Simpson Travel

24 ON TRAVEL WORLDWIDE In the frame: how to take a great family photo The talent behind the beautiful photography on the Simpson Travel website shares his advice on capturing a moment – and avoiding photo albums full of near misses. IN THE FRAME Choose your weapon If you’ve got young children, you know they don’t stand still for long – and smart phones aren’t made for subjects on the move. You need a camera that’s easy to use quickly and starts up and focuses with no shutter lag. For indoors, it should also be good in low light – you want to avoid using the flash if you can. Let there be light Contrary to popular belief, your subjects don’t always need to squint into the sun. Try shooting into the light instead – just make sure your camera’s metering doesn’t underexpose faces. Get down low at children’s level and experiment with angles too – shallow depth of field works well (faces in focus, everything else soft). Be patient The best family photographs are often about capturing those natural moments rather than awkward posed group shots, so be patient, keep looking, keep waiting and keep experimenting! It’s best to have a camera with a viewfinder if possible. Trying to see what’s going on with an LCD screen in sunshine is very tricky.