Gravel Family and How to Get Good Pictures of Your Kids

Meet the Gravel Family! and read on to see how you can prep your kids for your family photo session.

I’ve known this beautiful family for a while and it has been a pleasure watching their beautiful girls grow from babies to beautiful little ladies. We decided to do this family session before Mom started showing her baby-bump (Surprise! It’s a boy!) and to get beautiful photos of the family before their new addition. Working with the Gravels was easy and filled with lots of laughs. These high energy girls are full of bold personality, and while this can prove challenging to photographing a family, the Gravels came prepared and made this session super successful! Because of that, we can offer you a FEW TIPS ON HOW TO PREP YOUR KIDS FOR YOUR FAMILY PHOTO SESSION: (See below)

Tip #1

Mom and Dad got the girls excited for their session! Tell your kids how awesome it is to get your photo taken and how awesome they will look in the photos! Tell them you can’t wait to have great photos of them and have them in your home! WARNING: If you aren’t excited for your session, your kids will likely pick up on this and have trouble moving past those emotions.

Tip #2

Prepare them to pose for a “stranger.” And by stranger I mean, not a stranger at all. While I had an advantage here by knowing this family, it can really help to introduce kiddos to the photographer before the session. Having an in-person consultation with the photographer is great for this, especially if it is done in a fun environment. It really makes the difference if the day of your session isn’t the first time your photographer meets the kids. It is also very important that you choose a photographer who is great with kids and will speak and laugh with them during this first encounter and during the session.

If you have no chance to do this, prep your kids by saying something like, “We are going to get our pictures taken today and it will be so much fun!! There will be a nice lady (or gent) with a camera and our job is to do what she says and look at the camera! This person cares about our family and wants us to get great photos. It would mean a lot to us if you would smile for your photos!”

Tip #3

PLEASE don’t hesitate to bribe your kids! Some of you may be against this as parents, but I don’t mean this as something to spoil your kids or give them a reward for bad behavior; there are plenty of ways to offer your kids an incentive in a great way.

• Offer to take them out for ice cream or to the park afterward if they are cooperative and helpful during their session. Remind them of this throughout the session.
• Use positive reinforcement all throughout the session: “You have such a beautiful smile!” “You look great!” “You are so good at this!” “Thank you for being so helpful!”
  • or offer them a skittle for each new photo moment 😉

WARNING: Whatever you do, don’t get negative during your session or your kids will pick up on this and fixate on their failures and not their successes.

Tip #4

Demonstrate the photographer’s instructions for your child by being a model. Help them to pose by example!

Thank you Gravel’s for helping your family rock your photo session!!