If you are a photographer parent, or a photographer who shoots event and birthdays, you will inevitably need to know how to take great pictures of children blowing out their birthday candles.

Although it might seem like a challenging task at hand, taking birthday candle pictures is honestly very simple! With the right knowledge of camera settings and lighting, taking birthday cake pictures will be a breeze.

Photographing children can be pretty challenging! Especially so if you are photographing your own children, since they would rather be doing ANYTHING else rather than sitting you with and having a camera thrust in their face. (And it can be the same if you are the hired photographer too!)  I have had my fair share of pouty faces and cheesy grins over the years, along with some not-so-awesome shots of the back of their head as they are running away, and of course, the images that capture a beautiful, natural expression....but they are totally out of focus! 

In future posts I'm going to be giving you some specific tips and strategies for working with different age groups, but to kick us off, here are my top 8 tips and tricks for photographing children. 

If you have children that love getting their photo taken, then I totally envy you!  As my son has grown up and developed his own (strong willed) personality, he has also grown more resistant to getting his picture taken.  Of course that is fine – I mean, who wants to have a lens in their face everyday? – but as a mother who wants to document our family life, it can be downright tricky at times! However, I have my ways of making sure I can still take lifestyle shots, either by ensuring his co-opration, or by being sneaky :) 

So, if you are one of those who have children who either cower or complain when the camera comes out, here are my tips for getting lifestyle images of your children, whilst ensuring that they are still comfortable with it.  

One of the things that draws me to lifestyle photography more than any other kind is that I love detail shots.  Whilst I also enjoy a good portrait - and I think that they are just as important to photograph too - I believe detail shots can be just as beautiful as any other type of images, and as it requires you to slow down and be a little bit more purposeful when shooting, really allows you to see the beauty in your everyday life. 

Here are some tips for helping you capture the details in lifestyle photography. 

Whilst my home isn't exactly an rubbish tip, it's a normal family home with lots of clutter from day to day life. Many times I find myself wishing I had a home that was a bit more camera friendly (imagine, large windows, white walls, crisp clean furniture, with no lego pieces in sight and no drawing on the walls....) but you just have to learn to work with what you've got! Although for sure I sometimes love to incorporate our usual home life into my images - when I'm documenting -  for other image types I usually crave simplicity, so I try to find areas that give me that "clean" uncluttered look. 

The best way to show you that is to show you some images, and pullbacks on where I have taken them.  

Even before I started a Project 365, most days I would pick up my camera – not necessarily to get a great shot, but simply to snap the candid moments that happened throughout the day.   I've lost count of the number of times I missed a "kodak moment" because I was either fumbling with my settings,  trying to find a memory card, or wondering where the heck I'd left my camera bag! 

That's why I now have a little bit of a system in place that helps me be prepared and ready to capture anything that pops up.   Once you get into the groove of doing this, you'll find that you can quickly pick up your camera and snap away at any time! 

One of the things I am asked most frequently about is whether I have any tips for photographing toddlers, so I thought I'd put together some for you!  Although these tips certainly apply to professional photographers wanting to capture this age group, I've written these more with a parent photographing their own child in mind - so in natural situations, not necessarily studios or formally posed. 

We all want to more beautifully capture our everyday, so today I'm going to give you some lifestyle \ documentary photography tips!

First of all, let's cover what lifestyle photography actually is. Although everyone has a slightly different take on lifestyle photography - for me, this is about capturing real life, as it happens, and finding the beauty the mundane details of everyday life.

It's basically a style that aims to capture photos that are not posed or staged, but rather real moments, expressions, reactions and details that tell us more about the subject or point in time that a simple portrait photo would.Lifestyle photography is photojournalistic / documentary in style, but with a more artistic approach so that it is far beyond the traditional snapshot!