PhotoSparksTriad
15 years of experience capturing memories.

Kids! Toddlers! Runners!

They can sometimes be a challenge. Sometimes they get overwhelmed like we do. I do my best to calm them, make them feel comfortable, I make them feel like we are playing not taking annoying photos. The best thing? Is to go with it. Unless a child has a complete meltdown that we aren't recovering from or there is a danger to the child, I will continue to work with them. It's always more stressful on the parents than me. I'm seeing great photos and memories we're capturing and the parents just see their kids acting up. This is completely normal, so just go with it.
They say that toddlers are the hardest to photograph, I completely disagree. It's fathers that are the hardest. Typically the kids do great, but dad is looking at the kids to make sure they're smiling or they have the fakest smile because they hate photos. I will always start off with a pep-talk before we start shooting to see what requests there are and give dads lots of praise because we all know how hard it was to get them to agree to have photos done every holiday. Moms, this is very typical, don't feel bad.
If I feel the subject matter (the kids, not the dads) is not having the photo session, is red in the face, tears down the chin, we will definitely take a break to see if we can recover. If the subject can't, we can always ALWAYS reschedule at no extra charge. At this time try to refrain from spanking or threats because it's very very rare we come back from that. More times than not, they just need to relax and reset. I have a few tricks that I use incase of this. But you'd have to hire me to find out ;)
If they show a fear of strangers or are scared of the camera. I will step back and pull some tricks out after they get a small talk from mom and dad. I can also shoot from a distance if they still don’t like the situation. "Warming up" typically takes about 5-10 mins, which is why I have my mini sessions at least 30 mins long in most cases. I've never met a kid I couldn’t get great photos with though, and I love a challenge.