You might be surprised when I tell you how you can best help me at your family portrait session….
Do Nothing.
Yep, that’s right. Most of the time, it would be best if you just didn’t do anything.
- No yelling at the kids to smile. (Especially when you are standing 10 feet away from me. If you really want to help get a baby or toddler’s attention, be sure you are standing right behind me.)
- No telling the kids that their smile looks fake. (Even if it does…it almost always does when their between the ages of like 5 and 99…at least at first. Just let me deal with that.)
- No yelling at the kids to behave. (Behaving is over rated anyway…I’d rather have real.)
- No yelling at the kids to put the stick down. (It’s just a stick.)
- No yelling at the kids to act like they love each other. (They do love each other, they just don’t always like each other. Both emotions are fun to photograph.)
You know rationally that none of these things will help. But it’s so hard not to…I get it. I do the same thing when trying to photograph my kids. But they will just get annoyed with you and frustrated at the photo session and if they aren’t having fun, it will show.
Michelle did an amazing job at this session with her two beautiful daughters. You know what she did? Absolutely nothing. I barely saw her, as she was on a bench chilling a ways from us during the session and that was 100% the best thing she could have done. (Sometimes it can be a great idea just to walk away and give the kids some space.) If she had gotten too involved, she may have become frustrated when I took the first picture below. But if she’d have said something, I may not have gotten the second photo. Both are genuine photos of her girls..taken only seconds a part.
So when you have the overwhelming urge to direct your kids at a photo session, just try to give me a little time and little patience, and above all…remember that I take hundreds of photos. Some may come out like the one on the left below, but some will most definitely come out like the one on the right. It’s all good, and they are both beautiful.
