Hey there awesome Basel parent!

As our blog is photography oriented, it is me, Richie, to take you through some tips on how to take great photos of your kids with just your phone.

Do I like having a fancy camera around? Absolutely! But the truth is that my fancy camera is rarely within reach when I want to take a quick photo of my kids. What I (almost) always have within reach is my phone.

The same goes for you: you don’t need a fancy camera, studio lights, or months of training to take beautiful, meaningful photos of your kids. The phones we carry today have super powerful cameras. The best part is that your phone is always with you.

I will share with you how I think about this (and what works for my own shoots whether at home or outdoors). Even professional photographers use these tricks and they're super easy. Use what makes sense, ignore the rest, and most importantly have fun!

There are many more aspects that go into taking a “nice photo", but in today’s blog we’re focusing on just three simple tricks, you can up your photo game big time. These tips will work no matter what kind of phone you have.

Why Take a Photo Anyway?

Before we get to our three quick tips, a quick word on why take photos at all. This may seem obvious at first, but there's a reason why we stop whatever we're doing and suddenly think “I should take a photo of this now!". Whatever it may be, the key thing is to keep this reason at the forefront as you reach for your phone. That instinct isn’t just about taking a picture. It’s about creating a memory and keeping a little piece of that moment.

I like to think of photos less as pictures and more as documents of significance. Something that will be preserved (even if digitally) for a long time to come. Each one says, “this mattered, this moment was worth keeping.”

So next time you pick up your phone, remember: you’re not just taking a photo, you’re documenting a piece of your story.

Tip 1: Get Down to Their Level

This tip is super easy to implement. It doesn't have anything to do with your phone or any camera settings. It's to do with your positioning while taking a photo.

Kids are little and their world is a few feet below from our perspective. This is why it's important when you take photos of your kids, instead of standing over your child, squat, kneel, or lie down (if your little ones are still crawling!) so you’re at eye level (or even slightly below). There are times when being at their eye level would not be desirable angle. For example, when they are colouring and you want to take a photo from above to capture how they are holding that crayon, it may be ideal to NOT be at their eye level.

But in many cases, and especially for very small kids or toddlers, a low angle can make everything feel more “in their world.” When you do this, your photos will become more intimate, and more compelling.

Here are two photos of my kids taken with two different phones 4 years apart. Notice how getting to their eye level makes everything more flattering.

It’s completely fine if you can’t do this for every single photo, but even if you do this for half of the photos you take of your kids, I can promise the overall quality will improve greatly.

Tip 2: Embrace Burst Mode

Young kids are rarely still. The trick is: don’t expect perfection in one shot. Let them move, let life happen, and capture a sequence or a burst.

I generally see people's camera rolls being full of identical photos from a specific moment. Out of 10 identical photos, there may be 1 or 2 good ones worth keeping. Usually, we forget to delete the other 8 and soon enough, our galleries will become cluttered with near identical photos.

The tip here is to use burst mode. This is the most “technical” of the three tips today, so bear with me!

Our phones have the ability to take multiple photos by pressing the shutter button once. The longer you “keep the burst on” the more frames (or images) will be captured. This is super important in sports photography, for example, when a photographer wants to have a photo at the exact moment when a footballer makes contact with the ball. They simply use burst mode (usually taking 15-20 photos in a second!) and find the perfect moment from the sequence.

Burst mode is also handy when taking photos of our active kids. By taking photos in the burst mode, you may be able to take 20 individual images in just a couple of seconds! This is much easier than clicking the shutter 10 or 15 times.

The really cool thing about burst mode is that the photos in the burst mode will appear as one photo in your gallery, but when you open this photo, you'll see there are actually more photos underneath. This way, even if you don't select the best photos from your burst, your gallery remains uncluttered. However, I recommend that you take the extra step and remove unusable photos from the burst.

Here's a YouTube video that shows how to do this (in under 2 minutes!). It's well worth a watch.

Tip 3: Configure Easy Access to the Camera

As our phones become increasingly smart and complex, it can be hard to find the right apps (in this case the camera app) when you need to get to it quickly. Just like the Tip 1, this last tip is also super easy to follow in practice.

I see parents usually go through the following steps to open the camera app: unlock the phone, swipe through multiple home screens to find the camera app, and finally open the camera app. It takes several clicks and swipes, and precious seconds to get to the camera app.

These lost seconds are especially important for us parents of toddlers who may only have a few seconds when our toddlers are up to something cool. If we miss this moment, we're never quite sure if and when such a moment will happen again.

This is why it's super important to be able to access the camera with just one press of a button.

On my iPhone, I can get to the camera app in just one swipe. This is without changing a single setting! Your iPhone comes configured this way by default. To access the camera in the quickest way possible, simple swipe left on your lock screen. You don't even need to unlock your phone for this! Just swipe right on the lock screen and you'll see the camera open up right away. It's that easy.

(Image taken from Instant Camera)

Now, It's Your Turn

People think taking better photos means learning fancy camera jargon or mastering editing software. Nope. It’s really just about tiny changes in the way we take photos.

The beauty of these tips is that they fit right into everyday life and super easy to implement.

So the next time your toddler decides to take over the kitchen as a baker, or scores that winning goal remember: you’ve got everything you need in your pocket to freeze that memory no matter what phone you carry in your pocket.

Happy shooting,
Richie 📸