Photographing your own children isn’t the easiest task in the world but when you’re a professional family photographer with over twenty years experience there’s a little more pressure on your shoulders to deliver.

Over the past four years I’ve succeeded and failed in equal measures in my attempts to produce images of my daughter that are of the standard I would be happy to deliver to a paying client.

A bad photo of first day of school in a slightly ill fitting and overpriced uniform wasn’t going to be on that list.
So after my wife had made four trips to the same shop to buy and return the wrong sized uniform we set a date to come into the studio.

The plan was try and photograph my daughter in both the summer dress and the winter tartan thing.
The brief I set myself was simple : take Better School Photos.
You can see some of them and a great offer to have some of your own at Better School Photos.

In theory this should have been a simple task….but when is anything with a 4 year old simple? Enjoy the outtakes (they are always my favourite anyway).

The five stages of child negotiation

In over ten years of photographing families in the studio and on location I have yet to witness the following work. Not all of the five stages happen in every photoshoot but it’s fair to say that at least two would be a modest average in any family photoshoot.
Despite this knowledg that did not stop me as a parent from attempting every single one of them in the 25 minutes our photoshoot took.

Bribery
“If you do what I say then chocolate and childhood obesity will very much be a possibility in your not too distant future”

Threats
“Behave or we’ll cancel your birthday party which despite being 10 months away you already seem to have planned in full”.

Bargaining
“Grandma would love a nice picture of you and it’ll support our campaign to solidify your position as the favourite grandchild”.

Begging
“Please, just please”

And finally

Acceptance
“Fine, if that’s the way you want to look then don’t blame me in ten years about your digital footprint”

Not happy with your child’s school photos?
Then why not have some Better School Photos taken?