The Importance of Photographer-Child Interaction Time to Warm up Before the Session.

I just wanted to take a minute to talk about the importance of the pre-session warm up. What is this, you might ask? This is the photographer-child interaction time that occurs before we begin the session. I always suggest that you show up a little bit early, maybe 15 minutes, to your session so we have this time to get to know each other. Especially with young children, it’s going to be a little bit scary interacting with someone they’ve never met before. We want to ensure we can really show off your child’s personality, so we want him or her to be comfortable with us and with the environment.

If we were to just throw them into the middle of the session and there’s this stranger with a camera jumping around trying to get them to look and smile, your child is going to tense up and there may even be confusion. We really just want everything to run smoothly.

If you can arrive early, this will give me time to introduce myself to your child, and to try to get a vibe on how the session will go. Some children warm up right away, while others need the entire warm up time to start to feel comfortable and come out of their shells. And that’s OK.

Warm up time can be important for teenagers too.  Obviously the questions and the conversation will be different from the one we have with your three year old, but the concept is the same.

After I introduce myself, I will try to get to know your child. I’ll ask him questions about what he likes, what he don’t like, sing songs, maybe play a game, etc. Just to break the ice a little, so by the time the session starts, your child is happy and more familiar with me. Making sure you’re there early enough to have this time is probably one of the most important tips I can give you for your child’s session.

Kid’s of all ages feel the parent’s stress. This is another important reason to arrive a little early for your session. Especially when it comes to the back-to-back mini sessions!  If you’re having a stressful day, and are running uber late, than your child likely won’t be at their best either for their session. The key to a successful session really is to plan out the time, arrive early and have that little bit of time to chat prior to the actual photoshoot.

Once we’ve done a session and your child realizes that I’m not scary and we have fun together, the next session shouldn’t need much warm up time at all, if any. But for the very first session together, it is a must.