Rambling, and a Sneak Peek

I adore one-year-olds, but they are one of my biggest challenges photographically speaking. Normally they have just learned to walk, so getting them to stay in one spot for more than a millisecond can be a challenge. Usually the moms of one-year-olds are very stressed out at the session, as their child is running all over the place. I always tell them to relax, reassure them that this is normal, and share the story of my son's 15-month portrait session.

My son was not walking independently yet at one year (so his one-year session was EASY!), but I really got a taste of the stress my clients with one-year-olds must feel when I tried to take my son's 15-month pictures. As a photographer, I am always taking pictures of my kids. I know that they must feel like I'm the paparazzi as I follow them around with my camera, documenting every little milestone of their lives. But when my son was 15 months old, I hadn't tried to take formal studio portraits of him since 3 months prior. Therefore I was not prepared for what I would encounter when we took him downstairs to the studio. He would not sit still. Not only would he not sit still, he would not stop RUNNING. I pulled out all the tricks I normally use with babies that age but being my own son, he was really not too interested in me at all. What I finally ended up doing was marking a space on the floor with masking tape, focusing on that spot, firing the shutter everytime he ran over that spot, and praying that something would come out. As you can see, he is clearly in motion in the final shot. This was the least "in motion" of the whole bunch, but I really love it because it captures his personality at that age.

But I digress. I sat down here at the blog to share some sneak peaks from my most recent session and instead took a little trip down memory lane.

This little cutie just turned 1 (which is what sent me off on my tangent),



and he brought along his 3-year-old brother (who by the way I also photographed at age 1 in the same Cubs outfit above).

Look at the awesome curly hair on this kid. Totally to die for, no?



Since the kids still had a little bit of energy left, we decided to try one more outfit change. I pulled out the Christmas lights, thinking that might be interesting to a one-year-old. And it was. For about 20 seconds. LOL!