How to Create Beautiful Faceless Photographs
Nowadays many families are choosing not to show their children’s faces online. I would like to share some tips on how I take faceless photos without sacrificing art and story. As a Lancaster family photographer and mom of three children, I completely respect the decision to keep kids’ identities off the internet. I’m always happy to purposefully include some faceless images in your gallery and plan for them during your session upon request.
It is important to note that when hiring a professional family photographer, there should always be a contract and model release included upon booking. This protects both the client and the photographer because it states timelines for delivery, policies for rescheduling and cancellations, what is included, the pricing, how images are delivered and shared, etc.
As part of my contract with clients, I give the option of a modified model release for families who do not want their children’s faces being shared in photos online. This simply states that no face identifying photos from the session will be shared anywhere online without prior written consent from the parent.
Without further ado, I’d like to share some of my favorite ways to photograph children and families without showing their faces. As a Lancaster family photographer who loves capturing genuine connection between people, it can be a challenge to portray emotion without seeing facial expressions. However I would argue that there are ways to artfully tell a family’s story through movement, gestures, and details without showing a child’s face.
Below are some of my favorite tips for taking faceless photos of people along with some visual examples. I hope this guide will help families and photographers alike to get some ideas of how to photograph people without revealing their identity.
1. Photograph from behind
Perhaps the most obvious tip for capturing faceless images is to capture photographs from behind your subject so they are not facing the camera. A prompt for a child might be “run to mom or dad and give them a big hug”. You could ask everyone to hold hands and walk or skip away from the camera.
In the photo above from a family photo session in the apple orchard, I had the little girl help pick apples and put them in the basket with her mom. I chose an angle where I could still see the expression on mom’s face but not the little girl. Giving people something to do directs their focus away from you and onto the task at hand which provides more opportunities to capture them in the moment, not looking at the camera.
In the photos below, I had the family walk away from me and then prompted the little boy to sneak up and tackle his parents as they were sitting in the grass. I also had dad swing the little boy around in a circle by his arms and made sure to get one shot from behind where his face is not visible. I love capturing movement at all of my sessions, especially with children, and this provides plenty of opportunities for telling the story of playful, active kids.
2. Focus on the details
Another easy way to avoid faces in photos is to focus on the details. Get in close!
I love photographing hands, especially little hands intertwined with parents or siblings. Tiny baby feet are also a fun detail to photograph.
Sometimes I focus on details of clothing, props or parts of the scenery that tell the story. It could be a book or toy that a child is holding, or in the examples below, an autumn leaf or a pair of shoes.
3. Capture a silhouette
A silhouette photo might be my absolute favorite way to creatively photograph people without showing faces. In order to do this, you need a big open sky, sunshine and a hill. You need to be far enough below your subject so that you can have them up against the open sky in order to see their shape.
I always take silhouettes at the end of the photo session when the sun is low in the sky. It will not work well on cloudy days because you need the contrast of bright light from behind and shadow. I always expose for the sky, not the people. If you’re doing this on your phone, tap the brightest part of the image for your exposure. If you are a professional photographer, I usually underexpose the image a good bit so you can see the colors of the sky and the people just show up as dark shapes.
Once you have the settings right, there are several ways you can direct people. My favorite prompt for silhouettes is to have everyone hold hands and walk in a line across the horizon. It’s also fun to have parents lift little ones in the air or put them on their shoulders. The key is to keep people spread out so you can see their shapes and look to one side versus at the camera. The great thing about silhouettes is that facial expressions don’t really matter because you can’t see them at all!
4. Change your perspective, cropping and focus
Instead of photographing your subject straight on, try taking photos from above. Often this allows you to focus on hands, hair, or other little details without showing faces.
It can also work to crop out faces or heads like in the image below of the flowers with the mother’s pregnant belly in the background.
I also like to focus my camera on something in the foreground such as a flower or tree branch which allows the person in the background to be out of focus. I think it’s fine to have your subject be purposefully out of focus sometimes in order to include other elements from the setting that help tell the story.
5. Get creative with framing and shadows
Using shadows or reflections are other creative ways to incorporate faceless photos that tell you something about the location. I love a good puddle or water reflection shot! Hint: to get long shadows you need to photograph either during evening golden hour or in the early morning.
I often use objects from the scenery or environment to hide faces. Common ones might be tree branches, flowers, or maybe a prop such as a blanket, kite or pinwheel strategically placed to hide a face.
I also like to use creative framing to tell the story. One prompt I like to use is where I’ll tell the parents to hold hands and have the children walk or run ahead of them and use the parents’ hands in the foreground to frame the kids. You can do the same thing with the children; have the siblings hold hands and use them to frame the parents in the background.
I hope you have found these tips helpful and I’d love to hear your thoughts, suggestions and ideas as well! Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you want to get creative together for your next photo session.
Melissa Engle Photography offers portrait, family, maternity, newborn and lifestyle photography in Lancaster, PA and beyond. Please contact me if you would like to make some photo magic together!
Ideas for how to take creative faceless family photos that artfully tell a story including tips on prompts, framing, perspective, focus and silhouettes.