Posts in category: Photography

One of my favourite photo projects to take on is a 10 on 10 project.

I’ve mentioned it a few times now on this blog, but if you’ve not come across it before it’s a project where you take 10 photos on the 10th of each month to try and capture life as it is on that day.

There are months where I really struggle with it.  When the 10th of the month feels like the most boring, mundane of days when nothing at all worth photographing will happen.  But doing the project forces me to look at those days differently.

To see the beauty in the ordinary days.  And to notice the things that are so normal now that will one day just be a distant memory.

These are the things that we so often forget to photograph because they’re such a routine part of our lives we almost stop seeing them.  It’s only when they’re gone, when that stage of our lives has passed, that we realise how special they were, and how we wish we had photographs from that time to take us back there for a while.

The hard part comes in noticing and picking out these things when you’re living them.

So hopefully this post will help you look around your family life and start finding these moments, these details, these little things in your daily life to photograph, so when your children have grown and changed and life looks completely different you’ll have these pictures to take you right back to these beautifully ordinary days.

Look at your every day routines

The best place to start is by looking at your regular routines.

Grab a piece of paper and a pen and write down the things you do most days.  Include everything from sitting the baby in their highchair for breakfast, to curling up on the bed together to read a book at bedtime.

All the little, boring things you and your family do day in, day out.  Even things as mundane as your young child standing on the step-stool to brush their teeth.

Then go through that list and circle the the things that will most likely be different a year from now.  The baby in the highchair might be sitting on a booster seat at the kitchen table by then, and your children might have moved on from needing a bedtime story, preferring to read to themselves in bed instead.

These things that you’ve circled are some of the things you might want to make a point of photographing.

Look for your children’s quirks and habits

When Rhys was a baby he would always reach up and twirl the hair from my fringe with his little fingers when I was feeding him.  Looking back, it feels like I had all the time in the world back then, to sit with him in his room, just watching him drink his milk while he twirled those strands of hair.

I remember it so clearly, but it’s one of those routines that we never managed to photograph, and that will always make me a little bit sad.

So again, take a look at your family and write down a list of these funny little things that your children do, their sweet habits and special quirks that make them who they are right now.

Then make a plan to take photos of all these things.

Some of the quirks that I’m so pleased I do have photos of from when Rhys was a baby are these – fiddling with the straps on his buggy in the hallway (and getting frustrated when they wouldn’t click into place!) and lining his toys up neatly as he played with them.

Photograph familiar locations

I know it feels like you visit the same places over and over again with young children (I’m looking at you, play park), but keep in mind that one day you’ll stop.  One day you’ll realise it’s been months, years even, since you were last there.

So take photos of your family at these places now.

Find ways to include recognisable features of the locations in your pictures too.  I know exactly where this photo was taken, for example, thanks to the roof of the Patti Pavilion in the background.

Another great idea for photos in these places that you visit all the time is to capture your children next to familiar objects that will show how, over time, they’ve grown.  I love this photo of Rhys with his cousins next to the railings in Brynmill Park, partly because of how small they all look compared to those railings.  They barely come up to Rhys’ waist now!

Capture the school routine

The school routine is possibly one of the most receptive, mundane parts of family life but it is still absolutely still worth photographing.  Because, again, one day you won’t be doing it any more.  And while you might not miss it exactly, there’ll still be a weird sense of nostalgia for it when your children are all grown up.

And right now the school routine probably looks pretty different from normal so make a point to capture it.

Take photos of your child with their headphones on during a live lesson with their teacher.  Photograph their little hands completing worksheets and making crafts.  Capture the routines and rhythms you’ve fallen into during lockdown, like daily walks in the park.

Once the children are back in actual school, think about photographing the routines around that too.

Take detail shots of their little hands holding the lunchbox they picked out, and bags on their backs that look ridiculously oversized.

Think about all the things that make up your school day routine and take pictures of some of these things.  It could be shoes lined up (or scattered everywhere) waiting to be put on, bowls of cereal eaten in a hurry, or the children singing along to songs on the radio if you ever get to school too early!

Think about the little rituals you’ve created with your children too.

Last year I would always go round to Nerys’ classroom window once she’d gone in and we would wave, blow kisses, and make these heart shapes to each other.  I’m so, so happy I have this photo as a reminder of those times.  I took it just before the first lockdown, so we never had another chance to do this before she moved to a new class.

Look for the mini milestone moments

For the first few years of your child’s life the milestones seem to come thick and fast, in a bit of a blur of special firsts.

There are so many other, mini milestones to look out for and photograph in your child’s life though.

Think of things like the first time they master the fireman’s pole at the park, the first time trying a new food, the first time on a new scooter or bike, the first time they do anything new or master a new skill really.

Some of these moments might not feel huge, but they’re all worth looking out for and photographing.

If you’re still at a bit of a loss for everyday moments to photograph, try asking yourself these questions:

• What toy does your child take to bed with them every single night?
• What items of clothing do they basically live in at the moment?
• Is there a particular bowl or plate or cup that they’ll ask to use every meal time?
• What things do you like to do together on a lazy Sunday afternoon?
• What little things about your life drive you crazy at the moment, but you know that one day you’ll actually miss?
• If a reporter spent a day with you and your family in your home, what would they notice?
• If something happened and you had to leave your home today, what memories would you take with you?  What things would you remember happening in which corners of your home?

I really hope this post has inspired you and made you stop and think about the moments in your life that you want to make a point of capturing!

This post has been linked up with KCACOLS with A moment with Franca.

If you want to learn a bit about photography, so that you can take photos of your family that you’re proud of  (and finally get your camera off auto mode) then you’re in the right place.

