Photo taking?

What are the best ways for taking a professional photo for an active child?

• For me, it is difficult to take a professional photo for an active child. Spontaneous movements, angles of taking the shots, and taking black and white or colored photos.

• Answer:

  Boy, are children hard to take pictures of... First, very important when taking images of any child...get down to their level and get close to them! These two rules will already substantially improve your shots... If possible, try to control your lighting...If its a baby, position the mother perhaps next to a sunlit window that is slightly diffused (opaque curtain), possibly bouncing some light back using a reflector...if not, try to find some place with natural light anyway... If its a more active child, try to make the child play in a location that is nicely lit if possible. Its really special if you can angle the light so you get nice catchlights in their eyes (those little white dots in them). An active child will tire, and you can take pictures at they tire, but some action shots will also do nicely and show the child in a more vibrant state. Make you're hand holding your camera so that you can quickly move with your subject, and have a fast shutter speed and moderately high iso if necessary so that you can grab those images quickly, and so that you won't need to use your built in flash. Built in flash = poorly lit photos that everyone else takes. Keep your internal flash off! Depending on the child, they will react differently in front of the camera. Some children act like its not there, some shy away, and some actually want to play with it! (third is the worst for me!). Thats why its imperative to make the child comfortable with you...engage with him/her, play along, if the child is one of those that likes your camera, bring a toy he/she hasn't seen or played with that perhaps will also catch their interest. Once the child trusts you and has gotten used to the fact you're shooting, you'll have no problems. Course you want them happy and smiling, but I do the best with what I can at times...I've taken some images of children who are not in their most happiest state but the parents loved the shots anyway if they're done well... Black and white or color? Choose the one that you feel fits the situation best...if there are a lot of distracting colors, eliminate the distraction by going black and white...if there's nice complementary colors in the shot or something to catch the eye, leave the colors in. In digital, you can flip back and forth...go with the one your instinct tells you is better. That's all the advice I have that comes to mind...Children move, so don't expect time to compose...move quickly, shoot lots of images, LOTS of images, get close, get down to their angle, and you have the makings of beautiful photos!