sessions
I’ve been having so much fun working with seniors lately and Kinsey here was no exception. Kinsey was game to try anything and the camera loved her — a winning combination.
Like many of my seniors lately, Kinsey kept things simple and I’m in love with what we created together. Here are some of my favorites from our time together.
Congrats and have fun at Tech, Kinsey!
Interested in your own senior session? Or maybe a session for the whole family?
Welp. Here we are again.
It’s been almost a year since my last blog post.
I’ve even had multiple post drafts this.close to being finished. But then more important work and life things will demand my time and attention, and next thing you know, the days turn into weeks and months.
So, here I am again. Trying to breathe some life back into this dusty old blog.
Okay, enough of that.
A few months ago, Adin’s mom got in touch about a senior session for her son before he headed off to Texas A&M in the fall. After talking about possible location ideas, we settled on an urban setting at a local college campus, and I really love the slightly industrial vibe of some of the photos, not to mention all the shadows and light, symmetry, and patterns we found.
While seniors can bring multiple outfits, Adin wanted to keep things simple and I love what we created. Here are some of my faves.
Congrats, Adin, not only on your high school graduation and admission to Texas A&M in the fall, but becoming an Eagle Scout, the highest rank attainable in the Scouts BSA program of the Boy Scouts of America.
All of my senior sessions include 10-15 minutes to take a few photos with parents and siblings, so before we got started with Adin, mom and dad hopped in front of the camera for a few frames.
Interested in your own senior session? Or maybe a session for the whole family?
This post is part of an ongoing series focused on getting you and your family ready for your photo session. Read other posts right here and check back for more soon.
Ahhh, the never-ending dilemma of parents everywhere — ‘to bribe or not to bribe’ your kids before family photos?
As I’ve discussed before in a slightly dramatic titled blog post, family photo day can be a very stressful time and for many parents, their worst nightmare is the kids not cooperating and it’s tempting to fall back on bribery.
This can definitely be a tricky situation and I’m here to help.
I used to be all about bribery and whatever parents needed to do to get their kids excited about the session and be ‘cooperative’ (which I hate to use, but haven’t found a better word yet).
But after getting more family sessions under my belt, I started noticing something happening, especially as the kids get older. Y’all, the magic of the bribe was wearing off and starting to backfire as kids were quickly losing interest in being ‘cooperative’ at all.
Some kids were becoming so focused on the bribe at the end of the session that they just want to get it done and would do the bare minimum in order to get the promised reward. Next thing you know, the “Are we done yet?” whines start coming fast and furious, inevitably someone in the family gets frustrated, and things quickly go downhill from there.
Another problem I saw was that parents weren’t really prepared for actually following through on their bribery threats and/or what the unintended consequences for the session would be if they did. This is something you and your partner should discuss and be prepared for prior to the session.
Now, ultimately, you know your people best, but I’m here to gently encourage y’all to reconsider ‘the bribe factor’ or at least not make it the first thing y’all resort to. When you book a session with me, I’ll send a detailed guide for getting ready for your session, but I thought I’d share some of my tips here, too.
It’s been my experience that one of the most helpful pieces of advice I can give parents is to be mindful of the way y’all talk about your upcoming session with your kids. There are generally two (totally opposite, I know, sorry!) ways to approach an upcoming session that will depend on the kids’ personalities and ages.
One approach is to hype up the session, talk about it in a positive way, and stress how much fun it will be. If this is your first time or the kids are younger, explain how things will go — who I am and how I’ll ask y’all for lots of hugs, kisses, tickles, love, laughter, dancing, etc, and yes, some smiles — you know, emphasis the good times ahead, not perfect pictures.
The last thing we want is for kids to pick up on any stress or anxiety. Because I promise you, kids totally pick on that energy. I’ve seen it first-hand many times.
The other approach is not to talk about it too much or make a big deal about it, maybe don’t even tell ‘em until shortly before the session. Sometimes when kids sense a big deal thing coming up, they don’t respond with their best selves. And the same thing can go for the adults too, I know I’m guilty at times of the anticipation of something causing all sorts of stress and anxiety.
Also, my longtime clients know I usually have my own special rewards for kids when the session is done, so if things do start to go sideways, we can always fall back on that or bust out your bribe.
Okay, so you know bribery is the best way to go with your crew, now what?
First of all, no judgment from me.
The trickiest part of going the bribery route, however, is that every kiddo is different when it comes to the bribe. For instance, I can clearly recall an at-home newborn session very early on in my photography career and the parents really, really wanted the kids to pose in a certain way and no matter what we tried to use as a bribe, the older sibling would.not.do.it and by the end, the entire family was exhausted by all the effort and we never got the shot.
With many more years of experience under my belt, I now know how to nip that situation in the bud. It didn’t take long to see the attempted bribery was not helping at all and was having a negative effect on the poor kid who did not under any circumstance want to kiss their new sibling.
