Getting off to the right foot
When working with children so many of my clients have concerns about how their kids are going "behave" during their session, especially the little ones. I make it my mission when working with small kids to let them have fun. This comes down to so many different games and activities kids get to do during thier photo shoot. Kids are going to be kids whether you want them to be or not, and it's always best to just run with it instead of working against it. It's like the band-aid theory, where getting over the uncomfortable moments are easier when you go through it instead of fighting it and trying to work around it.
A couple of examples I have from my time growing and learning start with toddlers and their willingness to play, be silly, and love for snacks. I love to let parents play with their kids durning the beginning of their sessions. This gets clients comfortable with being in the moment and being in front of the camera. It removes the stiffness that comes with something most people don't do very often, being models. Allowing kids to play at the begining of their session, this gives them time to get their wiggles out, and recognize that this doesn't need to be so serious. Playtime during a photo session can look like playing red rover, eye spy, patty cake, or tickle fights.
Another reason why play during photo sessions are inherently important also allows for genuine smiles, genuine laughter, and slowing down to have memorable time with our children when they're little. These kinds of moments can only work with small children, trying these with teenagers can sometimes work, but the efficacy of play is different with older children. What does that look like? Let's look into that more in depth.
Gaining traction and building trust
Working with older kids and teenagers takes much more finesse than the sillyness of babies and toddlers. What I have learned is whoopie cushions makes most everyone crack up, something as simple as fart noises break the tension. Some teens are hard to break, and even in those instances, we hold tight to those moments and work with them, not against them. If there is a young man who refuses to smile, that's fine, it doesn't bother me. It might bother their parents, or other photographers who insist that smiles are the only moments that are welcome, but for me, I want to encapsulate everything that our kids bring to the table. Our time with them is so short, when compared to an entire lifetime, 18 years seems so short, but for older kids and young adults these are the biggest years of their life.
What is really great about working with older kids is really leaning into what they are comfortable with. Many teens want to have control over their life, and chances are their outfit was chosen for them for this session. So how do I allow these older kids to feel seen in during a photo session that they didn't book, they didn't pay me, they haven't been apart of the consultation process, and now they're here, meeting me for the first time. How do I work with these kids to get them to feel comfortable enough to participate in this, and may even enjoy the process?
Working the long game
Talking, or not talking, trying to get kids to open up and allow them to feel safe around me, a stranger, has been a skill I've been learning since I was their age. Learning child development has helped me in so many different ways, and it starts from the tiniest people. Newborns deserve so much attention and care, and that care spreads all the way into my senior sessions. Each person is so unique, and those teenage years are the most defining, they start to understand that they can make choices to fit in or stand out from their peers, and in their mind, that is what is most important to them right now. Knowing that teens are at their most vulnerable when they're on the other side of my lens, leaves me with so much responsibility and makes me just as nervous as they do. My goal is to let them become comfortable, uniquely themselves, and maybe, by the end of the session, enjoy themselves and have a little fun. There's no better feeling that knowing a teenager was nervous at the beginning of a session and by the end, they really open up and let me know (and sometimes their parent) that they enjoyed their session with me.
All in all, kids are such a bag of tricks, from the tiniest people who might ruin an outfit with a blowout or spew, to the toddlers who will likely get dirty knees or step in something, and all the way to the big kids who are trying their best to keep it together and feel that sense of relief when they hear me say, "Ok, I that's a wrap."
I love working with kids of all ages, even the ones in their 90's who are becoming kids again after decades of work, care, love, and memories. My job is to capture those memories before they are gone too soon, and it is my joy in life to create those memories for others to look back on and feel warmth in their heart knowing their investment was in the right place.
