“Never work with children and animals” is a phrase you often here. This definitely held true when I ran a photo shoot for two babies in Oxford recently . The aim of the photo shoot was to get some photos to make up a calendar for the grandparents. Each month was to have a different theme, so that involved 12 different outfits for the children. It was ambitious but sounded fun. All started well and there were lots of giggles and great photos taken easily. Then the tiredness hit one of the babies, so we took a little break to let her have a bottle and a rest.
She cheered up well, and we continued with the photo shoot. After a few tears her face did become a bit red, but with a bit of post processing it was possible to remove the redness from her skin as well as remove the solitary tear. The very last shot we wanted to get was a shot with both children wearing matching washable nappies. However this was a step too far for her. This lovely photo has won a competition and who can tell that she just started sobbing when I took the photo, and a few seconds later was in her Dad’s arms.
We did achieve more than enough photos for the calendar with some lovely cheerful pictures of the children as well. As a family photographer I do sometimes have to work hard to make children laugh, and I also have a few tricks up my sleeve for when smiles aren’t forthcoming.