I have one thing to say: sashay shante, shante, shante, shante

A few weeks ago it was the whole family's turn to go in front of Kris' camera and let our inner supermodel out. Not surprisingly, each of the kids has their own amount of super model in them. :-)

There was a long debate about having pictures taken in the park vs. a more urban setting. P wanted the urban setting, but she got out-voted. So, we ended up at the park. Of course, about half way through the shoot C decided that she wanted to change her vote & do "city pictures" but then it was too late. In the end, I was glad we were at the park because the wedding pictures will be a lot more urban. This way we'll have a great mix of pictures.

Not only did we get some great pictures & let Kris and the kids get to know each other, but I came out of the session with some great lessons learned. I'm partially recording them to share with you, but I'm also putting them here so that I can come back to it before the wedding & give myself a refresher course. :-)

Lesson 1: The kids have 30 min of good pictures in them. Not a minute more. - Kris' process is to take all of the pictures, go through & pick the best and then send them to us in an album online. Then, we can go & choose the ones we want. When I went through the pictures Kris sent us, they were almost all from the first 30 min of our 60 min shoot. The best ones are definitely earlier in the shoot. Hopefully, I can structure the wedding day so that the kids don't have to be there for all of the pictures or can take breaks to go hang out and then come back.

Lesson 2: P is a camera lover - This isn't all that surprising, but I'd forgotten the degree to which it's true. P wanted to be in every single shot. She was delighted to spend the entire time taking pictures & wanted to make sure they were all good. On the supermodel continuim, where 0 is hiding behind a tree and 10 is Giselle, P is about a 9.5.

Lesson 3: C will try to direct the shoot  - Anyone who knows C knows that she's a girl who knows what she wants. She has strong opinions & wants to make sure they're heard. As she grows up, she's learning the right way to communicate those opinions & lead others, which is really cool to watch. How does this relate to photography, you ask?  Well, she had a lot of ideas about where she wanted pictures taken & how they should look. There were a few times that she was either directing Kris or one of us. Taking that forward to the wedding, I think she'll enjoy the pictures more if we find a way to include her in the planning of the shoot.

Lesson 3: The good pictures happen - Family pictures usually end up being stressful for us somehow. I know that sometimes it's because I put pressure on all of us because I want those cheesy happy family pictures that you see a lot. You know - the ones where everyone's piled on top of each other & smiling and looking like they're all so happy and they love each other and never fight. For this shoot, I decided to try to let go of that. I told Kris that I wanted her to capture us how we are - and if we were killing each other, then I wanted her to capture that. We ended up with some great pictures; I think if I can just relax and go with it, we end up with good pictures.

So, that's it...my lessons learned and some of my favorite pictures from the shoot.  If you're interested you can also check out the slide show of the pictures here.

Do you have any other tips for getting pictures taken with kids?