This post is part of a series that will give you the basics you need to feel more comfortable with your camera.  The series will give you the information in a way that’s easy to understand, as well as suggesting ideas to try out to put your new skills into practice as you go.

Each post in the series will focus on a different aspect of photography, so you can get to grips with one thing before moving on to the next.

This time the focus is on composition.

Composition is simply the way different elements are placed in the frame when you take a photo.

It’s a really important element of photography, and can make the difference between a bad photo and a great one.  A well-composed photo will grab people’s attention, drawing their focus to the main subject and helping tell the story that you want to tell.

There are loads of rules of composition that are worth learning when you’re new to photography, to help you understand what makes a great image and to move away from taking simple snapshots.

To get you started I’m just going to focus on 5 of the main rules of composition:

1. The rule of thirds

If you ask any photographer about the rules of composition, this will most likely be the first one they think of.

It’s a great place to start to get you thinking about where to place the subjects of your photos in the frame.

The basic idea is that you imagine your photo being divided into 9 equal sections, like a 3×3 grid.

Then when you compose your photo you aim to place your subject on one of the lines, like Rhys in this example is placed on the right hand line, one third of the way into the frame.

This rule works really well with landscapes, where you can place the horizon on one of the horizontal lines to either draw attention to the landscape or to a particularly dramatic sky.

It’s also great to keep in mind for portraits, when you want something more interesting than a person’s face right in the middle of the frame.  Positioning their eye (the one closest to the camera) on one of the intersecting points in the grid tends to look really good.

2. Leading lines

These are exactly what they sound like, they’re elements of photos that lead your eye along their line to where you want the viewer’s focus to go.

Leading lines can be made from all sorts of things like:

• a row of trees
• a winding path or river
• fences and railings
• the lines on paving slabs or floorboards
• a person’s limbs

In this example the converging lines of the green railings lead your eye into the middle of the photo, where the main subjects are.

It doesn’t matter where the different elements are placed in the frame, as long as the leading lines do their job and lead the viewer’s eye to the main subject.

3. Use frames

Framing your subject within your photo is another technique, like leading lines, to draw the viewer’s focus where you want it to go.

You can frame your subject by shooting through an archway or a doorway.  You can do it by shooting through tree branches so they’re just at the edges of your image.

One of my favourite methods using frames in pictures of my children is to photograph them on the swings at the park.

In these photos, like in the example here of Nerys on the big tyre swing, the chains act as a frame, with her nicely in the middle.

4. Negative space

Negative space is the space around your main subject that has little, if anything, in it.

It’s a great composition tool to use if you want to take photos of your child somewhere with big, open spaces to give a sense of them out in the big wide world.

This photo of Rhys and Nerys at the beach has a lot of negative space around them, which creates the feeling of freedom and of having the whole beach to themselves to do what they like.

If this image was cropped in tighter you wouldn’t get the same sense of energy either, as they’d be running out of the frame instead of into the open space.

The main benefit of including negative space in your images is that it creates a sense of simplicity.

Anyone looking at the photo will be drawn to the main subject with no distractions, and that main subject has room to breathe in the image.

5. Use different viewpoints

If you normally take photos of your children from the same viewpoint then changing your perspective now and then can make a big difference to your composition and how good your photos look.

A lot of people take photos from their own viewpoint; so they’ll simply put the camera to their eye, aim it at their child and take a photo.  One quick way to improve your photos is to crouch down and get to your child’s eyelevel and then take their photo.

Once you’ve tried that you can play around with other, more creative options.

The classics are a birds eye view and a worms eye view.  So basically taking photos from up high and then low down.

I wanted to take a photo of the cute little heart details on Nerys’ jeans when she was a baby, and to make the image more interesting I took it from directly above her as she was lying down on her playmat.

This photo on the other hand, was taken from a lower viewpoint, looking up at her as she walks along a wall.

Shooting up like this helps keep the background clear so the focus is on the subject.  It also creates a much more interesting picture, that tells more of a story – in this case you get the sense that she is really quite high up on the wall, feeling braver with each step as she loosens her grip on my hand!

Now it’s time to start putting things into practice.

Now you know the basic rules, here are some ideas for things to try to get creative with your photo compositions.

Take your camera on your next family walk

Next time you head out to the park or the woods together, take your camera along and look out for ways you can practice using these rules of composition.

You can either pick one rule that you’ll focus on for the whole outing, or see if you can give them all a try along the way.

If you focus on using frames, for example, see how many different ways you can do this in one walk.  You could:

• shoot through tree branches
• hold a leaf up to the edge of your camera to create a frame
• get your child to hold their hands towards the camera, making a heart shape for example, and then focus on their face through that frame
• use gates, doorways, archways, etc
• use play equipment at the park, like the chains on the swings, to make frames

Play around with breaking the rules

You know what they say, rules are made to be broken.  And the rules of composition are no exception.

For most of the rules there will be times when doing the opposite will make a great photo.

So grab your children and go and break some rules.

My favourite rule to break is the rule of thirds.  Sometimes it just works so much better to have my children or my family right in the middle of the frame.  This works especially well if there are other elements to the photo that add a sense of symmetry.

This photo, for example, works so well because my husband has a child either side of him, creating that symmetry and making the image more interesting.

Look for ways you can place your subject in the middle of the frame to create an interesting photo.

One approach to try is looking to include the rule of thirds in the background of your photo.  So you would place your children in the middle of the frame, but compose the image so the horizon is on one of the horizontal lines in your imaginary 3×3 grid.

Now, go have fun breaking a few rules!

Hopefully this post has given you a great start in understanding the rules of composition, when to use them and when you can start breaking them.

If you have any questions please do leave me a comment and I’ll try my best to help!