C Family {Life}

When my co-worker asked me to photograph her family, I of course jumped at the opportunity! Then I found out that not only are her kids older than any I have photographed but all three are boys! Yes, THREE...BOYS! If you've been following me at all then you know that my clientele generally range from still in the belly to age 4ish and most are girls. I was terrified at this new challenge! Okay, that's being a little dramatic but seriously, what was I going to do? I quickly threw out the old "say the alphabet wrong" trick as well as the "funny animal noise" trick. I decided to just wing it the day of the session. I mean, surely they would laugh at something right? Besides, I had one more trick up my sleeve and it allllways worked!

I stood there in front of OU campus watching them walk towards me. They were rough housing just like little boys do and no matter what, I couldn't get over the fact that they had the upper hand in this. I mean, come on here I'm the adult after all! I took a deep breath and quickly had them posing on the steps for a group shot. That's when I let them have it. My ace in the hole. "Smile big or you're getting barbie dolls for Christmas!" *crickets and stunned looks* My heart dropped. My 5 year old nephew gives me a killer smile with that line! Now what was I supposed to do?! That's when the mom saved me by teasing J about a "girlfriend", two of them busted into giggles while J held a bashful red faced smile. I quickly filed that in my "5 y/o and older age group" folder and shot like crazy. I learned which one fake smiles and to lightly tease him about it as well as the "girlfriend" trick, once I had that down it was a piece of cake! There was also a moment when the boys caught mom fake smiling, they flipped the tables on her and teased a real smile out of her making an awesome photo moment :)

Older children and boys both posed new challenges for me but it was fun learning new tricks and I'm looking forward to seeing how well they work the next time I have that age group! To check out some of my other faves and some of them just having fun (a definite trick to photographing kids) check out my Facebook!

X's and O's,
Brandi Sue