A Bit of Knowledge: Children's Photography

It's been such a long time since I posted Matthew's picture on my blog, except for the one of him on the digital postcard, but not much of his face. By the way, thanks to everyone for the comments on the hat. Well, as you can see, Matthew is a big boy now. Will turn 18 months old on November 7th. He is starting to talk a lot; words like mom, dad, yes, no, ball, moon, bubble, google, more, no more, onion, apple, and (ba)nana are some of them, and he also knows almost 80% of the letters of the alphabet. We have a feeling that he may start to read early, as wherever we go and he sees words on the wall or banners in the store, he tries to name them all. It all started with the towel in our bathroom when we started putty training. The towel had Florida on it, and once we decided to spell it out for him, that was the beginning.

Taking photos of children is so much fun, yet it can be frustrating. Thus, we always seek out this perfect photo. I tell you, it isn't easy, especially when mom is taking photos. Next thing they are holding on to your leg and trying to take the camera away from you—a case with Matthew. However, when they play and are preoccupied, it is the best time to take on the photo shoot. And in some cases, other children are just born to pose.

I only have experience with four children in my life, including Matthew and my portfolio of over 10,000 photos of him or more. However, there are two categories of photos. One set is just photos, sometimes not artistic at all, but intended for memories of what Matthew did and played with, how he climbed the stairs [you can go all the way now], and more. In the second category, I usually try to create an environment for him so I can take some more artistic ones. However, my favourite ones are when he actually does not pay attention to the camera—more of the action photos. With time, children grow into taking photos, and they actually start to pose, and believe it or not, in the few photo shoots of Matthew, I got him actually smiling at the camera.

Only once did I take Matthew to the photo studio for the photo shoot, and that was it. I've never really been crazy about it, especially when I have the equipment and the photos are much more meaningful.

'Stay a child while you can be a child' by Stephen Sondheim, Into the Woods.

~ Anna