I take a lot of pictures of children.  In fact, they are my specialty along with Red Deer family photography.  I have spent a lot of time perfecting the way I capture Fine Art images of children and really get excited when I get an opportunity to use my skills with beautiful new faces.

Rather than go on and on about this lovely little girl, I thought I would touch on a little about how I capture these images and what I consider to be one of the most important things to keep in mind when you are a Red Deer child photographer.

The Magic of Light as a Red Deer Child Photographer

The first thing is Light.  Light is the most important thing to be mindful of when you are wanting to take a picture of your child – or anything really.  You have to take a look around and decide where the subject will look the best considering your knowledge of photography and how to take a good picture.  Even if you are just going to photograph the child or subject with your cell phone, you should still have some idea of what kind of lighting you want to use.  There are lots of different styles of light and there isn’t one right one for your pictures – it simply becomes a matter of what you want as your final image that will determine what kind of light you use.  You can just flood the subject with light straight on and have very flat light where there isn’t many shadows and a lot of bright ‘highlights’ (like when there is a lot of shine on a forehead and it is literally is glowing in a picture).

Head On Light is the light that comes right at you.  You know back in the day when your Mom would drag you actually into the sun so that you were ‘bright’ but also had your eyes squinted because you were being blinded?  Or maybe that was just my Mom – but none the less, you can just flood the subject with light straight on and have very flat light where there isn’t many shadows and a lot of bright ‘highlights’ (like when there is a lot of shine on a forehead and it is literally is glowing in a picture).  This light is never my favorite, but this summer I decided to tackle ‘harsh’ light and shoot at any time of day.  You can’t be a good Red Deer Child Photographer when you avoid light because kids will NEVER stand in the shade…mostly because they can’t stop moving long enough.  It is what makes the job fun – the overall challenge of the children and the light available.

A favorite style of lighting for me is backlighting as a Red Deer child photographer.  There is a time of day called the ‘Golden Hour’ which is normally the hour before sunset when the light outside is the most forgiving.  The light is ‘long’ and creates beautiful soft shadows rather than harsher shadows from earlier in the day when the sunshine is right overhead.  It is one of the best time to photograph anything really when it comes to forgiving light and often in the summer your photographer will drag you out long after the kids should be in bed…and it is because of the light.  I love this time of year – and late July and Aug are the best for better-timed light.  By the start of October, this Red Deer child photographer is barely able to catch anything by 6 pm because late in the year, Golden Hour becomes “Golden 20 minutes” as the sun races down under the horizon.