10: Experiment With Framing Your Shot

Here’s the last of our 10-part series of articles from Sabra Krock, on how to best capture images of your child.

Our instinct is to frame our subject in the center of the lens and start shooting. There are all sorts of professional rules about composing a photo, but the basic idea is this: framing your subject in the dead center of the shot time after time is boring.

Instead, experiment with the composition of your shot. If your child is looking at something, include the thing he or she is looking at in the frame, even if it means your child is off-center. If your child is running, create space in the composition for your child to run into. Think about whether your shot is best composed horizontally or vertically.

If your camera has different focal points, learn how to adjust your focal point so that it moves out of the center position to the area filled by your subject. If you cannot do this, you may need to push your shutter half way down to lock the focus on your child before adjusting your composition and pushing all the way down to take the shot.

This is a photo of Max, just a couple of weeks old, with his doggie sibling, Zulu. We were all taking advantage of a rare quiet moment to nap. The framing of the photo tells the story.

This is the tenth and final installment in a weekly series of posts by Manhattan photographer Sabra Krock on how to take better photographs of your child. Read the previous nine tips in the series here.