3 year portraits

Well, it's official.  My children are fully afflicted with "photographer's child syndrome."  Where most kids break out their cheesiest grins and are happy to stop and pause for a picture, my children will cut and run the minute they hear the lens cap come off.  They hide their faces, refuse to smile, refuse to sit still.  Or, worse yet, when asked to smile, they throw up the most goofy, cheesiest grins imaginable, ones that cause their eyes to become slits and making it impossible to garner the all-important catchlights that we so desperately hope to achieve in our images. 

I used to think that my kids were just being, well, my kids.  Bull-headed, stubborn, uncooperative and obstinant. Through research, I've come to learn that this is a very common phenonmenon amongst aspiring and established photographers and their kiddos.  Worse yet, for those of us just starting out, our children are our most readily-available practice subjects.  Problem is, you usually get less than 5 minutes of their cooperation (and that's if your damn lucky and if you have bribes available).  With that limited amount of cooperation, it is almost next to impossible to get a decent image out of the shoot.

Take for instance Exhibit A below.  It is a slideshow of the final images of my pathetic attempt to capture The Boy's 3-year-old portraits.  What you see in these final 10 images is what I culled from over 40+ images that I shot (in less than half an hour).  As you can clearly see, over half of thoses images would be considered outtakes, leaving perhaps three or four decent poses to use as the official portrait.  40+ images in less than 30 minutes.  I think it took me LONGER to set up my gear, get my lighting and exposure figured out than it did to shoot that turkey. 

When I first suggested to him that we "play with mommy's camera and lights and he can be the superstar" he was all for it, and eagerly cooperated in getting dressed, hair combed, etc.  I got everything all set up and he was in it for about three minutes.  In that time I got the first shot you see (the one of him sitting with pretzel-legs, barefoot), but from then on it was catch-as-catch-can.  Then we got him goofing off (see the one of him making faces).  Then we have the "impending apocalypse" shot:  Jonathan in full meltdown because mommy shut off the TV (it was stealing his eyes from the lens).  Then, following that, you see him eating fruit snacks; my last-ditch effort to sustain his attention for just a few more minutes, hoping beyond hope I could get just one more goodie out of the bunch.  And then you have the capstone shot:  the one where he is sticking his tounge out at me.  That is classic "Jonathan at Age 3."  It just screams "I've had enough.  Bite me, Mom."