Happy Easter, moms!! ? I’ll hop right to the point here: It’s time your mommy photo skills match your basket packing and egg hiding skills. ???I’m excited to be sharing my best-kept photographer secrets to tricks for capturing your Easter celebrations in a really beautiful, timeless, and creative way. Capturing your day from the big perspective all the way to the tiny details and telling the story of the whole day.
Side note: That doesn’t mean you have to have your camera out the entire day. Decide ahead of time the events you want to take pictures of… maybe dying the eggs, brunch, and the egg hunt in the afternoon. Then be okay having your phone put away the rest of the time. During the few events, take a handful of pictures using the tricks in the blog. Once you feel you’ve captured the moment, give yourself permission to just enjoy the rest of the time without having to take another photo.
There is a lot in this blog, I recommend that you find one or two ideas you want to try out and practice just those this weekend. Then later when you’re feeling comfortable with them come back and practice a new one!
Before We *Hop* Into It: The BGP Motherhood Event is Coming on April 19th
If you haven’t heard the BGP Motherhood Event is coming on Friday, April 19th, 2024 4 pm -6 pm in Gilbert. Be sure to add your name to the waitlist below for more information and to receive early booking access when booking for the event goes live on April 2nd.
While in this blog I’m sharing with you how to capture your own photo for Easter, for Mother’s Day I’d love to do it for you! This is an opportunity to freeze time and capture THIS season of life you are in. Come by, say hi, and let me capture a sweet photo of you with your littles. Plus have it matted and displayed next to a fresh bouquet of flowers in time for Mother’s Day! Hope to see you there friend!
Play with Video | Tricks for Capturing Your Easter Celebrations
We have a timelapse video we took years ago – back when the Grondin Family all fit under one roof – of the six of us making Easter brunch. Dad was on the skillet making french toast. Adam was pouring mimosas. Mom & Daniel were making a fruit salad. Caitee and I were setting the table. Then the camera turns and you can see us all sitting down, praying over the food, reading the Easter Story out of the Bible while eating. And just as fast as it all started, we cleaned it all up.
Years later, we ended up adding that video to a home movie and we cherish it! All of us together, everyday clothes, messy hair, real life, working together like a perfectly oiled machine to celebrate Easter as a family.
Playing with video, whether that be setting a tripod up and forgetting about it for a few minutes or taking a few clips throughout the day, can be so special. A few years down the road, you will be so grateful you captured your little one’s voice, conversation, and the way you all moved and acted together as a family.
As you read through these next few tips, you can capture a quick video clip of all these photo ideas as well. Then you can real simply, string them together to create a sweet Easter Keepsake Video.
I like to use Capcut to edit all my video clips together into a movie. If you’re looking for more help learning how to turn your iPhone clips into movies your family can look back on for years to come, I recommend you check out Tenniell’s DIY Family Film Course. You’ll love it, it’s super mom friendly!
Finding the Best Spot for the Picture | Tricks for Capturing Your Easter Celebrations
When it comes to taking a nice photo of everyone looking at the camera, the first place to start is thinking about light. As a natural light photographer, my top pick is always outdoors.
And when you are working with littles, I recommend finding a nice shady spot, that when you look up you can see the sky. This may look like shade from the side of a building or a tree. This is what I call open-shade.
It will allow your kiddos to move around a bit, without you having to worry about funny lighting on their face.
And by making sure you can see the open sky from where you are standing in the shade, it will ensure perfect skin tones… no funny green color casting from the grass.
If you are unable to find open-shade, then I would recommend that everyone faces their shadow. This will then give you a little glow around your heads, making your subjects pop!
If you want more of the technical tips to take better photos of your kids, be sure to check out this blog HERE: 5 Tips to Take Better Photos of Your Kids
Play with Angles | Tricks for Capturing Your Easter Celebrations
I don’t think I have to tell you the importance of playing with angles… you learned that pretty fast when you pulled out your camera and it was still in selfie-mode and you saw a very unflattering reflection of yourself. When it comes to taking pictures of people, shooting slightly down on them is always the most flattering angle.
However, when it comes to photographing your littles for Easter, you can have a lot of fun getting creative with different angles. The way you layout a photo can really elevate an average photo to a really wow photo!
Try playing with these angles:
- Over the shoulder: Peek over your little one’s shoulder as they are dying eggs or peeling carrots
- Overhead: Get up high and shooting wide looking downward
- Get Low: Think eye level with your toddlers… one of my favorite tricks is to even flip your phone upside down to get even lower. This gives you a really sweet angle of your little one.
- Play with really wide shots and really tight shots to give you more variety.
Play with Foreground | Tricks for Capturing Your Easter Celebrations
The last fun tip I have for you is to play with the foreground. The foreground is anything closer to the camera that is blurry and leads your eye towards the subject of the frame. This could look like the egg dye in front of your kiddos dying eggs. Maybe you have a trail of eggs leading your eye to your child hunting for eggs. Or maybe you use a flowers from a bouquet as foreground.
One of my favorite tips, when using foreground is to make the photo a candid photo, meaning your subject is not camera-aware (looking at the camera). This makes it feel like you are just peeking in on a moment rather than “Mom, why are you hiding behind that bush?”
Remember the Details | Tricks for Capturing Your Easter Celebrations
As a photographer, one thing I love to capture is the tiny details. These are the details that really tell the story and pull in the emotion of a moment.
Your Easter Details Could Be…
- Your little one hand grabbing an Easter egg
- Their tiny shoes on the grass
- The way they are holding onto their Easter basket
- Details of the bouquet
- Where you hide the eggs
- Your table setting
Again, play with some of the angles that I mentioned above, while photographing these details. A simple change in perspective can really make a photo pop!
Enjoying Your Day While Capturing It
As always my hope is that these tips give you a few fun ideas for capturing your family’s Easter celebration. Playing with angles, foregrounding, and lighting can really dress up and take your photos to the next level.
However, I want to encourage you that it is possible to capture the day in a really wonderful way, while also enjoying your family time. Take a picture or two and then once you’ve taken it, put your phone down. Leave it in another room knowing this moment has been captured. Any sorting, editing, and posting can be done later on.
And if you do decide to give these tricks a try and share your photos on Instagram, be sure to tag me @bethiegrondinphotography so I can see them. I’d love to see your Easter pictures!
Speaking of Capturing Special Events: The BGP Motherhood Event is Coming on April 19th
If you haven’t heard the BGP Motherhood Event is coming on Friday, April 19th, 2024 4 pm -6 pm in Gilbert. Be sure to add your name to the waitlist below for more information and to receive early booking access when booking for the event goes live on April 2nd.
This is an opportunity to freeze time and capture THIS season of life you are in. Come by, say hi, and let me capture a sweet photo of you with your littles. Plus have it matted and displayed next to a fresh bouquet of flowers in time for Mother’s Day! Hope to see you there friend!
