"Oh, you are a photographer? You must have so many gorgeous photos of your own children!"
I have herd this one many a time. Sadly, it is not quite true :) My own children are not too keen to model for me as to them it feels much more like a chore than fun.
But I do not give up easily. I keep trying. Lavender season was coming and I was determined to have a photo of all 3 kids together in the field. I had this whole idea painted in my head. I researched poses, had them try posing the way I wanted in the studio. I researched and ordered in outfits. I even paid extra for an evening pass at Lavender Farm at Mayfield (after a day of customer sessions) to ensure we had lovely soft light. This was going to be amazing and I was going to have the image blown up BIG and up on my wall.
Well, that was the plan anyway. Few days before the lavender sessions I came down with a bladder infection and was put on antibiotics, I felt rotten on the day but I was not going to let that stop me. I worked through all my customer sessions and absolutely loved them. I loved capturing memories for them surrounded by the sea of purple.
My hubby and sister in law brought the kids at the end of the day (I was going to try to capture the cousins together too). The most exciting part was about to begin... Or so I thought. My son had a frown on him, upon questioning he started complaining of a headache. Never mind, we can get through that I thought. I got the crate out, sat my son on, posed his younger sister next to him and tried to add the youngest. At this point the youngest decided to have a meltdown as she did NOT want to have pictures taken full stop. Eventually we calmed her down, sat her down and with the help of Baby Shark on my phone being waved over my head (yes I too hate that song, however I cannot knock it due to the amount of sessions it has saved :) ) I was ready to take the amazing images.
Or so I thought :) At this point my middle child started suffering from 'Chandler syndrome', if you are not a fan of Friends sit com the image below should give you an idea of the facial expression assumed as soon as camera is pointed at said child...
I took some photos, I had about 5 minutes for this. Possibly less as Baby Shark is a rather short song really...
Once I got home and went through all the images I found ONE!!! One good photo of all 3 of them. I did manage to achieve my goal. It is not 100% perfect how I wanted it but it is lovely. I had it printed in a glass free frame, heat sealed, brown ornate frame and it is now proudly on the wall and I absolutely LOVE it!!! If you need me I am probably in the bathroom trying to cover up all the new grey hairs I have from trying to get this photo :D
P.S. The cousin photo I mentioned earlier? My nieces were great in almost every image. The one I decided to edit of all of them in the end meant I had to do head swaps for ALL 3 of my children :) So it took me 4 different images to create the one I am going to get printed for their Nanny and Granddad :D