I have often said that I do my best work in preschools and child care centers. The main reason is that if it is a school that I have photographed a few times, the staff is familiar with what I do and they let me do it. The other reason is that I have a number of children waiting and if a child is reluctant they can just wait until they think it is their turn.
Last week I was doing a child care center that was familiar with my work and things were going smoothly and quickly. Then three parents (specifically two mothers and a grandmother) brought in children at about the same time. Of course they were the most important people in the room when they arrived. They brought the money.
The parents brought in children that were not going to be there that day to have pictures taken. They arrived at about the same time because they were told we would be doing the class pictures at time.
I had time to do a three year old girl and her infant brother together and the baby by himself before I had to stop to do the four classroom groups. Yes, I do class pictures of infants and toddlers.
After the classroom group pictures I resumed the individual pictures, starting with the remaining three children that had been brought in by the parents. All of the parents were either familiar with my style of working with the children either through personal experience or because of my reputation. Although Grandma had me worried for a moment it all went smoothly. I didn’t need to worry about Grandma behaving. She was great.
The mother of a single infant did do something that is worth mentioning. Her child was the first sitting after the groups, before she had a chance to see anything other than the infant class picture.
I asked her to sit the baby in the middle of the posing table and to have a seat in the chair next to the table. The baby was able to sit up well on his own. I straightened the baby’s clothing and posed his legs. When I got the first smile out of the baby his legs spread out and I took the picture capturing the smile. As I reposed the legs I commented that he might not keep his legs put but the smile was the important part. After the next shot with the legs flying out as soon as he smiled Mom straightened his legs. I told her not to worry about it. “His cheeks are connected to his legs. They work together.” I took a few more shots after reposing his legs each time and did get one with his legs still tucked in place.
I then placed him in a rocking chair on the posing table. After the first shot Mom seemed to suddenly remember something. She got out of the chair next to the table and stood between the camera and the baby and started tickling him. As he squirmed out of position all over the chair she stopped. Acting embarrassed, she mumbled something about I and the baby were doing better without her help. We both laughed and I told her she and her child were both doing fine.
Her prior experience with children’s photographers had her doing the posing and eliciting the expressions. She realized that the sitting was almost over and she hadn’t done what other photographers had told her to do. As she rushed to make up for lack of participation, she suddenly realized that it wasn’t needed and in fact was counter productive.
First, there is no one that has a better relationship with a young child than their parent. This is particularly true of a mother and baby. Their special relationship started nine months before the child was born. That doesn’t make them the best person to pose and get expressions out of the child. It would be unusual for a parent to be able to pose and get expressions from a child better than an experienced children’s photographer. This parent quickly realized it.
My advice for photographers: If you think the parent can pose and get expressions from the child better than you can, find an experienced children’s photographer and work with him or her. Learn what can be done. Then practice. Don’t take the easy and sloppy way out and leave it all up to the parent. Your job is to do more than just operate the camera.
My advice for parents: If the photographer expects you to pose the children and elicit expressions, keep looking until you find a photographer that actually works with your children. We are out here. You and your children deserve better than someone who just stands behind the camera.