Everyday Moments: Child photo sessions

I don't know about you but for me taking my kids to have their photo taken when they were little was a total nightmare. Sure those photos usually turned out cute, some even gorgeous, but none actually captured my child's personality. Not to mention the frustration brought on by trying to keep them happy, smiling and cooperating with the photographer during the session.

Now if your child is a little camera diva you are lucky and can go anywhere even to one of those inexpensive studios in some large retail store and you will wind up with some really cute photos.  Although, if your child isn't, you are more likely to get photos of a rather unhappy child who doesn't even resemble your cute little angle. So what does a mother do?

1. You can enlist the services of a good child photographer. While this may seem like an expensive choice you will be rewarded with gorgeous photographs of your child that will last for many years. However, if these are only done in studio you may still have photographs that don't capture the personality of your child.
2. You can take photos in everyday settings of you child yourself and print shots to frame at a quick lab. Or enlist the help of a friend who is good at taking photographs. Now, although you may be good at capturing your child's personality with everyday photos and get some really great shots unfortunately quick lab photos will start to fade in five to ten years. 
3. You can enlist the services of a child photographer that does candid session at a location of your choice. This will give you both photographs that express the personality of your child and photos that will not fade before your child has children of their own.  Another advantage to this is that the photographer can also capture images of you and your child together in a natural setting.
4. Another option is to go with option (2) and then contact a photographic design studio such as Artistix Network and have your photographs edited and printed professionally so that you have a photograph that will both capture your child's personality and preserve the precious memories of their childhood for many years. 

As a family memory keeper my feelings on the matter are the more photos that capture the everyday moments the better, so I opt for a combination of options two, three and four.  

Here is a peek at some candid shots of a child I took earlier this week.