Don’t work with children and animals, they say. Oops. We spend our weekends taking photos of families - often (but not always) involving children and frequently (but less often) including pets (only dogs so far. Cats are notoriously fickle and are likely to take the opportunity to make a break for it…).
As it happens, it’s rarely the children that cause us issues. (Dogs even less so. A well-timed squeeze on a squeaky toy is a proven way to get them to look at the camera!) Kids will be kids. Which means that over the course of an hour’s shoot they will, in turns, be joyous, shy, show-offs, refuseniks, goofy, clingy, cheeky, sneaky and everything a child should be.
And we’re ready for that. We expect that. We’d be worried if they were automatons for the session. And we anticipate that only a small part of the session produces the majority of the great photographs. Which is fine by us.
Which leaves the problem. Yes, parents: it’s you. And we need to you pay attention here, because we can take a weight off your shoulders so you get photos you love. And, trust us, the reason you won’t love photos is because of your expressions. Nothing to do with the kids.
That’s because you focus too much on the kids and their behaviour. STOP! The kids are being kids. There is a strange person in front of them with a camera. Of course they are going to be wary for a while. Of course they won’t stand still all the time.
And that’ s fine. That’s better than being stock still. They are showing a bit of life.
So trust us to get the shots of the kids when they are playing ball. But it means that you, parent, need to be thinking about how you are appearing to the camera. Because you’re in the photo too 😆
And whatever you do, don’t ask your child to smile. It’ll look fake. Let us do that bit too (because we won’t ask).
Trust us, we do day in, day out 📸