Photographing Children with Special Needs: The Eyes

I’m not a professional photographer by any means, although one day I’d love to do that and may work towards that goal eventually but for the meantime I love shooting my family and friends, playing with my photos, trying new techniques, and challenging myself with Noah (of course!) being my favorite subject. 

Photographing a child with special needs can be challenging at times which is a big reason as to why I became so interested in photography. I was fed up with taking Noah to “professional” photographers who clearly didn’t have enough patience for him. I also thought that Noah might be more comfortable with taking photos at home so I made a little area to take his pictures using an old blanket and a lamp and started snapping. I was pleased with the results and have been doing Noah’s pictures myself at our home ever since. 

There’s a blog I read called 5 Minutes for Special Needs in which different mothers of special needs kiddos write and share bits about their life as the mother of child with special needs. They have different weekly features and recently added a new one that is all about photographing children with special needs.

I’ve been reading these posts and then trying to put those particular suggestions and tips in to use in a photo. Recently there was a post was about photographing your child’s eyes. 

I stopped and thought about it for a few minutes and realized that I don’t have that many photos of Noah where you can really see his eyes in all their beauty. He does sometimes avoid eye contact and there were some great suggestions for how to deal with that. I followed those suggestions and am pleased with my initial results…. 

I still love the classic look of black and white..... 

But you can see the color of his eyes better this way.....

And I love the lil' surprised look here 

“There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million.”