I am in the business of photographing families; most of these families include young children.  Typically, I shoot a lot of lifestyle and documentary with a few posed images thrown in there.  I’m magnetically drawn to documentary family photos: the connections, the emotions, the raw, gritty stories that a single image can portray.  I love it all.  Then, there’s this side of me that really wants to be able to get that perfect posed family shot.  I don’t over pose, the natural family connection and natural expressions are still what the goal is no matter which type of image I am taking.

So, why in the world, if I successfully do this for other families, can I not seem to get a decent “lightly” posed image of my four children?  I don’t know!

This mini shoot had been a few weeks in the making.  I didn’t want anything fancy…just a few minutes of their time.  That’s not so much to ask, right?

Well, the teenagers complained, the toddler wouldn’t sit and the middle baby sat pretty and waited for the others to all fall in line 🙂  In less than 5 minutes, they all took off to play on the bales of hay.

This is what it looks like when I plan a photo shoot with my own children!

As you can clearly see, I did not achieve my goal of getting one nice posed image of all four children together.  I didn’t even come close!  But I LOVE the set of images that I did get.  Their personalities shine through so strong and I can help but laugh no matter how many times I flip through them.  This is what life is like right now…