Shooting Kids

Fiona likes her puzzles.

Get down on the level of the child for good shots of kids.

When I saw Fiona, my granddaughter, down on the floor putting one of her puzzles together, I saw a picture. I grabbed my camera, in this case my Fuji HS10, and dropped to the floor. By getting down low, one sees a lot of the little girl's face and can easily see her look of concentration.

This shot was taken with the zoom lens set to 24mm. The shot was illuminated with window light pouring into the bedroom through a very large window.

Personally, I think the best pictures of kids show them engaged in one of their usual day-to-day activities rather than simply posed looking at the camera. I like the small amount of subject motion blurring the little girl's reaching hand. The movement adds to the documentary feel, the unposed moment captured feel, of the image. 

I kept the puzzle pieces in the picture as I thought they added to the story. I'm still debating whether or not the picture could be improved by cropping off the puzzle piece at the bottom right. Cropping the picture so that the puzzle piece disappeared would make for a very deep picture with very little width. It might be very dramatic. What do you think?

One warning. Note the distortion in this picture. That is the result of using such a wide angle lens. If you want less distortion, do not use such an extremely wide lens. Get back a bit from your subject and use a longer lens. Doing this will minimize distortion but it will also give a flatter, less dramatic, perspective.

Cheers!