As a fellow Mum of a gorgeous little kid whose smile lights up the world, I know how much you want that grin caught on your camera. But I’m here you tell you a big truth, you NEED to stop telling your kid to say cheese for the camera!
Sounds weird when you desperately want a grinning pic of your little one, right?
Hear me out!
Real smiles trumps fake cheese smiles every time!
Sure, you can get your kiddo to do a big old cheese and end up with something Chandler Bing would be proud to put on his mantlepiece.
OR… you can take some photos of your kid letting their unique personality shine.
We can get a real smile out of your child using various techniques that I’ve built up over years of photographing happy families to make sure you end up with heart-bursting photos that really capture the personality of your spirited, gorgeous little ones.
Moments over cheesy smiles
Dollars to donuts, photos where your kids’ cheeky personality is showing will be the ones you treasure more a few years down the line.
Perhaps it won’t be a photo of them staring straight at the camera smiling that you think to frame today. However, the photo that tugs at your heart strings tomorrow will almost certainly be the one where your son’s nose crinkles with laughter or your daughter’s head is thrown back laughing at the silly joke you told every day when she was 7.
I even photograph through kids having grumps and you comforting their skinned knees. It’s these little moments that seem like inconsequential patchwork of your everyday life while you’re living them but grow in importance after your children have outgrown these phases.
These are the memories that grow fuzzy round the edges; the photos that grow in importance as time ticks on.
Cheese doesn’t get you great smiles anyway
Lastly, if you do decide you want to keep going with a word for smiles on demand, did you know that there are actually better words to elicit a natural looking smile?
Try it in the mirror or in a selfie. These pictures are my 4 year old son saying different words (he’s stuck firmly in the camera face phase at the moment!). While I still firmly believe that catching a child in their natural laugh is the best way to get the perfect photo, sometimes you just want a posed photo, so try some of these tricks instead!
Fancy getting some of your own amazing family photos?
If we haven’t met before, I’m Tori, a mum passionate about helping all families feel amazing in front of the camera and having their own awesome photos to be proud of. I believe you don’t have to be Pinterest perfect to have perfect family photos hanging on your walls. Family photoshoots should be all about laughter and fun and showing exactly who you are.
If you realise you don’t have any incredible, up to date family photos then why not let me help? I’d love to help you get back in the photo and create those heart-bursting images you dream of.
Let’s have a chat!
If you want to read more about what I do as a St Albans family photographer then just click on that and it’ll show you some of my work and guide you through the process of how a shoot with me works.
