How to Photograph Yourself Doing Activities With Your Children | Whitney Beth Photography
 

One of my personal goals this year was to not only get in more pictures with my kids, but to be actively making memories with them as well. So a little less, "here, take my picture with the boys" and a little more, "let's make Valentine Cookies!" 

Sugar Cookies themselves take a lot of work (and time) to make - add in an eager three year old and I'm not sure what I got myself into. Since sugar cookies have essentially three parts to them;  mixing the ingredients, cutting out the shapes and frosting, it wasn't super crucial to me to photograph every. single. detail. I just wanted some action shots documenting our fun afternoon together. I opted not to shoot the mixing of the ingredients and instead, go for the more fun/creative parts. 

The Set Up

Super easy. In fact, it can be done on a camera as well as a cell phone. I just set up my tripod, got my settings right and I was golden. When it comes to taking the shot, there are a few ways you can go about this. The first is to set a time lapse and have a picture taken every 5 minutes or so. The second is have a remote control (this is what I did) I have my trigger set to do a two second delay so that I have time to hide the remote. Both can be done on phones with the aid of photography apps. 

With my set up ready to go, Jones and I started rolling out the dough and making hear shapes. I didn't worry about checking the back of my camera or even look to se how they were turning out, I just clicked the shutter every so often and enjoyed working alongside my buddy. After we had gotten some serious progress on the cookies, I took my camera off the tripod and shot some images of Jones being the cute little baker that he is. I especially wanted to get his "tongue out" concentration face. 

After they were all baked I changed positions for my tripod and got a few pictures of the decorating using my remote control again. I didn't stress that the sun was setting and we had to turn on lights - these were for my own memories, and years from now I won't care that the light wasn't perfect. All I'll see are the fun times we had together.