How to Photograph Children Without Boring Them

A child asked to “pose” for more than ten seconds switches off — their attention drifts, their smile turns forced, and the photo shows it. Photographing children isn’t about directing a session: it’s about making yourself available to capture what happens, not what you asked them to do.

Keep the child busy, not posed

The best instruction to give a child is often no instruction at all. Letting them play, draw, run around, look at a book — in short, do whatever they would be doing anyway — produces far truer expressions than a “look at the camera and smile”. The photographer then takes the role of observer rather than director, waiting for the moment when the child’s attention naturally settles on something interesting.

Get down to their level

Photographing a child from the height of a standing adult systematically crushes the subject and gives a looking-down shot that makes the image condescending instead of endearing. Crouching, sitting on the floor, sometimes even lying down: physically getting down to a child’s height completely changes the relationship between image and subject, giving a photo taken with the child rather than from above them.

Accept the imperfection of movement

A child moves, all the time. Rather than fighting it, use it: a shutter speed fast enough to freeze the movement, continuous autofocus rather than single-shot, and lots and lots of frames — the best moment rarely lands on the first photo, but often on the tenth, the one where the child has completely forgotten they were being photographed.

Patience rather than insistence

If a child clams up in front of the camera, insisting only makes things worse. Better to put the camera down, keep chatting or playing, and pick it up again a few minutes later once its presence has become normal again and they no longer pay it any attention. The best photos of children are almost always taken when they’ve forgotten you were there with a camera.