Toddlers are great. They’re also not known for standing still on request. This little one was just under two, which is a perfectly good age for a family session and also an age where “stay there and look at me” has a roughly thirty-second shelf life.
The plan with toddlers is always the same. Get the shots you need while the novelty of the studio holds, work through mum and dad together, mum on her own, dad on his own – what I call a mix and match session – and keep things moving at a pace that works for everyone. And when all hope of keeping them in one place is officially lost, turn on the bubble machine.
It works every time. The bubbles buy enough time for a few more shots, and the results are usually some of the most natural images of the whole session. Hard to look self-conscious when you’re surrounded by bubbles.
Mix and match sessions are a nice way to build up a proper set of family portraits in one visit – something for the wall with everyone in it, something just of the two of them, and something of the little one doing his own thing entirely.
