Now you see it, now you don’t

I inherited my love of photos from my mom. Not my love of photography, just my love of photos. There was never anything too mundane or cliche or cheesy that my mom wouldn’t pose in front of for a photo. My favorite memory of a family photograph is still from the 2005 Christmas cruise we all took together. Anyone who has cruised will be familiar with the “formal” nights where professional photographers will set up photo shoot locations throughout the main lobby of the ship. One of these inevitably will be with the captain of the ship. This is supposed to be a bit of an honor and at the very least, you’re supposed to behave yourselves and be polite; generally, it is also the photo op with the best location and background. On our cruise, it was halfway up the grand staircase with the formal Christmas tree towering behind the captain. So we took the obligatory picture with the captain and painted on our practiced family photo smiles. Then my mother, without any compunction or irony, asks the captain to please step aside and out of the photo so we could get a family photo. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a man look more shocked, distressed, and awkward (this is probably an indication that my life is overly sheltered). But you know what? It made a great family photo. That almost mollifies the depths of our embarrassment that day . . .

Now, coming from a family that believes deeply in capturing every moment on film, it’s no wonder that I have had a camera for as long as I can remember. I bought my first digital in the late 90’s when such things were ridiculously expensive. And yet, I still had my eye on that digital SLR camera that supposedly made you a semi-pro overnight. When we found out we were expecting, it seemed like the perfect time to finally indulge in this semi-expensive whim and “invest” in a nice camera (and camcorder, but that’s an entirely different topic). So I did the usual unnecessarily endless amount of research into different dSLR cameras and found the one I wanted. Little did I know that was the easy part.

If I thought baby photography was difficult, trying to capture that fleeting smile or trying to inspire a repeat of a fleeting, endearing moment or behavior, it’s got nothing on toddler photography. Once those babies get mobile, it’s a whole new ball game. I could fill dozens of albums with the blurry photos I have taken of our daughter, and this is with a dSLR that has almost no lag in start-up and a minute shutter lag. Part of the problem is lighting. We have a dark house (great for insulation, terrible for photography). We spend a lot of time in our house. And I hate how a flash washes out the color saturation of a photo and I have been too lazy (and cheap) to buy a nice auxiliary flash. So, take pictures outside, you say . . .

Yeah, so we’ve tried this too. Part of the problem is that you can either corral a child, or you can photograph a child. It’s quite difficult to do both. And most places that you can bring your child to where he or she will be happy and entertained (and therefore smile) are also places where you might want to keep a hand ready to assist your young child: the park or playground, children’s museums, play places, a river with fascinating ducks, etc. Now, you are obviously able to keep an eye on your child through your camera, but it’s awfully hard to help a child sit down at the top of the slide and frame the perfect shot at the same time (trust me, I know this from personal experience – apparently it is not acceptable to continue to frame the shot and risk your child falling down the slide, as I now know – sorry honey). So here are my suggestions for toddler (or mobile baby) photography, although I am certainly still open for any and all suggestions as the ratio of blurry to good photos is still something like 1000:1. But these actions might help:

(1) invest in a dSLR (yes, pricey, but the quick shutter speed and future interchangeability of lenses is important)

(2) buy the largest memory card you can afford, in fact, buy a couple

(3) buy extra hard drive space – you will fill it fast with #2 above

(4) try to get good ambient light for the environment (e.g. turn on some overhead lights or better yet, shoot outside on slightly overcast days) or buy a good auxiliary flash (unlike me – it’s on my to-do list)

(5) frame a wide shot and using autofocus (if you’re still an amateur like me), autofocus on your child, but don’t take the shot yet (a nice wide shot will allow you to capture general movement around the space and you can always crop later)

(6) keeping the camera at the right height, look up away from the viewfinder and interact with your child, and then start taking lots of pictures and hope for the best

(7) conversely, you can try to sneak up on your child and take some good candids using steps 1-4 above; I find this difficult as the second I get out the camera, our child stops doing whatever adorable thing she was doing and is immensely interested in the camera (well, in acquiring said camera and gumming it and tearing it apart to figure out its inner workings)

(8) invest in a photo editing software and learn how to use it (I’m still working on the latter, so if you figure it out, could you send me a tutorial?)

(9) relax and have fun – worse comes to worse, whip out that camcorder and just go with the flow

I’m sure all of this was common sense, but I had to figure these out and maybe this will help another new parent trying to figure out how to capture these transient moments before their “babies” are all grown up and off to kindergarten. In the meantime – happy shooting.