Issue link: http://hvparent.uberflip.com/i/197025
Picture perfect Expert tips for getting the best photos of your kids For a great shot, make the most of natural light, get up close and down on their level. Let your kids play and be natural, and you'll get the best smiles out of them. By GLORIA DARMANIN M y children are A-list celebrities and I'm the paparazzo. Never wanting to miss a single memory, you will always find me with a camera around my neck or smart phone in hand. I stalk them from behind a lens, jumping out with my camera at any given moment. I bark demands and bribe them with sweet treats if they stand still and "SMILE!" One look at a photo and it brings me back to that time. I can look at the one when they first started to smile and hear the sweet giggles in my head. I laugh as I walk past the one in the kitchen where my 24 Hudson Valley Parent n November 2013 son is covered head to toe in sauce, bowl as a hat and spaghetti on the wall. With the holidays fast approaching, it's already time to start thinking about holiday photo cards. We try so hard to have a perfect family photo knowing the card will be displayed for at least a season if not longer in your loved ones' homes. Matching outfits? Check. Hair styled? Check. Practice smiling? Check. Getting a card-worthy shot? Help! You don't understand the term "near impossible" until you try propping an infant up next to a bustling toddler. Sometimes I take dozens of photos just for one that I have deemed worthy of being framed. Determined to take better photographs of my children, I have reached out to a few professional photographers. Besides being experienced behind the lens, they are all parents themselves. Here's what they had to say about getting the best shots of your kids: Take candid photos "Don't. Pose. The. Kids," says Tamme Stitt of Tamme Stitt Photography in Kingston. "Kids are beautiful in their natural element, exploring, wondering, loving each other, finding bugs, climbing trees, finding joy in everyday things that a lot of adults miss because they are too busy. You cannot recreate that joy by saying, 'Sit. Smile. Look.' While I do that, of course, most of my shoots are just letting