Your children are normal! Yes you heard it those tantrums and crying and refusal during a photo shoot that is NORMAL so please have a read and stop any of those embarrassed feelings
In a recent conversation with a few parents regarding what puts them off booking a photo shoot I honestly thought money would be the number one put off, surprisingly this was fairly low down in the list of reasons and the main reason was my children will play up followed by my children won’t sit still or will cry or are clingy to Mum or going through a toddler stage or a 8 year old teen tantrum stage!
This really shocked me that parents are put off having beautiful family images because they think that their child is not going to be good for them. I can only begin to reassure you that most of my photo shoots with children involve tears, tantrums, shyness or children not wanting to stay still for even a second. I have children who wont leave mum not even to be put down on the floor and teenagers with the huffy I don’t want to do this moods and do you know what? It is NORMAL.
NORMAL my favourite word and I say that extra loud because your family is no different to most out there, occasionally a photo shoot with go completely to plan and be a little bit of a wow what happened moment when we get exactly what we set out to do but the usual photo shoot starts with a rough plan and is then dictated by the children just the way I love it!
The best images of children are the natural moments that make you remember them and their quirks and fun ways and of course we always aim for the perfect family on the wall image but does that perfect family image really show how your family is? would it not be more suiting for an image on the wall that has your cuddly little boy that won’t be put down by dad to be cuddling his dad?
Shyness is incredibly cute and we always warm them up to some natural images with some fun games never every putting pressure on children to perform.
I usually end up playing games with them and leaving you with super hyper children to go home with and if they start of full of beans and won’t sit still then lets create images of them running to you or jumping into your arms and being swung about or a fun bump hips walk, I love movement in images.
And you know what? If your child does have a break down and tears and clingy moments or refusal to do something its perfectly OK and again NORMAL. So often I hear “ oh no she always smiles why is she crying” and the answer is they have just walked into a strange environment with an odd looking lady with two big camera’s shooting them at them with loud clicks and big eyeballs talking to them and looking at them all the time so the best thing is to play to forget about me and for me to get them to warm up and time and I can assure you if you book any of my full sessions you will have my time and patience until the point I know the kids have really had enough and that we create moments I know you will love.
I always hear “gosh you are so patient” but a photographer who chooses to work with children and animals shouldn’t need to be patient it should be natural to love what you do regardless because I can assure you I am never going to get rich doing this it is a lifestyle choice to do a job that I adore to do and never know what the outcome will be so no patience is required just me as I am and work and not once ever not even inside will I be judging you as a parent or your children for their behaviour and yes I have had children hit and swear at me and spit at me before and my only judgement was of myself what I had done during those moments to make them feel too much pressure and to bring it back to their happy place again.
The worst situation would be that your child doesn’t feel well, has a cold, is too cold or teething or even a bad emotional day for the older kids and sometimes despite time and patience it just isn’t happening and the best thing for this is to give you another date, maybe another location they go to often and give it another go and its super unusual that we do not get such lovely moments between the two sessions or even just reschedule to start with if you feel they are really not at their best I wouldn’t want to be dragged out full of cold to sit and smile.
My point of all of this is do not be put off booking with me no matter what and how you think your children are going to act, you do not need to apologise and you do not need to be embarrassed just reassuring to them regardless of what they do on the photo shoot they are kids I do not have expectations of them other than to give you a fun session and to even go home laughing at the tantrums and the image below I have to say is one of my favourite images I have ever taken and was followed by amazing smiles.
