Hello again!


I can't believe how quickly summer has breezed on by! Here's one of my favorite things I shot this summer! One of my closest friends is having her FOURTH baby and she so kindly asked me to help shoot her baby announcement photos. We went to a gorgeous park in Farmers Branch and it is truly one of my favorite places to shoot, I definitely am thinking about having this be one of the spots I have half sessions this fall and when the roses bloom next Spring, I will be hosting mini sessions here in time for Mother's Day.


The Shrader family has a rambunctious bunch of little ones all with different energy levels which is always so fun to work with for a family session. I planned out between 15-20 poses total for all combinations and the goal wasn't to hit them all, but it was more so to make sure that we had options to work with. Some poses will work better than others but it's always good to have a reference point! For this family session, instead of having a Pinterest or inspo board, I decided to doodle the poses on a piece of paper that I kept folded up in my pocket. So let's go over all the poses we did and how this session turned out!

We started with some full family shots of all five of them. Their youngest is only a year old while the older kids are three and four. The oldest was a great listener so she knows how to smile and poses, it was super easy to tell her where to be and how to move. Meanwhile, the toddler age is always filled with variables. Between one and three, it truly depends.


Here, we had a one year old that wasn't super keen on being around me or on their own, she did better being held by mom or dad so we tried to keep her that way. Now the three year old was definitely marching to the beat of his own drum this session. Which sometimes we have to just work with! He did great with prompts like running around or back and forth and less with sitting still, so if we needed him in place, we had to make sure he was doing something.

We tried to work quickly and change positions faster when it came to working with a kids, because in a public space all they want to do is play. Or in this case, pick flowers. So we did the first half of the hour with all the kids so they could then be left to their own devices. We carved out the remainder of the session to be for mom and dad to do couples photos, but it also allowed some room for the kids to run and jump in if they were feeling up to it and listening. The goal was to make sure the photos would work with or without them! When it comes to the couples portraits, we can do more posed stuff whereas, prompts and movement are much easier to manage with kids.

Shooting this whole session took up an hour of time and it ended with sweaty limbs and bug bites (thank you Texas summers) but it was so much fun and so worth it in the end! We did make sure to get a few solo shots here and there. To those of you who are wondering if thirty minutes is too short for a family session, it's not! But an hour is not too long either, especially if you have multiple kids. I think by the end of a full hour you will feel exhausted (so I always advise to pack some snacks as rewards at the end) but you'll have so much content to work with!

I hope this provides a little insight to what it's like to have me shoot your family for a session! Some things are just trial and error so we learn as we go, but don't let having active kids or kids who struggle with stranger danger prevent you from capturing your family as it is. Photographers will always try to be flexible so your family can exist as you do and our job is to capture you as you are.


Hopefully, I'll see you at a session soon!


XO,

MATHILDA