#2 Draw Focus

7 Tips for Taking Great Vacation Photos of Your Kids

In this series we’re looking at techniques for taking great photos of your kids while on vacation. Previously we discussed the ever so popular rule of thirds, which you’ll continue to see used throughout this series.

Another way to get your kids to really shine in your vacation photos is to make it clear to the viewer that they are the subject. Kids will get lost in a busy photograph at the beach with ten other families vacationing around them if nothing is done to bring them into focus. But how do you keep the visual distractions to a minimum at a busy vacation spot? It’s not like you can ask everyone to clear the area.

Well there are many ways to focus attention on your kids while still enjoying the surroundings, and in the above images I’ve demonstrated this with the following techniques:

Get Close – fill your viewfinder with your smiling kid’s face or even their whole body. Walk up to them or zoom in with your lens (or even better, do both). The closer you get your lens to the subject, the bigger they will appear in the frame which in turn gives them more prominence and draws the viewer’s eye to them. Additionally, moving closer to your subject will decrease the depth of field (DOF) and throw objects in the background (and foreground) out of focus (if you are properly focusing on your kid). In order to make this work right you will want to make sure your camera lens is set to the lowest aperture possible – (by lower I’m referring to the number, but be aware that a lower number aperture is actually a larger lens opening). If you are using a point and shoot camera then put your setting on portrait or any setting where the f-stop (lens opening) has a lower number (ie. f2.8 instead of f22). The macro setting could be useful here (that is the setting with the flower icon on most point and shoot cameras). If you are not sure what aperture your camera is using then take some test shots on different settings with the subject up close and then do a visual check in the playback to see which settings caused the background to be less in focus. There are of course instances when you will want everything in the photograph to be in focus so it’s good to know which settings will use a higher number f-stop (or smaller lens opening) to allow for this to happen. You can still bring focus to your subject, however, by getting close and therefore having the subject appear larger in the frame.

Frame Your Kids – The viewers eye will naturally be drawn to objects that are being framed, so use objects surrounding your kids to frame them. A frame can consist of anything that appears to enclose the subject. This can be on all four sides of the subject or even just two or three sides. Think door frames, archways, trees, and so on; the possibilities are endless. The objects framing the subject can be right next to them or far away from them (either closer to the camera or far off in the distance). You can even use the DOF method and have the framing objects out of focus. Just be sure your kids are in focus.

Contrast – Another great way to draw focus to your kids is to place them against textured or brightly colored backgrounds that will provide stark contrast. You don’t even need to have a huge wall to work with if you continue to get close. Although you might not get a big landscape view of your vacation destination this way, you can still recall memories with the textures from the places you visited; like wood from a fishing pier, the brick from the hotel you stayed at, or the cobble stone from the pedestrian streets you visited. This way you have a great DIY portrait of your kids to hang next to the landscape photo of your favorite vacation sites.

Leading lines – This technique literally draws the viewers eye to the subject by using natural lines in the surroundings to point at the subject. These lines can be drawn by fences, walls, sidewalks, railings, edges; again, the possibilities are endless.

There are many ways to draw focus to your kids while still capturing the vacation and your surroundings. Play with these techniques and continue to look for other ways to make your child stand out and create those gallery worthy photos – {even if it’s just your own living room gallery}.

In the next post I’ll discuss how perspective can be the difference between a good photo and a great photo when photographing kids.