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  How to Take Great Portrait Photos of Your Own Kids: A Photographer’s Tips for Beginners  

  A pro photographer’s best tips for everyday photos of your kids — and the one thing no camera can fix  

We’ve been photographing children and families professionally for over 15 years, but honestly, our best photography school has been our own kids. A child doesn’t pose, doesn’t wait, and couldn’t care less whether the light is perfect right now. And that’s exactly what makes children’s photos so wonderful: they show life as it really is.

Here are the tips that will genuinely improve your everyday photos. You don’t need expensive gear — your phone camera is a great place to start.

1. Light is almost everything

Whenever possible, shoot in natural light: outdoors, or indoors near a window. If the window light is too harsh, a sheer curtain softens it beautifully.

Outdoors, avoid direct sunlight and take your child into the shade instead, where the light is even and nobody is squinting. The best times to shoot are in the morning before 10 and in the evening after 5.

And here’s a professional secret: a cloudy day is not a bad photo day. It’s a child photographer’s best friend, the clouds work like a giant softbox, and the light stays soft at any hour.

Turn on burst mode and take a few test shots before the “real” moment begins. Kids' best expressions last a fraction of a second.

2. Shoot from your child’s eye level

This might be the single most important tip: crouch down. When the camera is at your child’s eye level, the photo instantly becomes more personal — the viewer steps into the child’s world instead of looking down at it from an adult’s height.

With older kids and adults, a classic trick works well: ask them to turn their face about 30–45 degrees away from the camera, or move yourself to get that angle. It gives the face shape and the eyes life.

With a shy child who’s wary of the camera, don’t start with close-ups. Shoot from a distance first, let them play and forget the camera — the time for close-ups comes once the camera has become part of the scene.

3. Composition: eyes on the golden points

Try to compose the shot so your child’s eyes land on the golden ratio points — slightly off-center and toward the top of the frame. Most phones let you turn on a grid in the camera settings, which makes this easy.

4. Cropping and background

Two small things that separate a snapshot from a considered photo:

Don’t crop right at the joints (knees, elbows, wrists) — crop slightly above or below them. In full-body shots, leave some space around your child.

Glance at the background before you press the shutter. Make sure there are no “poles growing” out of your child’s head, and no cables, bags or other distracting objects lying around. Two steps to the side often solves the whole problem.

5. Finish your photos with a little editing

Even light editing makes photos look more polished: add contrast and brightness if needed, straighten the horizon, fix the white balance, and take your time re-cropping.

To make it easier, we’ve created a free Photoshop action that gives your photos a warm, sunny tone in one click. Download it and try it on your own photos.

And then the thing no tip can fix

With these tips, your everyday photos will definitely get better. But over the years, We’ve noticed one thing that repeats in almost every family’s photo archive:

The person taking the photos is missing from them.

There are hundreds of lovely shots of the kids, but mom or dad is always behind the camera, never in the frame. And children grow faster than you can believe. That moment when your two-year-old falls asleep in your arms, or your four-year-old laughs so hard their eyes disappear — you belong in that picture too.

That’s exactly why professional family photography exists. Not because your own photos aren’t good, but because once a year, someone else should hold the camera, so the whole family can be in the same photo.

Explore our children’s photography here and see the pricing and book your session. We photograph in the Helsinki capital region, Helsinki, Espoo and Vantaa and elsewhere in Finland by arrangement.

Psst: a photo session also makes a wonderful gift. Many grandparents have given a family a gift card for a photo session and received a photo of the whole family in return.

And if any of these tips left you wondering, just ask — we are happy to help!