The 5 minute session.

I get a lot of questions on how to take better photos of your kids. I am going to try to post some words of wisdom here as well as offering private lessons starting in November.

Photo tip #1: The 5 minute session. Usually when parents are taking pictures of their children, it is at a birthday party or holiday event where you get a one time shot to take a good photo. The photos above were taken of my boys in 5 minutes. We were going to grandma's and before we hopped in the truck, I told the boys that I wanted to take a couple of pictures of them and it would only take a couple minutes. Set aside time for a mini-photo session, 5 minutes is all you need!

Photo tip #2: Don't have them pose, have them do an activity. I simply told the boys to hug or try to give each other a piggy back ride. These were the results! Posing takes all of the fun out of it and then you end up with those cheesy, forced smiles. If you look at the time of the sequence of these photos they were shot from 2:30-2:35 pm. No lie. Sure, I could have pushed them and made them shoot for another half hour because I was getting such good shots, but know when to say when! I told them that later this week I want to do some more and knowing that it was fun and only took a few minutes, they will be much more willing to cooperate all of the other times I want to take photos.