Great family photos are among some of our most treasured possessions, but we all have albums full of terrible photos from vacations and parties. If you’re sick of family photos where everyone is squinting in the sun, has their eyes shut, or is looking in different directions, try these tips to help you take great family photographs.
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Choose Your Tool
To take good pictures, you need the right tools. A DSLR camera is really the best choice. You will be able to get better photographs if you know how to use a high-end camera, whether that’s a DSLR or a mirrorless camera. However, if you’re not confident with a camera like this, and don’t understand all the settings, you’re more likely to accidentally ruin the shot.
If you don’t have or don’t know how to use a DSLR, don’t worry. Smartphone cameras are better than ever, and for most people wanting to take good photos, they’re a perfectly adequate choice. The big advantage of using a smartphone is that you will be able to share the photos with the rest of the family immediately, and not have to wait to transfer the pictures onto your computer, process them all, and then email them over to everyone. You also probably already have your phone with you, so you won’t need to carry anything else around with you.
Photo by Go Candid
Classic, posed group shots work great in some circumstances, but in many cases, the nicest family photos and the ones that we love the most are usually candid photos. Photos like your smiling children tearing into their gifts on their birthday morning, your brother and husband laughing together over the barbecue, or your parents playing with your children are often the most treasured.
Capturing candid photographs doesn’t have to be very difficult to do. If you want to take candid shots, all you need to do is to be taking a photo at the right time. To be able to do that, you need to have your camera out and ready to snap. This is another argument for using your phone rather than a bulkier camera. Having a large DSLR camera on hand and ready to snap a picture is a lot less likely to happen than just taking your phone out of your pocket and swiping the lock screen to get into the camera for a quick photo.
To give yourself the best chance of capturing the perfect moment, don’t take only one photo. Instead, take a burst shot to take several photos all at once. If you’re using your smartphone, this is very simple. For most phones, you just need to hold down the shutter button and it will keep on shooting photos until you take your finger off the button again. Look through all the photos and choose the best ones. Using burst mode can be what makes the difference between taking pictures that are mediocre and taking pictures that you’ll frame for the wall.
A big mistake that a lot of people make is choosing to film those very special moments, like Christmas morning, instead of taking pictures. There is a place for videos, of course, but you can’t frame them and display them the way you do photos.
One thing that you definitely don’t need to worry about is being unobtrusive when you’re trying to snap candid photos. Most people are used to seeing smartphones everywhere, so you getting yours out of your bag to take a few pictures won’t attract their attention too much or distract them.
Photo by Nathan Dumlao on Unsplash
Save Or Favorite Your Photos Straight Away
Taking pictures is a nice thing to do, but doing something with those photos is even better. Many people don’t think about photographs after they’ve taken them, and those gorgeous family photos end up sitting on your phone forever, never to be looked at again.
To stop this from happening, as soon as you know you’ve got a great picture, favorite it or put it into a separate album. This way, you will have a collection of the best family photos somewhere easy to find that you can print out or send to relatives. Learn how to upload photos to iCloud to keep all your pictures safe, and make it even easier to send them around the family.
Hopefully these tips tips help you to take great family photographs that you will cherish for years to come.
