There’s a certain kind of optimism involved in suggesting a family photo.
You picture everyone together (no pun intended! …ok, 100% intended), looking relaxed and happy. The kids are smiling. Nobody has food down their top. Everyone is looking broadly in the same direction.
Then reality hits.
One child suddenly hates the jumper they happily wore yesterday. Dad has started issuing specific instructions about where everybody should stand with increasing volume. Someone else desperately needs the toilet. The bloody dog has disappeared. And the simple request to “just smile naturally” has somehow resulted in everyone forgetting how their faces work.
Getting a good family photo can feel surprisingly difficult. But it doesn’t need to become psychological warfare.
To be honest, the less seriously you take it, the better your chances usually are.
The first thing to get rid of is the idea that a good family photo needs everyone standing neatly in a row, smiling directly at the camera.
It doesn’t.
Some of the photographs you’ll love most in ten or twenty years’ time probably won’t be the technically perfect ones. They’ll be the ones where you recognise everyone as they actually were.
The ridiculous laugh. The toddler refusing to cooperate. Sister looking at her brother instead of the camera. The slightly chaotic background that immediately takes you back to that particular moment of family life.
It’s not just us saying this either; professional photography advice backs this up too with numerous photographers recommending that concentrating on authentic family dynamics and natural moments rather than trying to control every detail will always produce better shots. Being ready for spontaneous expressions is also a winner because great moments with children can happen at any point.
So aim for a nice photo, not photographic evidence that your family has achieved perfection.
That’s a much easier afternoon for all involved. Especially you.
A few things help more than you’d think. Natural light beats a posed studio setup every time.
You don’t need professional lighting equipment or an elaborate setup. A bright room near a window can work brilliantly, as can heading outside when the light is softer.
If you’re outdoors, avoid putting everyone in strong midday sunshine and telling them to smile. You’ll mostly get squinting, harsh shadows and several people asking how much longer this is going to take.
Soft light is much kinder. Light around the golden hour (7-8pm in peak summer) for family portraits, or if that’s past the little ones bedtime then open shade is a useful option when you’re shooting in stronger daylight.
Prefer indoors? Then move towards a good-sized window and switch off the flash if you’ve got enough available light.
Also, clean the camera lens on your phone.
Yes it’s an incredibly boring tip, but the mysterious fog covering half your family photos may actually just be fingerprints.
“Stand there and smile properly.”
An instruction almost perfectly designed to make a child do anything except stand there and smile.
Instead, give everyone something to do.
Walk towards the camera. Tickle someone. Tell the children to whisper something silly to each other. Throw some leaves. Give the dog a cuddle. Ask everyone to squeeze together. Tell the youngest person they’re in charge for thirty seconds (and immediately regret it).
This isn’t just a distraction technique. Children tend to look more natural when they’re engaged in an activity rather than concentrating on performing for a camera. We totally encourage letting children play or giving them an activity specifically because posed situations can more often than not, produce uncomfortable, unnatural-looking photographs.
Not to mention a little bit of movement also gives you something much more interesting than six people staring earnestly at a lens.
There. We’ve said it.
Bribery works, and nobody needs to know about it.
If the promise of an ice cream, biscuit or control of the television remote for the next hour buys you five minutes of cooperation, this is not the moment to start questioning your parenting philosophy.
Keep it simple, though. You’re looking for a small incentive, not opening negotiations that require a team of lawyers.
And don’t spend half an hour building up to the photograph. Children have limited enthusiasm for family administration. And rightly so. So if you do need a more formal shot, as opposed to more carefree ones, get these done early because children can quickly tire of the process.
Get everyone together, take plenty of pictures and move on.
This is one occasion where quantity is absolutely your friend.
Take ten photographs and there’s a good chance somebody will blink in nine of them.
Take thirty and your odds improve considerably. This is where burst mode comes into its own.
Modern phones make this easy and this is particularly useful with children, who can move from angelic smile to inexplicable grimace in approximately one eighth of a second.
If people are moving, good light becomes even more important because it helps your camera capture them sharply. When it comes to photographing children we also recommend faster shutter speeds if they’re moving about as this helps reduce motion blur.
You don’t need to understand shutter speeds to benefit from that advice. On a phone, simply give yourself plenty of light, keep the camera steady and take lots of shots.
You can delete the disasters later. Or not…
Very few people naturally smile while saying the word “cheese”.
What you usually get is a photograph of everyone displaying their teeth.
If you want genuine expressions, create them instead.
Try asking a ridiculous question. Get someone to tell a joke. Ask the children who has the smelliest feet. Tell everyone they’re allowed to make one silly face before the proper photograph.
The aim is to stop people thinking about how they look.
That relaxed atmosphere matters. Children respond to the mood around them, and keeping things calm and enjoyable will always help produce more natural family photographs.
Which leads us to possibly the most useful trick of all.
Honestly, the best shots are often the ones taken right after everyone’s stopped trying, when someone actually laughs.
You’ve got the sensible photograph. Everyone relaxes. Someone makes a comment. The children start messing around.
Keep taking pictures.
Those few seconds immediately afterwards can produce the photograph you actually wanted all along.
Memorable expressions can happen at the beginning, middle or very end of a “session”, so it’s worth staying ready rather than assuming the photograph only happens during the official pose.
The posed version might be the one you send to the grandparents. Snore!
The photograph three seconds later is more likely to be the one you want to print.
Before you start, get ahead of the game and remove as many opportunities for arguments as possible.
Mix it up; ask someone else to take a few as well. Different people notice different moments.
It’s easy to judge a family photograph immediately after taking it.
Olivia’s hair isn’t quite right. Theo isn’t looking at the camera. Mum’s eyes are half closed. There’s a stray dog walker in the background that nobody noticed.
But photographs change as they get older.
Eventually you stop seeing the tiny imperfections and start seeing the people, the place and the moment in your family’s life.
That’s why it’s worth taking the photograph even when everyone isn’t cooperating perfectly.
Especially then. Because years from now, the picture where everybody looks immaculate might be lovely… But the one where someone’s laughing, someone’s moving and nobody is quite doing what they were told?
That’s probably the one with the story.
And those are the memories worth printing.
