Never Work with Children . . . Part 3

Today I had one session booked with a family - Lindsey, her husband Dylan (who would join us at the end of the session) and their two boys, Jack and Harri. The session I had arranged for the afternoon had again, fallen through, so I quickly filled that with my daughter and her friend Abbey, rather than waste it - and besides, Abbey is due to spend a year studying in the USA from September, and I thought it would be nice to get some shots of her and Kirsty together, as I knew they would miss each other during the year apart.

Lindsey had contacted me a few days before the session, worried that Jack, who is 2, would be unlikely to cooperate - but, as I explained to her, if I was doing children's photography as a career, typical two year old's would be part and parcel of that, and the experience would be valuable - besides which, having had 3 kids of my own, none of whom were angels at that age, I assured her that as far as I was concerned, there were absolutely no worries.

As it turned out, both Jack and little brother Harri - who was my youngest model of the week, at just 3 months - were both wonderful, and again, I really enjoyed myself working with them.

Lindsey had very thoughtfully brought a selection of Jacks favourite toys with her - and this really brought home to me the importance of having a 'prop' set for this type of photography.  I loved the images I got with his favourite soft toy, with the building blocks and with the brightly coloured cars - all things I now plan to add to a 'prop' box of my own.

Next up was photographing little Harri - and here was hi-lighted the need for even more props, especially for babies this young - I really would need to include maybe a bouncy chair, and perhaps some sort of basket, to support little ones to 'sit up' when they are too young to manage that by themselves.

Now to try for some of the boys together - and again, I was hampered by the lack of a way to sit Harri upright, comfortably and safely, though I did manage several shots I was fairly happy with.

 

Mum then joined the boys for a few shots

 

Again, I found that most of the shots I preferred were pretty 'natural' - let Mum and kids just relax and play around, and snap away- there is something about the way that pictures like that seem to really capture the relationship between Mum and child, that I really like.

Dad, Dylan was able to join us for the last bit of the session - and I think the last couple of pictures in this group were probably my favourite of the day !

I feel I learned an awful lot from this session, so big thanks again to Lindsey and family .

Then in came Kirsty and Abbey                                                                                                               

 

These two have been friends for around 12 years - and I think that the friendship shows in the images

       I also like these two individual photographs I took of  Kirsty .
          

Next up: Never Work with Children . . .  Part 4 .