How to Photograph Your Kids (And Why the Pros Don't Want You to Know How)

Why is the family photography industry obsessed with everything except photography?

I've spent 20+ years photographing families across Hong Kong, Singapore, Bangkok, Vancouver, NYC, London and a dozen other cities. Over 1000 sessions in Hong Kong alone. For the first 15 years I never looked at other family photography. I stuck to my schtick. During the pandemic I finally started paying attention, and a couple of years ago I joined some FB groups where family photographers hang out, mostly Americans, but not all.

That was probably a mistake. You know what they almost never discuss? Photography.

What fills 80% of the posts?

High-pressure In Person Sales (IPS), designed to make it hard for clients to say no. Scripts to get a prospect on the phone within 10 minutes of an inquiry, then follow up six more times until they book. Exactly what to say—it’s not a conversation. How to raise your rate from $150 to $300 per image (USD). How to extract $12K from a one-hour session. Techniques for talking moms “off the cliff” when they hesitate over spending two months’ salary on giant wall prints. How to shoot a $350 mini-session in 10 minutes and squeeze another $500 from extra files. How to get $3000 for a headshot.

And my personal favourite: how to rescue wildly over- or underexposed photos—because the photographer skipped Photography 101 and went straight to Sales 401. And of course, putting “Luxury” in your branding, which apparently lets you 3× your rates.

If you can make a living in a tough industry, fine. But a lot of families are spending money they don’t have.

Here’s what I can’t get past:

How does a first-year photographer in a small midwestern city, with maybe 30 images on their site, justify earning far more per hour than the world’s top wedding photographers? These are people who’ve spent decades mastering one of the most technically demanding, high-pressure forms of photography, and are booked years in advance. The skill gap is massive.

I’ve taught parents to shoot competently in three hours. Three hours. One mom’s progress actually scared me. That’s the margin. And the beauty is, once you know that, you can shoot anything, not just your own kids. 

A day of instruction, a bit of practice, and some curiosity, that’s what separates a parent with a camera from a significant chunk of the professional family photography market. When do you ever see a family photographer with personal work on their site? When do you ever see a commercial photographer without it?

There are tons of teachers online, but most are trying to produce more family photographers. They teach business systems, not photography, so the market gets saturated and the overall skill level keeps dropping.

My approach isn’t complicated: understand your camera, then apply Light, Frame, Moment. That’s it. It’s closer to learning to drive than playing a violin, which is what a lot of the industry would have you believe. Truth is, they’re often just slightly ahead of you.

Which is why I genuinely believe anyone with kids should learn to photograph them. You’ll take 100× more interesting photos over a year than you’ll ever get from a 15-minute beach mini-session.

I’ll catch some heat for this. I don’t care, I’ve never really been part of the ‘family photography’ community. Anonymous one-star Google reviews incoming.

If you want to learn to photograph your own kids, join my FB group. It’s been quiet, but seeing what some photographers charge, and how they sell, got me fired up enough to revive it. Link in the first comment if you want in. All members get a copy of my ebook “Never Say Cheese: How To Take Photos of Your Kids and Why You Should”. (Or as I wanted to call it “Shoot Your Own Kids!”)

Of course there are family photographers doing amazing work, well beyond anything I do. This isn’t about them.

I’m in Hong Kong this April–May.

If you want to learn how to use that camera sitting in your sock drawer, I offer coaching. If you want a family session, I do those too—reasonably priced, with albums included, not upsold.

In the grander scheme, I think this is a bit sad for family history. This generation has been iPhone-photographed thousands of times, but many of those images won’t be around when they’re grown. Most of it won’t make it to their kids or grandkids.

My family has albums from the 1880s through the 2020s. I even have my great-grandfather’s camera from 1892.

Attached are some of my family photos and my family’s photos. In there is a shot taken by a mom who came to me with zero experience and did a single three-hour coaching session.

See if you can tell which one is hers.