Welcome to the forth and last installment of Baby’s Growth Stages Captured in Photography by Shannon Kietzman from My Baby Photos.

Now that your child has reached the toddler stage, there are so many exciting moments for you to capture on film! By now, your little one is moving around quite easily and is getting into everything he or she can find. For that reason, there are six broad categories of photographs for you to cover once your child reaches this stage. These include:

• On Your Feet
• Curiosity is King
• The Great, Big World
• Family Bonding Time
• Capturing Innocence
• Embarrassing Moments

With each of these special moments captured in your child’s photo album, you will have plenty of cherished memories to share as your child grows older.

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On Your Feet

Once your child reaches the toddler stage, his or her biggest achievement is gaining mobility! So, what better way to capture this time in your child’s life than to take photos of him or her putting those feet to use? Of course, you don’t have to take a photo of your entire child. In fact, a close up photo of your toddler’s feet, such as the photo below, is an excellent way to capture this special time in your child’s life.

Curiosity is King

Toddlers are also known for their undying curiosity. Of course, this curiosity can lead to numerous messes when it involves taking all of the pots and pans out of the cabinet or dumping a box of cereal onto the floor. At the same time, moments of exploration are truly adorable and are an important part of this stage of your child’s life. Even a simple photo of your child exploring the outdoors, such as the one below, is certain to emit plenty of oohs and ahhs from all that see it.

The Great, Big World

From an artistic perspective, placing your toddler next to massive objects can create a sense of innocence by showing how big the world is for your child to explore. The photo below does an excellent job of showing a toddler as he sets out to explore the great, big world.

You can also create the same effect by placing the toddler amidst a large field of flowers, such as the photo of the toddler in the tulips shown below.

Family Bonding

The toddler years are a special time during which you truly start to learn more about your toddler’s personality. Since your toddler is learning more ways to communicate, you will also enjoy many special bonding moments during this stage of life. By capturing photos of those every day moments, such as the photo below, will help you remember these special moments.

The below photo also helps capture those special moments as well as convey the love and enjoyment the toddler and his mother share.

Capturing Innocence

At this stage in your child’s life, you can capture some beautiful photos that truly showcase your child’s innocence. The photo below does a great job of capturing this moment, as the child’s features are starting to look more grownup while he still sucks on his fingers like a baby for comfort.

The windblown hair and chapped fingertips of the toddler below also help portray her sweet innocence while paying close attention to composition and lighting.

Embarrassing Moments

Of course, no child’s photo album would be complete without photos of embarrassing moments that you can threaten to share with others when your child grows older. One of the classic embarrassing moments to capture is the bath time photo, as shown below.

When it comes to taking photos of your toddler, don’t fuss with trying to create the perfect pose. Rather, capturing those precious moments as they naturally occur will result in the most prized photos of all.

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Shannon Kietzman is a successful author and blogger over at My Baby Photos, a website dedicated to Kids and Kids photography.

I would like to thank Nick, Lou Bueno, Ben Grozier, C. Chase Taylor, Andy Peters, Stacey Palmer and Jay Ryness for making their image available under a Creative Commons license. This article would not have been the same without them.