5 Tips for Indoor Photos of Your Kids {Guest Post}

Now that the days are shorter and the sun is out less, it may seem a little harder to take indoor photos of your kids. Don’t let this stop you from capturing their day to day lives.

1. Walk around your house.

Over the next week I challenge you to walk around your house at different times of day.  Look in each room. Which room has nice light at 10am? How about 4pm? Figure out where you can find the light. I know that my kids playroom has nice light at 10am where as my daughter’s bedroom is really nice around 4pm. Knowing where the natural light is in your house is essential in knowing where to take your photos.

2. Encourage them to play by the window.

Do your children have a favorite craft table? Maybe a train table? Chair they like to read in? Position these items near a window so you have light shining on them while they are playing. This keeps you from distracting them while they are playing but still allows you to have nice light in your photos.

3. Raise your ISO.

If you shoot in manual mode, and I encourage you to give it a try for two weeks, then raising your ISO will help to bring more light in your images. People are often afraid to raise their ISO because they are nervous about adding noise to their image. However, it is better to raise your ISO and get a properly exposed image with less noise than to keep it low in fear of the noise and having an underexposed image you plan to fix in post-processing.

4. Embrace the shadows

If you have a minimal amount of light in a room don’t be afraid to use what you have. Shadows are a great thing to have in photos. Place your subject in the available light and focus on them. Don’t worry if the rest of the image is dark with shadows, that helps draw the viewer in on your subject.

5. Open the windows and turn off the lights

Indoor lights typically give your images a yellow cast. Instead of relying on your lights use the natural light. This helps you to achieve the correct white balance for your images. When shooting indoors with artificial light it can be a challenge to get your white balance correct.

Courtney Slazinik is the creator of Click it Up a Notch, a website to help you improve your photos one click at a time. She is married to an amazing man in the Air Force, and they have three spunky little girls. Courtney’s degree is in education, and she enjoyed being in the classroom prior to becoming a SAHM. After her husband accidentally broke their camera minutes before their 2nd daughter was born, she used his guilt to persuade him to purchase her first DSLR. Courtney became obsessed with photography and even after four years, continues to learn something new each day. She recently launched her first ebook to help you improve your photography while documenting your kids, The Unexpected Everyday

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