{Mine} The truth about photographing my own children…

Preface: photographer’s children are notoriously some of the most difficult children to photograph… so much so that the condition has been given a name: PCS or “photographer’s child syndrome”. Scientists are not sure of what brings on the condition, but find that it is most likely related to suppressed feelings of jealousy towards the camera, so much so that they refuse to perform in hopes that their behavior will cause their parent to give up their career and focus more on them.

Anyway… with the first sessions of the New Year coming soon, I decided that it was time again to pick up my camera. So I asked my sweet children bribed my kids with candy and money to be my models and skipped out to my new favorite location hauling along with us, my trusty brown chair and my favorite photographer’s assistant reluctant husband. The mom in me knows that it is usually best to avoid taking your children anywhere during what should be your 1 year old’s nap time, but the photographer in me saw the beautiful and quickly fading light and decided to forge ahead. We get to the location and I place the chair in a perfect spot and ask my sweet little angels to pose for me. eh.. well, two out of three looking at the camera and smiling will have to do because shortly after this, the baby decided that he was done posing with his sisters and launched himself off of the chair (head first). So I spent the next beautiful hour following my angel around as he explored the natural world frantic five minutes trying to shoot pictures of my 14 month old as he attempted to climb and then fall off a rock, fell head first into a bramble bush and picked up some unknown item from the ground (I think it was alive, once).

Then the sun disappeared and I was left with three cranky kids (the older two had found a snake skin and had become terrified the snakes were going to jump out of holes and attack them, despite many reassurances that it was too cold for snakes) and very little light. But the photographer in me, trudged on, refusing to give up and knowing that the perfect shot was going to present itself at any time.  But the stubborn red head in me refused to give up, knowing that I had hauled all of my stuff out there and that my kids and my husband were unlikely to do this again anytime soon. So I pulled out the candy- yes, I gave my baby Smarties… how else was I going to get the crazy kid to sit still AND leave his hat on???- and continued. Amazingly enough, out of about 25 shots (most of which involved him falling off of the chair with candy drooling from his mouth) I was able to get this-

After this I figured I got at least one decent shot and I should give up and move on to the two older kids who understand their momma’s mission and are the perfect models are old enough to be threatened into sitting still. Although as most parents have experienced- though you can threaten your children into doing something- it does not mean that they will enjoy it.

Back to the bribery we went…

and after a little discussion amongst themselves… they decided to take pitty on me and offer up a smile or two-

So making a short story long.. next time you see the beautiful shots up on my walls, know that it came only after much sweat, tears, pain and bribery.

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