Beautiful 13 month old Lilly from Rushden started our week off with a smile at the studio today. Dressed in her best frock, she needed no help in looking amazing for her children’s portraits. It’s always a pleasure to have a confident toddler to the studio, there was no hanging onto mum’s trousers leg by Lilly, she woke from her sleep in a good mood and was raring to go after a quick toddle around the studio.
As always with a toddler, we had to work fast and these photoshoots can be over very quickly. It’s a fine balance between allowing enough time for toddlers to settle against the ticking clock of their limited concentration span. You’re really only looking at about 30 – 45 mins active photographing time with this age group, and we pride ourselves on achieving a good range of images.
To mum’s surprise, Lilly sat still on the beanbag long enough for some beautiful close up portraits before she got bored. The fact we’re strangers kicks in here, we keep mum or dad close by enough that the child feels safe and secure, but we take charge and this usually means a good response, way before familiarity kicks in and they want to go exploring. Parents are often surprised that their child has sat still at all, let alone interacted with us.
(Please click on an image to see it bigger)
It’s also important to know when to call time and to move the photoshoot on to the next step. We have our own shoot flow, and read each child’s behaviour as to when to try for each shot. Gorgeous Lilly delivered, happy to play, read, sit briefly and stand under our spotlight allowing for a good range of images.
Her photos are so expressive, her mouth is set in laughter and delight in most of her images and we loved doing the edit as there were so many gorgeous shots to choose from. Even her close ups have an intensity that wows you. We feel her character really shines in this selection.
Lilly has a huge expressive smile, but we also love the intimacy of her coy expression looking down from the camera, the concentration as she read on the chaise and the beauty of her childhood innocence standing under the spotlight just being herself. We don’t use props for a reason, Lilly’s portraits shows that children just radiate their own inner beauty which photography captures and makes you smile.
Thanks to mum for a fun photoshoot and for the opportunity to capture beautiful Lilly.