Home Sessions are the Way to go!
In-home lifestyle sessions are the absolute BEST! And I might be slightly biased because they are my favorite sessions to photograph.
And one of the main reasons it’s AMAZING is because your kids are super comfortable at home. So, there usually isn’t a long warm-up period when I arrive at your house – major bonus!
But, they will still need a bit of direction from me and some help staying engaged during your session.
And this is when I pull out my bag of tricks. FYI – I’m a former elementary school teacher and a mom of three, so I have lots of tricks!
6 Things I May Ask Your Kids to Do
Here are some of the things I might ask your kids to do (and I will ask your permission for a few of them – it’s not my goal to break the rules you have set as their parents, it’s my job to capture awesome pictures of your family!):
1. Not to look at the camera! I know that seems crazy, but I want your family to interact and if your child is constantly staring at my camera with a big cheesy grin, they aren’t interacting! VERY IMPORTANT, it’s my job to direct them. You don’t need to remind them not to look at the camera. Keep doing what I ask you do. Let me worry about the kids!
2. Snuggle in to mom or dad or their siblings. Sometimes this is met with the BIGGEST eye rolls! Pre-teens and teens aren’t big on snuggling, but trust me, I can get them to snuggle in. And I’ll ask them to just do it for a small amount of time!
3. Tell mom a secret. Or dad or little sister. And sometimes we’ll play the telephone game (get ready for some potty words from the boys!), but when kids lean in and tell you something I get two things – a great connections AND fabulous expressions once they tell the secret or word.
4. Dance to their favorite song. Dance parties are the BEST! And don’t think I’m not going to ask mom and dad to get in on the action. Turn up your kids’ favorites tunes and dance!
5. Hold a sibling’s hand – don’t worry there’s a game involved and even the teenagers get into it! This is my favorite thing to do with tweens and teens. Yes, again, I get eye rolls, but they all do it and once I explain the fun game we are going to play while they’re holding hands, well, I get amazing interactions and smiles!
6. And my favorite…jump on the bed! (I will ask if this is ok with you first!) If you are familiar with my work at all, you know I show a lot of images of kids jumping on the bed! You also might know that we had a rule about bed jumping in my house (check out this blog post to read what I’m talking about). But, even if you have a rule about bed jumping, please consider making an exception when I’m photographing your family. I will not ask BIG kids to jump. This is really just reserved for the littles!
Prompts and Directions Make it Smooth Sailing!
I know you might think an in-home lifestyle session is just me being a fly on the wall, but it’s really not! I give you directions and prompts from beginning to end! BUT, the sessions are not heavily posed. I like to say they are “lightly posed”.
What does “lightly posed” mean? I put you in the best light the way I want you and then capture the goodness – and that goodness might entail me giving you all a prompt of something to do, but every family responds to these differently.
Your kids might not hear all of these at every session, but they’re sure to hear a few!
And the best part, they will have FUN during the session. I promise!
Interested in more information about NPS Photography’s Lifestyle Sessions?
