Got Wiggly Kids, But Want Their Picture?
- Jenny Espino
- Apr 28, 2018
- 4 min read
I have 3 of probably THE WORST picture takers EVER as children! Seriously, I grab my camera or my phone and they suddenly become limp noodles - and getting them to sit still takes tying them down with the strongest rope the local hardware store provides! When I want a cute picture of them, it's almost IMPOSSIBLE to get a good one by simply using the camera on my phone. There is burst mode - which kind or works... but I get a ton of blurry ones and it's just super hard to find the greatest one in all of the burst - and usually, if the other two are looking, the other found something else to focus on. It became SO frustrating until I finally came up with a trick (that probably a lot of people know about - but I recently just starting using lol) to getting a great photo of my very wiggly boys!
So it's really SUCH a basic solution! USE YOUR VIDEO CAMERA! I started just running my video camera on my phone in the vertical (portrait) position. So it could be a 15 minute video of me just trying to get all three of my boys to look (and maybe smile), but if they don't, I do get some really great candid photos of them! I have an iPhone 7, but I'm positive that this process would work with an Android as well.
1. Get Your Kiddos Ready
Get some snacks and drinks in them, so they are not HANGRY and bribe them with a fun activity if they could just cooperate for a few minutes so that mommy can get a nice photo - and remind them that photos will last a lifetime and mommy wants to remember you when you were little. These messages never work for my children, but for some reason, I still spew these words every time I want to get a photo of the three of them together. For my littlest one, I just have to make crazy noises for him to get him to look. And for specific poses, there are many, many, MANY times that I have to go put him back because he will walk away within seconds.
2. Turn on Your Phone's Video Camera
So I just start recording on my phone's video camera and let it run while I get the boys situated, I quickly run backward and tell the boys what to do. "Please smile at the camera boys!" "Look at the camera!" "Get your hand out of your face!" "Get your tongue in your mouth!" "Stop moving so much!" "Baby NOOO!! Go back to brothers!!" (Place him back into position) "Carter, let go of the baby so hard!" Anywho, I end up with like 5 minutes to an hour (JOKING) of video of them taking instructions the best that they can... It's not always pretty but I get what I can! Then, stop recording and voila!
3. Capturing the Photo from Your Video
Now, you'll want to go into the section of your phone where your videos are stored. Find your video footage, and press play, then pause. You should be able to scroll through your video pretty slowly while it's paused. Go ahead and scroll through the video until you see a split moment where it looks like all of your children are even slightly enjoying the photo-taking experience! When you see that magical frame, you should be able to tap on it and let it go to full screen. When it's at full screen, use your phone's screenshot feature and take a picture of the picture! I'm not sure about Android, but I know my iPhone's quality in this mode - is pretty good! I'm not saying it's DSLR quality, but hey - for a nice little Instagram photo - it's not so bad!
4. Capturing Candids
This method is also perfect for capturing beautiful candid photos of your family! I took the photo below by propping the video camera up in our stroller cup holder, and started recording the video. I just wanted a sweet photo of me and the little guy (and I knew that he would never look at the camera if no one was calling to him hahaha). So, we walked hand-in-hand a little ways away, turned around and I just looked where he was looking, and pointed to interesting things that might have made him smile. ALSO, he started having a melt down and didn't want to hold my hand... IN THIS PHOTO! But you really can't tell that he's screaming lol.
You'll notice that the photo is considerably grainy, but that's just the way I edited it in VSCO. The actual photo is actually pretty clear. If you want a lesson in using the VSCO app, let me know in the comments below and I'll come up with a tutorial post for ya! Anywho, I hope that these tips will help you capture beautiful photos of your wiggly little ones. I know that photo-taking time can be so stressful for us, but photos of our precious babies are so treasured. I just hope that these little tips can help make it just a little less stressful for you!
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