Why you should keep taking photos of your children

Why should you keep taking photos of your children even when you feel you have failed time and again? Keep reading; it’s not what you think.

Yes we know it’s not always easy. But keep your sights on the future. The fact is, children grow up.

In all my time photographing children, I have realised that the ages between 1 – 3 are the hardest. There is no escaping the ‘terrible twos’ stage, which I think is a misnomer by the way because it actually starts when kids turn one and enter their second year of life, if not earlier. There is no escaping ‘terrible ones and twos’. Photographing under threes is HARD work. The all too familiar short attention span, the single-mindedness when they want something and nothing else matters, the tunnel-vision determination… I once compiled photos of my two girls, one from each year of their lives. Guess which year I couldn’t find a decent one of them both? Oh yes when they were just 1 and 3 respectively.

But they grow older and out of the ‘terrible’ stage.

Years of photographing my own children have been punctuated with frustration, laughter, exasperation, silly bribes and many tears. My kids must have seen how desperate I was to take their pictures that I’ve had to resort to all sorts of negotiations. Among the thousands of photos taken over these years I’ve had wonderful memories captured in photos: blurry, candid, fleeting moments, pouty-grumpy-angry photos, ones with cut off limbs because they moved too fast out of the frame or ran away – all very precious. I also had some great ones, the 5% that made it to the “professional” pile of that photoshoot.

Take heart, it gets a little easier as the years go by.

The day finally came when things changed and the tables turned. As my kids grew older I grew wiser. I stopped pleading with them. My oldest now asks me for a photoshoot. My youngest follows her lead so she too now gets excited when I devote a session just for her. It has become a special time. All it took was just 9 short years for this to happen.

So don’t give up. Keep capturing those wonderful memories. One day all your hard work will be rewarded.

For some ideas and help on how to make photographing your kids easier check out the Ultimate stree-free parents’ guide to photographing your own children. See here for ideas on what your children should wear for a photoshoot and here for 10 top tips on photographing your children in winter. Please share this post.