Believe it or not, sometimes kids don’t want their picture taken.

Gasp! Oh, the horror!!

In reality, it’s not that big of a deal. I mean, think about it from their perspective. It would go something like this…

‘Oh, hello! My name is Trish and I’m about twice your height! Scary, I know. And, by the way, I have this huge black box with a lens-thing that moves and a really bright light and I’m going to stick it right into your space bubble and tell you to smile and I hope that’s cool! I laugh pretty loud and will probably trip over some real obviously non-obstacles. Let’s be best friends!!’

Give or take, anyway, that’s what I image the kids to feel like. So when sessions don’t go as planned (which they rarely ever do) it’s best to go with the flow. Forcing kids to do what they really don’t want to usually results in crying (read: blotchy faces), tantrums (read: rather comical action shots, but not the best keepsakes) or super grumpy images (read: well, you get the picture). I don’t work on set time schedules explicitly for this reason. It takes time for kids (and some adults!) to adjust to a new person coming into their space and I plan for extra time to them to get comfortable around me.

Nathan did awesome. He wasn’t sure of me at first, and took a bit to warm up, but once we started playing Cars and games with my flash, he was all smiles and hypo-energy. His parents were amazing at staying calm when the road wasn’t smooth (I know first instincts are to pull your hair out and call it quits; haha, I always laugh and try to picture my father in their position. That would most likely not end well. Classic.) which ultimately led to a few quality images of the three of them in the end!!

Even some of the ‘moody’ ones turned out pretty cute…

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