Some of my favorite sessions are families with little kids probably in the 3-10 year old range. They are so much fun to work with, and in this session we had 2 boys that were definitely full of energy. I’m sure I’ve posted this before, but my motto for family pictures is, “I don’t want people to look at the pictures and say, ‘wow, they clean up nicely.’ I want them to say, ‘yep, that’s the ______ family.'” I had a family tell me that one time and it’s completely changed the way I photograph families. Sure cheesy indoor pictures can look nice (I guess), but is that really your family? I mean, how many times does a family of four leave the house where jeans and white shirts? Unless their dad is Fonzie, I don’t see that happening much.
With that said, I like to keep it real. Wear whatever is you. This will make you feel more comfortable and it’ll help capture your family for who they really are. Same goes for kids. Don’t get me wrong, we strive to get a few great pictures of everyone smiling, but let’s be real, a 5 year old boy isn’t going to sit still for very long, and that’s okay! Let the boys be boys and we’ll capture that on camera, I mean, isn’t that capturing who the family really is? I know this kind of methodology might seem like a lazy approach to photographing families, but I’m just being real. If it were me and I had 2 boys, I would rather see pictures of our family in chaos in the pictures. Sure a picture or two of everyone smiling is nice, but I’d rather have pictures of the boys to look back on and remember their personalities and to hear their laughter as I look at the pictures. And here’s a little secret, you let the boys wrestle each other for a bit, tell them to chase each other, tickle each other, make a face at the camera, and then bam! Hit them with a “Alright give me a smile.” And they do it. Like I said, my methods might be a little different, but I will NOT be that photographer that waves a stuffed animal around to get smile. lol Creepy!
With that said, this brings me to this family session. What an enjoyable time we had and the weather was perfect. We were fortunate enough to have a warmer day and amazing sunlight peaking through the trees. I remember being these boys age and having to go in for family pictures, I also remember not wanting to do them and I think these boys had the same feeling for pictures. So at one point I put them on top of a large rock and they asked if I’d take pictures of them jumping off, these obviously weren’t anything special, but it immediately made them excited for pictures, like I said up top, just let them do their thing for a bit and you’ll get a couple smiling pictures out of them. So we went from jumping to goofy faces, and next came the smiles, and even laughter – I LOVE laughing pictures.
I had such a blast working with them though, and I can’t wait for them to see all their pictures!!
