Here’s the last photo I took of my boy, who I -judging by this shot- really can’t call my little boy any longer. He sure is growing up.

I really love the shots that I took of him this weekend. It’s J-man, exactly as we know him: comfortably on the couch, completely zoned out after playing outside with his friends for hours on end. And molesting my hair accessory.

Be still my beating heart!

The best way for me to take these types of photos is to work fast. I can almost hear you say “Duh!“. If you have kids you’ll know what I mean, the suckers are fast as lightning.

Basically it means I have to determine the correct exposure before I even attempt to take the shot. Especially when he’s wearing white (or black) I can’t fully rely on my light meter when I just focus on him and happily click away. Plus, I only have a few seconds before he notices it, looks up and I’ll miss the moment.

Sure you can adjust the light after the fact and especially when you (like I do) shoot in raw, but I can’t stretch this enough: it’s always best to get it right in the camera. Messing with exposure afterwards reduces the quality of your photos. It’s as simple as that.

So how do I do it?

Well, I set the camera to fully automatic. Point at an open shade near him—preferably light grey and uniformly lit. Not too hard seeing as we have a grey couch. But if you’re outdoors, take a reading off of a piece of uniformly lit grey road or medium shady grass.

Now I focus the camera to take a light reading. I memorize the aperture and shutter mode it gives me, I switch to manual mode and set the exact aperture and shutter speed. I climb on the couch and quickly take the shot.

Then I deal with a kid who gives me the evil eye because I’m blocking his television view and asks me if I’m going to post this photo to my blog. When I tell him: ‘Well, duh!”, he gets a very content look on his face.

Easy, no?

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