Family Photography Tips
Digital Photography Technique for Beginners

These family photography tips will help you take great pictures of your family. Use your photography technique to capture precious memories. All you need is a camera and some basic picture taking tips.

Do you wonder how people take so many great family photographs? In their pictures the light always seems to be just right and the children's faces seem to glow with delight, but whenever you try to do it everyone has red eye and the faces are too shadowy or completely washed out or just blurry. Let's look at some digital photography tips that will help you capture those family moments in lovely pictures that you won't be able to wait to show your friends.

These tips are for taking causal pictures of your family. If you want advice on family portraits, check out my Family Portraits Tips.

Keep It Simple

One of the best family photography tips is to keep it simple. Whether you're at a large family event, a birthday party or just taking some pictures around the house, keep it simple. A secret to a great photographs that many beginners don't pick up on at first is simplicity. You don't need to get everything in the picture all at once. Just capture the most important elements. In most cases, that's the people.

If you can, set your camera to a low f-stop to widen your aperture. A wide aperture gives you a shallow depth fo field making the background out of focus. Having an unfocused background makes the background more abstract. Instead of checking out the books on the shelf behind your subject, the viewer's eyes will be drawn to their faces.

Make the people in the picture the center of the composition, but don't necessarily put them in the center of the photograph. Read my page on the Rule of Thirds to understand framing your photo.

Capture the Emotion

Take candid shots that capture the emotion of the moment. This is one of the crucial family photography tips. Some of the best family photographs are the ones that show a relaxed moment shared by two or more family members. Don't be afraid to move around your subjects snapping pictures and talking in a relaxed manner. If you act like the camera and the picture taking is normal, they'll start to forget about it too. That's when you take your best pictures.

If you do end up giving some posing instructions have them put their heads close together. That makes a really nice casual shot and will usually get everyone smiling.

Focus on capturing the moment. You don't need to be worried about getting certain parts of the body in the photos. Maybe a photo of just the people's hands will best show what you want to capture. Maybe you'll have to crop off the top of someone's head to best show the relationship between the peole. That's fine. Experiment.

If you're taking pictures in an excited atmosphere where there's a lot of moving around going on, you might need to set your ISO relatively high to catch the action. Remember that a high ISO setting will produce more noise (grain) in the picture. The blurriness caused by movement at low ISO speeds can cause a nice effect too.

Photographing Events

These family photography tips are for getting great photos at family events. Include things in the picture that give a clue about what the event your photographing is. If it's a family reunion take a picture the includes the family reunion sign. It doesn't have to be held up infront of the group of people all old school. You can have the banner on the wall to the side and even slightly out of focus.

If you're photographing a birthday party, don't forget to get a picture with the candles and cake. The best way to photograph candles is with no flash. Use a tripod or rest your camera on the back of a chair so that it doesn't shake. That brings me to lighting.

Lighting

Here are some family photography tips about light. I like natural light best. Take pictures in rooms with large windows. If you're photographing outside take pictures in shaded areas.

Sometimes you'll have to use a flash. If you have a flash gun, bounce your flash. A bounced flash provides more natural looking light.

If you can't bounce your flash, stay in your flash's range. If you use a flash from too far away you'll get a flash fade. The edges of the picture will be darker because the subject was too far away. Find out more about flash photography here.

I hope these family photography tips have helped you. You may also be interested in my Baby Photography Tips. If you want to read about some more of my photography tips and tricks check the the Digital Photography Tutorials page.