Kids birthday party photo secrets to capturing the magic - RI Magician Kids Party Ventriloquist Steve Zany
So your child’s birthday party has finally arrived and everything is going according to plan. What’s left to do?
As a kids magician in RI, it might come as no surprise to you that I would recommend something magical. But it may not be what you think. I suggest being sure to capture the “magic” moments at your party.
Below, I am going to share with you a simple secret I use when I take photos at my own kids’ birthday parties (i.e., my son’s and daughter’s).
This is probably a good time to add a disclaimer: I am a kids magician for hire. I am not a professional children’s photographer for hire although photography is a passion of mine.
I believe you can easily apply these simple kids party photography tips and you’ll be thrilled with the results. I might even go so far as to say it will transform the quality of your party photos like magic.
Perhaps the single most important tip of them all when photographing the birthday child is this:
My daughter enjoying her first birthday
1. Keep it Close – When taking kids party photos, what mom or dad doesn’t want a photo of their child enjoying their party? The problem is that most moms and dads don’t get in close enough to their child when photographing their birthday party.
The result is that parents’ photos of their kids include lots of things at the birthday party that, in a photo, are visually distracting (like people standing around talking or putting food in their mouths, or even people not paying attention to the fact that your child is about to blow out the candles on their birthday cake).
Naturally, the focus of attention is on your child at their party, but often times many kids birthday party photos don’t have a visual focus. As such, kids party photos include too many other things in the image.
Often times the reason is that many parents stand too far away from the star of the day — their birthday child.
The workaround is simple. Stand closer with your camera to your birthday child. How close? So your child fills the frame on the camera. That’s because the most important thing to capture, most of the time, is your child’s face. And, when you get in close, you’ll find you have a great photo that tells a story by capturing their facial expressions. Plus, people are naturally drawn to kids faces in a well-taken photo.
Often times, the closer you get the better. I mean super-close. See what reaction you get when showing people a photo where your kid’s face fills the entire frame. And here’s an advanced tip, although not something that’s hard to achieve. Just something to keep in mind. If you position your child’s eyes about one-third from the top of the frame, your photos will take on a whole new level of visual interest. (That tip makes use of a well-known photography principle known as the rule of thirds).
Of course, it’s also important to decide what’s important for you to include in your kids photos and what should be left out of the image.
For example, when your child is about to blow out the candles on their birthday cake, if having all the other kids looking on is important for you to capture, then include them. If what’s most important is capturing your child’s facial expression as everyone sings “Happy Birthday” to him/her then exclude the other kids from the shot.
One other way to think about how to get that great kids birthday party photo is to remember this: Avoid leaving too much space between your child and the edges of the frame.
Ultimately, it comes down to being consciously aware of what you hope to capture in the photo before you snap the image.
Keeping it close is what many pro photographers do.
RI Magician Kids Party Ventriloquist Steve Zany - Nickelodeon Parents Pick Award Winner!
