A Family Session

Last weekend, I went to the park with some friends and took their family pictures.  I loved it.  And, as it turned out, they loved their pictures.  They'd never had a family photo done before, and when they asked me to do it, I said something to the effect of, "Well, I'm a very new photographer, and I can't guarantee they'll be awesome, but I'd love to do it."  And I think it's safe to say that we were all thrilled by how they turned out.  I sent them over 20 shots, and here are a couple of my favorites:

I was so happy that I was able to capture this family's joy and closeness.  And (bonus!) they are pretty awesome and treated us to dinner and a game night at their house.

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Before I showed up at the shoot, I made a list of poses to have them try, and most of them worked very well.  Here's a list, for my own future reference:

• Parents standing, touching, holding child
• Mom and Dad hug, child by legs
• Three pairs of feet
• Mom-child-Dad holding hands, crop Mom and Dad's upper body, shoot at child's level
• Each parent alone with child (snuggle, nuzzle, tickle, have Dad lie down and child piles on top)
•  All together, tickling (I believe that's what was happening in that first photo)
• Whisper to one another
• Reading together
• Child alone--"Do you see the butterfly in my camera?" (tried to elicit meaningful eye contact with viewer), look down (try to get lashes--this little lady was too quick!)
• Feed the ducks (particular to this location)

Although I didn't try for every single one of those poses, we did get 90% of them, and they were great.  I have been reading a lot about family photography and got lots of ideas from the Clickin' Moms blog (a great resource), among other places.