Yesterday a four year old told me how to make his two month old sister smile. “When you smile at her it makes her smile.” That pretty much sums it up.
There are a few more things that are useful if you want to make your living making babies smile. But, that young man had figured out the secret to making anyone smile.
When you smile at people, they smile back. Age doesn’t matter. It really is no more complicated than that.
When his parents brought in the three boys and their sister they wanted her photographed by herself first, not the sequence I would usually do. I couldn’t get sustained eye contact with her and she was difficult to prop up. I took three quick shots of her by herself.
I then photographed the four of them together. The boys did well. With them on the table behind their sister and me further away, she started watching me. We got some nice group pictures.
I then suggested feeding the baby. Mom left to feed the baby. While they were gone I photographed the boys individually and talked with Dad.
When they returned I got the above pictures very quickly. I smiled at her and she smiled at me, like any two normal people.
Why was it different from when she was first brought in? Her brother had the basic principle correct but it didn’t work the first time.
When I first laid the baby on the posing table she immediately turned away from me. She did not turn towards Mom. She turned towards the wall away from mom. She did not look at me until I was working with her three brothers and ignoring her. When she returned from lunch after ten or fifteen minutes she was eager to look at me, smile and obviously enjoyed doing that tummy pose. The pictures with this post are of her.
Here are a few possibilities, what was or may have been different.
When I first tried to pose her, Dad and the three brothers were either behind me or beside me. It’s fun to watch and I couldn’t get them to move beside the posing table, out of the baby’s line of sight. This is the reason I do family or sibling groups first. They are easier to control if they are in the pose. This may have been a part of the problem.
The main problem was that the baby did not want to look at anyone, even Mom. She was deliberately avoiding eye contact with everyone. Why?
This was at a child care center. The mother worked at the child care center and had been on maternity leave. Babies are special and draw a crowd wherever they go. When a coworker brings in her new baby everyone has to see and talk to the baby. By the time she had made her way through the center to the room where I was set up, the child had had enough human interaction for a while. She was ready to ignore everyone. She needed a break.
Photographing her as part of a larger group, with me moving around at a distance, I was not as intrusive. I was more interesting.
After her break she was ready for more personal interaction. I was not loud. I did not get any closer than necessary to arrange and pose her. I respected her personal space. We developed a good relationship.
It is not unusual for babies to avoid looking at someone. If it happens to you, don’t get louder or closer. Move back and get softer. The baby will look at you when she wants to. Getting more intrusive will only make it worse.
Waving a bright toy or using a squeaker or rattle may make the baby look in the right direction. It won’t allow you to have the kind of relationship that gets the smiles you want. You wouldn’t do that with an older person. Don’t do it with babies.
Talk to them. Develop a relationship. Don’t act weird or crazy. That may be amusing to some people but it turns other people off. Babies are no different.
To expand a little bit on what her brother first said. Make eye contact. Smile at them. They smile back. As you pose them, talk to them in a normal voice like you would any subject.
Don’t get loud, excited and in their space. They can’t leave like a more mobile person. They can ignore you, and they will.