowy light is to shoot towards it.  As long as the light source (the sun in this case) is behind your subject (your child) from your perspective, they will be backlit.  Now this can get tricky if you’re not sure how to work the settings on your camera.  There’s a good chance the auto setting, or cellphones, will make the subject quite dark.  Check out my Mini Guide (above) to learn how to set your camera, and have your subject exposed how you like!

Tips:

*If you’re shooting into open sky, try blocking the sun.  That might mean moving around so the sun is directly behind your model.  If the sun is already setting, you might be able to let it show in your shot without blowing out the photo.

*Backlighting won’t work well on a cloudy night.

The Challenge:

Try shooting outdoors within the last hour before the sun sets.  Position yourself so your child is between you and the low sun and get some backlit shots!  Share your favorite!

Here’s mine:

In this first shot, I positioned myself so the sun was blocked by our house, making it less intense, but still warm and glowy!

Here, the sun was very low!  This allowed me to include it in the shot, giving me tons of warmth and “glowiness”.  (That should be a word.)

On That Note…

If you’re interested in booking a family session, click HERE!

Who is Robin K Photography?

I’m Robin, a wife and mom who specializes in wedding photography in the Barrhead and Edmonton area.

As a mom, I have a soft spot for photos of children and decided to do a blog series to help other moms take better photos of their own kids.

I hope you enjoy this blog series!

Are you engaged?  

If you’re recently engaged and looking for a wedding photographer, I’d love to hear from you!  My style is fun, natural, and bright as you can see in my portfolio HERE.  Get in CONTACT for more information! 🙂