Photographing children isn’t simple. Especially with restless 1 to 4 year olds, you need to armor yourself with patience and be ready and quick. Photographing children in this age range doesn’t tend to be at all easy. Many photographers just give up on these ages—they only photograph babies or older children. But don’t worry; if you follow a few basic rules, you can bring home some nice pictures from your shoot. We’ve summarized the most important ones for you.

Backlighting doesn’t have to mean ruined pictures with dark faces. And in fact, it can be good to take advantage of it when you’re photographing children. It can help you create magical silhouettes, make hair shine, and more.

Taking pictures against the light doesn’t have to mean ruined photos. Not at all. It can give you some very impressive portraits. And all you need here to keep from ending up with an unusable picture is a little skill. Take a look at the right way to shoot a portrait against the light.

You can get some of the most interestingly lighted photos by shooting against the light. But you also have to keep in mind that this light will expose every imperfection of your lens. Strong chromatic aberration will appear, details will soften, and reflections will appear due to light bouncing off your lens’s optics. Fortunately, you can tone down all of these defects on a computer.