Here is my favorite way to take photographs of babies. It’s simple and takes no special equipment. The trick is to get eye-level with baby on the floor, turn off the flash, and NOT look through the viewfinder or at the digital viewscreen. Huh, you say?

I find that the most spontaneous baby pictures come from not looking through the viewfinder. It may seem strange at first, but guesstimate where he/she will be, point the camera in that direction, and snap away. I promise this works but you need to shoot a lot of pictures. Many will be terrible, but then you’ll find that one gem that looks like it could be in a magazine. The more you practice this, the better you’ll get. You can also try angling the camera for a more playful look.

I shot about 60 pictures of Chloe to get these shots and I’m really pleased with the results. I find that she smiles and laughs at me much more when I’m looking directly at her and not through the camera lens. My favorite pictures are the ones that are not perfectly composed, but with parts of her cut off in the frame or with the background overexposed.

You can use any camera to take pictures like these – digital, film, point-and-shoot, DSLR, anything that takes pictures. If the light level is low, then open up all the curtains or take your baby outside under the shade of a tree. Make sure to turn off the flash because that can freeze the scene in an unnatural way. Sometimes having a portion of the frame out of focus can add to the spontaneity and fun of a picture.

I took these shots with my Nikon D70s using an 18-70mm lens. I also overexposed the frame almost 2 stops (metered on pattern) to blow out the background. But I could have taken these same shots with my point-and-shoot, and the results would have looked great, too.