How to take better photographs of your child...

My project for this year is to improve my photography

As a keen photo taker (I'd not call myself a photographer … yet) and a Mum I take lots of photos of my child, other people's children, animals, flowers, landscapes... anything that catches my eye. I'm addicted to taking photographs – my iPhone currently has 2294 photos on it's photo stream and plenty more in folders. It's amazing that it still powers up so quickly!

Anyway, after taking a photography course last year I have vowed to improve my photo taking skills. So I'm going to share my journey with you, and perhaps you too will see an improvement in those snaps!

A few ground rules:

1. I am a Canon girl through and through. So I'm going to show pictures of my Canon camera – it's digital and one of those big chunky professional looking ones rather than a point and shoot. All the 'technical' stuff I am going to learn and pass on is going to be based upon this camera – the Canon EOS 400D.
2. Since I don't always have my Canon to hand the other camera I shall talk about and use is the one that comes with my 3GS iPhone. More often than not this will be the only camera you have to hand when your child does something cute that you want to capture. So I'm going to include this and the many apps it has to help improve the photos you take with it.
3. I am not a professional, so if what works for me doesn't work for you I may not know why.
4. I am going to try and keep this as easy to understand as possible. Please remember I am a Mum who is just trying to improve her photography skills.

So let's learn a little bit about our equipment.

iPhone - Small camera lens on the back of the phone.

Operated by touching the screen or pressing the little command button on the front of the phone when the phone screen shows the image that you want to capture.

EOS 400D – An actual camera, with a large lens, inbuilt flash, operation dials, several modes, LCD screen, a CF card, a battery and a camera strap.

Operated by turning it on, selecting a mode, focusing on your shot, pressing the shutter key, and hoping for the best.

Your subject:

Children are difficult to photograph, they don't stay still, are usually not found in good light and don't really 'pose' until their older.

So I've set myself quite a challenge.

Here's one from my iPhone:

And one from my camera:

Let's see if I can do better by the end of the year.