We are soon to enter the Fall season...

...Which means everyone's favorite season to get family photos. I love Spring, Summer, and even Winter sessions, but Fall offers us the glorious leaves, sunsets, and fall wardrobe, of course! (I'll do a blog post on that soon). I am soon to announce my Fall season session special, but before that I want to talk about a topic that causes parents much stress: how do you get your children to cooperate in the session?

Okay, so I can relate SO MUCH to the angst that many of you feel about this. Goodness, I think getting the Golden Fleece might just be an easier feat than photographing my 5 children together. You should have seen me last Fall, 7 months pregnant, 1 woman against 4 children. I did get a great picture, by the way, but I may have relied on some Photoshop magic to make it happen!

All this is to say that I empathize, but I have also learned a few techniques along the way to help prepare my kids for the session and to get them to cooperate during the session to get those beautiful family photos:

1) Make sure your children are well fed and have gotten the sleep they need. This is particularly true for toddlers, who tend to have meltdowns when they just aren't feeling quite right (I've experienced quite a few and we always get through them). So prioritize getting to bed on time the night before and getting the nap in. A good meal before the session and no-mess snacks at the session can also be very helpful, such as fruit packs or apple slices, or a little bit of protein, which is always great for energy. It is never a problem if we have to take small breaks during our session to allow your child to refuel and regroup.

2) Realize that I'm a new person for your child and sometimes in a new environment. Therefore, it can be really helpful to talk about me before the session, not just as a photographer but as a friend. Tell your child how excited you are to see me and that I have a really neat big camera. You can even tell them that I'm a little bit silly and that I like to make funny noises or even sing as I'm taking pictures (which is totally true, by the way). But the more you can familiarize your child with the idea of me, in a positive way, the more comfortable they will be around me.

3) Talk to your child about what will happen during the session. You will get to spend some time as a family, get pictures together, get pictures as siblings, get pictures individually, and even watch as Mom and Dad get their picture taken together. And oftentimes children have ideas for pictures themselves...so invite and validate their ideas. I am happy to try to accommodate their requests whenever feasible!

4) Explain to your child how much you are looking forward to the session and how much you want to have beautiful pictures of you together as a family. Explain that these pictures will be put up as art in your home, given to family and friends as cards, and even perhaps to Grandma and Grandpa as gifts (I'll talk about some of my favorite gift prints in a forthcoming blog as well!). At the end of the day, you are doing this session because you love your children and you want to have timeless pictures of your favorite people in the whole world! Communicate this to your child.

5) Try to relax at the session and realize that perfection can be the enemy of connection! Think about it, would you rather have the perfectly posed, everyone staring at the camera photo, or would you rather capture the connection and unique personality of your family? As a photographer, my goal is the latter. Don't worry so much about if your children are behaving perfectly, instead snuggle up to them, enjoy the connection, and let's start snapping those beautiful memories!