Since kids have different personalities and like different things, the hard part is not only finding out what works best for your flock but also won’t backfire. Some kids are motivated by candy, others a trip to the playground or special dinner, and for older kids, cold hard cash.
If you decide to use a little bribery to get what you want, here are some other ideas beyond the obvious and popular choices of sweets or cash for older kids:
That awesome toy they’ve been drooling over.
A later bedtime.
Breakfast/Dinner at their favorite spot after the session.
Extra screen time on their favorite device.
A sleepover with a friend.
Extended playtime.
They don’t have to eat their vegetables that night at dinner.
They don’t have to do chores the next day.
Give them back a privilege that’s been taken away the last time they were in trouble.
These are just a starting point to brainstorm your own ideas, and if y’all have your own suggestions for either bribes or thoughts for not bribing your kiddos, I’d love to hear them and I bet other parents would too, so please leave ‘em in the comments.
When there is a limited amount of time for your session (like my Pop-Up Portrait Sessions, which I still have some spots left for if you haven’t booked your session yet), no matter how many times you’ve done family photos, it’s easy to start feeling anxious about being able to get all of the photos that you want.
That’s okay and totally natural.
It’s also okay and totally natural to see bribery as the answer.
I most definitely don’t want you to be stressed out or feel crunched for time because someone is suddenly shy, having a meltdown, or sticking their tongue out at me.
And that’s when — regardless of whether you’ve gone the bribery route or not — it is crucial to trust me as your photographer, allow me to take the wheel, and lead the way. Take a break and let me be the “parent” for a little while.
All you have to do is relax, love on your people, and have some fun. Let your kids be kids and embrace the chaos and natural beauty of your family story.
A few weeks ago, I was in Ft. Worth for the senior session of one of my first clients. And I couldn’t stop thinking about how if it was surreal for me that this once little girl was now a young lady on her way to college and taking the world by storm, I can’t imagine how her parents must feel. Bittersweet emotions for sure.
Moments like this are why I love this job. It's truly an honor and privilege to capture these special milestones for families. So, thank you, thank you, Shafir-Sheehan family, for trusting me all these years.
Whether it’s family photos, headshots, or a big multi-generational family session, we always have so much fun together. Working with Ryan for her senior portraits was no different and as y’all can see, she’s a natural in front of the camera. Ryan wanted an urban setting for her shoot and here are a few of my favorites from our time together.
This delightful family is also very close knit and wanted to include a few shots with everyone, so before we got started on Ryan’s photos, we did a little mini family session. This vibrant pink wall was the perfect backdrop for their equally vibrant personalities and their monochromatic outfits.
Interested in your own family or senior portait session? Message me and let’s make it happen!
Once again it’s been forever and a day since I’ve blogged, but felt the bug bite today and here we are.
So to know the lovely Momma Carr here is to love her. She’s a special lady.
After years of talking about doing a session together, but it never quite working out with 5 busy kids, several of which had already flown the coop, I was so happy when she messaged me about a session a few months ago.
The silver-lining to the pandemic was that all her babies were home and I was running some of my Pop-Up Porch Session specials. It was kismet.
When I asked her what she wanted to focus on during our time together, she without hesitation said photos of the whole family together. And I couldn’t have been happier to oblige.
Here are a few of my faves our time together earlier this summer.
Interested in your own family session? Fall Session Specials are happening right now, snag a spot before they are gone!
Welp.
Somehow we’re halfway through February 2020 and I never did any of the end of the year posts I had planned. I couldn’t even manage to put together a short and sweet ‘Happy New Year’ post like I told myself I would.
Geez, woman, get it together.
But as is the case in many situations, better late than never, right?
Well, I hope so, because I don’t know about y’all, but throughout January, I struggled more than usual to get back into the swing of things after taking much-needed time off during the holidays.
And it was so frustrating.
I had a list of things to get done — besides the normal work and shoots, I’m working thru a photography workshop and a business bootcamp, then there’s my taxes (oy vey!), my feeble attempts to write a bunch a blog posts to help me be better at sharing more here throughout the coming year, planning a special headshots/portraits event, and working on a few new photography session offerings and services.
Whew. I’m exhausted just typing all that.
But wait, there’s more to do.
There are several family sessions I’ve done over the past few months I’d like to blog about and then there are some personal photos and posts I’d like to share.
Considering my horrible record on consistent blogging, it might be a while until I get to them, so here are some of my favorite client images from the second half of 2019 that I haven’t blogged about yet.
A few weeks ago, while I was in Ft. Worth for the fall run of my pop-up portrait sessions, I met up with another one of my beloved, longtime families. I’ve known the beautiful-inside-and-out Dana Shafir since high school and have been so lucky to photograph her equally lovely family several times over the years, along with a big ol’ multi-generational family session and headshots. We always have so much fun together and the only downside is that our session can’t last longer because I never tire of shooting them. Here’s a peek of our brief, but beautiful time together.
Interested in your own family session? I’m still have little availability here and there before the holidays, message me and let’s make it happen!
