7 Tips for Better Baby Pictures

This post may contain links to affiliate websites, such as Amazon, and we receive an affiliate commission for any purchases made by you using these links. We appreciate your support!
I am going to start this off by saying that I am in no way a professional photographer.  This is just one mother sharing with the next. There are a few tips you need to keep in mind when trying to get pictures of your baby or toddler.

1) Be prepared to take a lot of shots.  Don’t stop at 1 or 2 if you want to get that perfect photo.  Try more like 2 dozen – especially when they learn to move.

2) Check to see if your camera has settings for this.  My camera has a best shot setting for children which seems to work really well for this purpose.

3) Make sure you are level with the baby when you are taking the picture.  Yes… that might mean getting down low.  This way you end up with shots that feel more like you have entered the babies world.
4) Always have your camera handy.  This is especially important with newborns as you just never know when they are going to do something picture worthy.
5) Try black and white.  This seems to emphasize the “softness” of a baby more than colour does and will also help to minimize the look of all the scratches and blotchiness babies can get.
6) Natural light is key.  Flash may scare a young baby into crying or at the very least will make them blink or stop whatever it is you are trying to get a shot of. 

7) Clean their face.  Make sure there is no spit up, eye crumbs, or boogers in their nose.  Nobody wants to see that.  Trust me.


Do you have any tips for taking pictures of babies?

Similar Posts

9 Comments

  1. Good tips 🙂 I am a photographer and I think these are solid tips for parents.

    A couple things I would add are, think outside the box. Does your baby have the cutest little chubby toes? A cute little dimple on her face? Focus in on those. Take pictures of the things that YOU adore. Trust me everyone else will adore them too.

    You know when your baby is most likely to be in a good mood. Plan for those moments. Is he all smiles right after a good nap? Have the camera ready. Don’t set yourself up for disappointment by planning to take pictures when he is most likely going to no cooperate.

    Learn to use indirect light. Get a diffuser for your flash and experiment with it. Bouncing the flash off the ceiling or a near by wall can create some very appealing lighting effects without scaring your baby (I never use direct flash with babies. I know how much it hurts my eyes).

    If your camera has a continuous shooting mode use it!

  2. What great tips! It sure is hard to get just the right angle once they start moving around! Thank you for sharing what works!

  3. My daughter just had a baby last week so these are great tips. Can’t wait to try them all out – especially the one about taking plenty of pictures 🙂

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *