Time to Click: Outdoor Family Photography

It's the last week in our special "Time to Click" series and we will be talking about putting together all that great information I have shared!

Today, lets talk Family Photos! Everyone does them, right? So let's take some of tips and put it all together: what do you need, and how do you get the best Family Photos? Here are my top 5 tips for great outdoor family photos!

1. Use your flash. We talked a lot about controlling your light. Using your flash outside helps fill in shadows and create an evenly exposed image.

2. Clean up the Background: Use a Portrait Scene Mode, or control your Aperture to blur your background.  You would never know there are people, and a sidewalk, with fence behind this little darlings head... 

3. Think about your focus area. Every camera can control the area of focus, either by the AF selection key, or by centering your lens on the subject, pushing the shutter halfway down to focus, then without letting your finger up, reposition your frame to control the composition (framing) of your image.

4. Composition / Posing. Going right along with checking your focus area, and repositioning your frame... utilize the rule of thirds (shown above) fill 2/3s of your frame with your subject to create interest. Or, use leading lines to draw interest to your subject... or lines in your posing with larger groups (shown below)! For more composition be sure to read yesterdays post!

Use Rule of Thirds to off center images

Create "leading lines" or use available lines to lead the eye to the subject

5. Understand Light and how to manipulate it. You might think I am cheating a little because I already told you to use your flash... but think about it. If you are taking images in the "cool" light of early morning, bringing along a warm reflector for your subjects will dramatically change your images. At the same time, shooting in the evening "warm" time of day where skin tones tend to pick up the orange and yellows of sunset... using a silver, or white reflector to cool balance that light... or even a reflector to BLOCK light so the sun hits the hair but not the face (see the rule of thirds image again)... dramatic differences!