Family sessions are one of the hardest. The kids often don’t want to have their photos taken, and their idea for photos is definitely different from the one of their parents.

Moreover, interrupted play, as a lady with a camera came, or the necessity to put on not necessarily comfortable clothes and constant reprimands of the parents do not really help here.

Here is what you have to know for such a session to be successful:

Do not force

First of all, never ever force a child to do anything. Especially to pose, to do what he/she doesn’t want, etc. Encourage, try in hundred ways, yet do not force. If you dream of a pose but the child does not want to cooperate… well, let it go then. Change the dream. Change the pose. Change the attitude.

Why? Just not to discourage the child. That is my motto. What we really want is a customer who gets back and is satisfied, right?

Parents’ trust

Second of all, inform the parents to let you do everything freely, in accordance with your own idea, if possible. That is, ask them not to say “look there”, “look at the lady”, “look in the camera”, “come on, smile” every 5 seconds. 

Oh dear… put yourself in the child’s place – that just can’t be nice. Let that be just your part. And they? Their help is priceless when you ask for it. Instead of that, build a relation with the child / children from the very beginning of the session, and as I say “go with the flow”. Observe children’s behavior, what you can persuade them to do and what not to, how to outwit them, how to make some jokes with them, etc.

Manage the chaos

No one pays attention to you…? Parents are shouting at the kids, and kids, just like kids…. Don’t worry about that – that’s quite normal. Noise and chaos do not help children to focus. They’re getting out of their minds when a few people talk to them at the same time and at some point no message reaches them anymore.

That is exactly why you don’t want the parents to encourage the children to look at the camera lens. You want to have this final argument when you want all of them to look at you at a given moment. I assure you that the photos of everybody looking at the camera are highly desired. Every single family wants to have some of that kind, even if they think that they don’t want it now. 

If you can do everything your own way, you need to act at full power to make the child, or two children, or sometimes even three, interested. No one said that would be easy!

Patience 

Have patience. For children? Not necessarily only for children. Sometimes you need more patience for parents, who, for instance, check who got dirty where, what got wrinkled and who has spiky hair every 5 seconds..I wish you only have such parents who do not fear jumping in the puddles, rolling on the grass and good fun. However, when you happen to hit on a perfectionist mother or a father who is not interested in the subject…. That’s exactly when you should use your super power – the patience.

Real moments

The fifth point I shall focus on funny and spontaneous faces. If there are children who can walk and you can generally freely communicate with them on the session – offer them a crazy and unexpected attack on their parents.

My permanent trick. The mother and the father are sitting backwards and you ask them to ignore what is going on around them completely. At the same time, you take the child aside and arrange what kind of pranks he/she is going to do to his/her parents. I recommend the classics – a child runs in between the parents, “attacks” them from the side, hugs madly or jumps on their back…

What will the result be? I never know. Yet, in 9 out of 10 cases, that turns out to be a jackpot shot. You must observe what is happening for a while after this surprise. These are the moments which are the most real.

Take care of your own shape

If you are not in a good shape and don’t like to move I may disappoint you – you will never be a good family photographer. I shall recommend you to squat, roll, jump and run with the kids – that is, to take photos and play with them at the same height. Thanks to that, you have better shots at a better level, and not always from the top. 

That also makes you gain in the eyes of a child. The more points you score, the more they do for you at the session. You will even persuade them to take boring poses, or at least get them tired, so that they want to hug their mum and dad at the end of the session. That’s so easy, yet we often forget about that…

Variable session pace

When you happen to hit a kid, who already walks, runs and therefore runs away from the frame – do not panic. Let him run. Here comes my good advice: change the pace of the session. 

I recommend running / a moment of calm hugging / running / an attempt to set a family pose / running / mum with the child / running / dad with the child … all that not to get the child bored and to distract his attention. My aim is not only to avoid  discouraging the kid from taking the photos, yet make him/her like that – make him/her remember that was fun with a strange, yet funny lady. And not just as a session with a photographer.

Results preview

Let the child see what he/she looks like in the photo. Seriously. Of course, I am talking about some older children. I have noticed that both boys and girls are happy when they see how nice they look like. 

At that stage, the children are often also interested in my camera and want to take a photo. I let them do that, yet with assurance obviously. The small photographer takes a photo of his/her parents and I get more appreciated by this tiny model.

Engage the family to select the photos

As you can see, the result of a family photo session may be entirely unexpected. What I have learnt making family sessions is that one cannot plan too much.

That is why, it is a good idea to engage the family to select the photos. I do it in such a way: after the session finishes, I sit down and make a preliminary selection of photos, I reject blurry photo, poorly framed, etc. What is left I share with the parents in a form of an Internet photo gallery. Naturally, everything protected with a watermark.

Photonesto is a perfect tool for that. It looks great, is intuitive for the clients and allows you to make a selection and purchase some additional photos.

I rework and share the photos selected by the family. 

I hope that the tips presented will be helpful for you and will let you feel well in the world of family photography.