One of the essential categories to photograph every year are favorites. Since this can change every year (maybe even every month or week!), I love the idea of photographing your child’s favorite objects in life. Perhaps for most kids, their favorite of their favorites deals with sleeping. This could be their favorite blanket or stuffed animal. This is the thing you are scared to lose…even scared to wash. For any night trip away, you have to make sure you have included their favorite blankey, softie, or whatever terms of affection it goes by in your household.
For my oldest, he never really had one of these objects. The closest thing was a stuffed pillow-like dog that he like to curl up with. But if it happened to not be in the bed, he usually didn’t notice. My youngest on the other hand, has a small softie that she looks for every time. And you can trick her with something that looks and feels like it…she knows which one is hers. This small, pink blanket gets extremely dirty. She loves to chew on the corners and keep it close to her cheek. So it is really important to make sure it is always near by for any nap or bed time!
I wanted to photograph her with her blanket one day during her nap time.
Here are some simple tips for photographing sleeping children:
1. Set my camera to quiet mode (yes! my camera has one of these!).
2. Got my settings close to what I thought would be necessary for a slightly dark room.
3. Snuck in close to the time I thought she would be waking up.
I was hoping to get some of her sleeping but she woke up as soon as I opened the door. How it goes sometimes! Even though I couldn’t capture sleepy, closed-eye photos, this is the perfect time to capture an awesome yawn! Plus her favorite sleep blanket.
Take action! Capture your child’s favorite toy, object, or stuffed animal sometime this weekend. Have a goal, to photograph them while they are interacting with it. But…if not, you can always isolate the object. Your child will love having a photograph of their favorite thing!
Check out the blog on Monday to see how I transform these photos into a design layout!
And with this post, I have marked off two items on my 50 Essential Ways to Photograph your Family in a year. Do you have your copy yet? If not, make sure to sign up for the newsletter by clicking this image:
