Tips for Keeping Kids Camera Ready

This post was sponsored by NEW! Tide purclean as part of an Influencer Activation for Influence Central.

Do you like to snap pictures of your kids? Do your photos sometimes fall flat? Do they not have that pop you are looking for? There are many things that could be the reason but sometimes it could be as simple as what they are wearing.

I take a lot of pictures of my kids. I mean A LOT. Any time we go out on an adventure, whether it’s the park or the museum it’s a potential photo op for me. Those outings are the best time to practice my skills and get relaxed happy images of my kids doing the things they love. That being said I try my best to keep them reasonably camera ready at any point in time in terms of their dress. After all, you never know which photograph is going to be the one you want to blow up for the wall right? I find we put a lot of thought and effort into outfit choices for formal family picture days (as we should) but I’m willing to bet that often we don’t give much thought at all to how we are dressing our kids to play at the park or go strawberry picking. I know I don’t, or at least I haven’t in the past. And often times those are the days when I get an image I really love.

What we dress our kids in can most certainly make a difference in our images. I know because I’ve struggled with it myself. In my early years of learning photography I’ve more than once taken my kids on an outing only to come home and feel rather ‘meh about my images. Here’s an example….

It had such potential but it just fell flat for me. There are a lot of moving parts to a photograph. Good light plays a huge factor as does lens choice, camera settings & composition. But, even good light can’t rectify the fact that green on green is well… pretty borning.

Now take a look at this similar photo I took the following year applying what I learned about outfit choice. A little better right?

That said there are a few things I keep in mind when getting the kids dressed on any given day. By all means we don’t abide by the rules every day, but anytime we are heading out, and I am bringing the camera along, you bet I am keeping these things in the back of my mind.

Tips for Keeping Your Kids Camera Ready

Use Pops of Color. Take my green on green strawberry picking photo as an example. How much better would that image have looked if I had dressed my son in a red shirt instead?
Consider your background. Think about where you are going to be. Do you frequent a park where there’s a lot of blue in the equipment? Consider that color pop. Think yellow, orange & other brights. Photographing them near a barn or brick wall? Avoid red… go for contrasting colors. Busy background? Go for something more solid.
No characters please. Or at least not very commercial ones. I know, the M&M tie-dye shirt is your kids favorite right. Perfect! Save it for it’s own special photo shoot. You want the focus of your images to be your kids happy faces and the moment they are in not the ninja turtle on their shirt. Stick to plain colors, patterns or simple graphics, but again, remember guideline #2.
Choose clothes that fit their personality. I love the t-shirts that are available so many places with sayings & simple graphics on them right now. I dress my kids in them all the time. Remember that second strawberry picking image from above… it was perfect because we went picking on a cloudy day. Or how about my little trouble maker below. Granted he’s wearing camouflage pants but his shirt is very light which gives the image a “pop” and the graphics enhance the story in this case.
Accessorize. Sunglasses, Hat, Bows, Scarfs. You can use these to add a little flair and personality. The hat & sunglasses in the above image also up the cute factor. I love adding a pair of sunglasses to my boy’s outfits in the summer and beanies in the fall. The image below is kinda goofy and I might have passed it over otherwise but the sunglasses are what make it for me. That an he’s doing this thing with his hands he used to do any time I asked him to pose for a picture. (It’s those little things you want to remember).
Make sure their clothes are comfortable. Sure that collard shirt might be cute but if they really don’t like to or they are uncomfortable they will be miserable and it will show. Not to mention your outing may get cut short due to cranky kids. I know, I’ve been there.
Give them choices. My three year old will never complain about what I dress him in but my four year old has a solid opinion. So, at times when it matters to me what he’s wearing, I give him two outfit choices (bonus points if I make the pieces mix and match) so he can choose what he gets to wear.
If your unsure go with something neutral. My kids own a lot of grey because I can be pretty sure grey will look good in most any setting.
Above all else keep those clothes clean! Nothing is worse than that perfect shirt being ruined by a stain or going to pull out that adorable dress and realizing it’s pretty dingy. I highly recommend NEW! Tide purclean for laundry. Have you seen it at Target yet? It was new to me but I love it! I used Tide exclusively for years. In fact I grew up on Tide but honestly I strayed a few years ago as our family started to go more green. I was pleasantly surprised to see Tide offering a bio-based detergent whose formal is made with 100% renewable electricity and at a zero manufacturing waste to landfill site. I grabbed some the last time we went to Target and put this new to the market, laundry detergent through the ringer. I kid you not when I tell you I sat in goose poop on a recent photo shoot. I figured this was the perfect opportunity to put see just how well New Tide Purclean would clean! I really should have taken a before an after shot of my shorts (because I was completely amazed at how clean they came out) but I figured who would really want to look at a pictures of smeared goose poop. Well, I am happy to report that Tide purclean gets out goose poop & grass stains. So there ya go! Go get some Mama!

If you run to Target right now you should find a $1.00 off neck hanger coupon on Tide Purclean AND there’s also an additional 5% savings available via the Target Cartwheel mobile app (both valid until July 30th). You can’t miss it! It’s in with all the other Tide 🙂 I couldn’t find the neck hangers at our store but there was a really great offer for a Target gift card when you bought multiple bottles so I did stock up. I love the honey lavender scent. Our laundry smells so good now.