The precious opportunities can occur anywhere, like in the bath, tasting new foods for the first time, or during cuddles before bed. Even when out and about, the expression they have while feeding the ducks down at your local park. Keep on the lookout and keep your camera near by.

Other fantastic photo opportunities in your child’s life happen every year, like their birthday parties, Christmas, Easter etc.

These opportunities in the past have not been well represented with amazing photos; the photos are kept because they are your family not because they are terrific photos. Have you ever had anyone exclaim, that the birthday photo you have of your child is amazing? Potentially yes though in most peoples realities the answer is unfortunately no!

Yet they happen every year so it can be mastered.

What are some ideas that can help to shoot great birthday shots; these can be applied for any party or event.

Preparation for the party is important, if you have planned the party you will already know the room layout or where the majority of time is going to be spent. Look around before the party starts and mentally note down some angles that the lighting would be great for shooting photos from and that there are no ornaments or obstacles in your line of shot.

Know your obstacles, as mentioned above. Though in reality are you going to a have the time to take the photos as well as organising everything else for the party? Maybe have someone else as the photographer? Or someone else brings the cake in? Can you manoeuvre into the perfect place or is it easy access for you? These are all things to think about prior to the party starting.

Where is the main table set up? Is it rectangular or not? If it is rectangular then take the photos from facing the long end of the table, this way all the children will be in focus.

To use flash or not! Try some with the flash and some without, if organised ahead, try different ISO settings on your camera to see how high it can go before the shots become grainy looking.

For the really key photographs take many shots, you can always erase them afterwards. For blowing out the candles on the cake, set your camera to continuous shooting, that way you will have a shot of the candles going out, not a just missed shot of prior to or after the fact.

Consider the background. What colour scheme is it? Neutral? Dark? If it is unfortunately ugly, minimise your depth of field so that it blurs the background. It is the smallest possible F-stop.

Don’t bother checking the LCD screen, other than to make sure you haven’t beheaded someone from the shot. Just wait to after the party to go through the pictures and look at contrast and image quality.

Equipment: Plan the day before and get the batteries all charged up, and the memory cards empty with enough room for the new photos. Other accessories if you have them like tripod, different lens attachments, external flash, chargers etc. Have them all ready just in case you choose to use them, then you know where they are, without having to remember where they are kept in a rush at the time.

It pays to have a list of photos you want to take: e.g. blowing the candles out, opening presents, etc

The candid moments are always to be looked out for during the birthday day. The looks of joy whilst playing a game, or the look of excitement at the bowl of lollies are truly special shots when they are caught.

If you are really organised and have some time before the guests arrive then use that time to take some “posed” pictures of your child, they will look clean and lovely in their “costume” or “party frock/clothes” they will never look better than this during the party. Pick a spot in front of the cake and get some big smiling photos, remember the younger the child the less likely the smiling is, so don’t push it.

Just have a fantastic time taking pictures of your children as they grow up, you never need an excuse to pull out the camera, so just have fun and snap away.