YAY for FALL,
my favorite time of the year!
for many reasons:
football season,
pumpkin spice lattes,
new soup recipes in all of my favorite mags,
rainy days,
awesome tv,
+ the gorgeous fall colors
+ lots of fun family portraits!
FALL FAMILY PORTRAIT season is in full swing. {woot. woot!}
love. love. love fall.
every mom loves new family photos, am i right?
- just in time for fun
holiday cards.
unfortunately our little ones are
{usually} not as excited
about portrait time as we are! (understatement. ha!)
the camera is far from enticing to a little person!
a few simple tips to make portrait time
easier on the whole fam:
1) find (or build) a setting that is FUN for the kiddos! for a recent portrait session with two of my favorite cuties {scarlett and coco}, i brought a "tea party" with me (bonus, the table and tablecloth doubled as a fort!). i am not joking - i shot 350+ frames before these two tired of the camera and needed a change of scene.
the tea party flowers allowed for some super cute individual shots of sweet coco too:
2) let sweet little voices be heard! towards the end of the shoot, when it seemed miss scarlett was DONE, her mom (in a stroke of genius) let scarlett change into her FAVORITE dress. Scarlett was happy to dance and play for another 10 minutes! so fun AND the photos tell a story of how much she loves this sweet dress handed down from a family member:
seriously, are those the cutest little princess tootsies ever???! and with that sweet dress?!
3) LET THEM WANDER FOR A FEW. little ones who have been strapped in a car seat for any given amount of time LOVE a chance to wander and explore for a bit. some of my favorite shots of one year old cooper are of him simply exploring...
4) BRING TOYS! little cooper (he is so cute - melts my heart. seriously. and i had no idea it was possible for a baby of his age to have the greatest mcdreamy hair i have ever seen in person.) had a super time playing with cars, planes and elmo... during family portrait time:
5) let you own INNER CRAZY/KIDDO out to play! often times, ten minutes into a shoot that involves anyone under the age of five, i will feel like i've been on a treadmill for an hour. i have found myself dancing like a chicken, making monkey noises, playing peek-a-boo, jumping up and down, demonstrating simon says, doing the hokey pokey... all in an effort to get a kiddo to stay interested and have fun! it works. it really does. cooper's family portrait session was awesome! i did not break a sweat. at all. but... his parent's may have. they were amazing!
cooper's mom got her work-out on and i captured these fun shots while she was directly behind me doing jumping jacks! (yes, i love her.)
i am not even sure what cooper's daddy was doing to get this smile out of him, but whatever trick he had up his sleeve, worked like magic! yay:
put these tricks to work and capture some fun new portraits of your kiddos! and for portraits of the whole fam - call me! i'd love to shoot them! i may or may not agree to chicken dancing or monkey noises but we'll see.
i hope all of you and your kiddos are enjoying the adventure of a new school year! i am so excited (next post) to fill you in on my latest {photography related} adventure!!!! (sooooo excited!!!)
xoxo,
nik
