If the victory flag I wave over 1-year-old’s sessions is grounded in adaptability, then I have a confession to make: the very photography ground I walk on is adaptability. When I realized that a certain pose, method, or idea doesn’t look good or work well for every person, it was freeing to “un-marry” myself from all those molds and embrace what works. It was positively liberating when I realized I didn’t WANT it to work the same for everyone!
I don’t want a shot; I want a person!
Newborns for an example, out of the last several I’ve done, when I’ve started to wrap them in almost every case a parent has told me something to the effect of, “Good luck! (S)He hates to have their arms wrapped.” I assure the parents that after a good faith effort, if the baby truly doesn’t settle into it, we’ll happily give it up and do what makes baby happy.
Some babies settled right into it. Some liked it better the second try. One, I nixed the wrap and went for plan B. Not one, NOT ONE have I sat down at the computer afterwards feeling like it was a failure, because no matter what shot we did or didn’t grab, we always got the baby- a happy baby- and that’s the goal waaaaay over a specific shot or pose.
For little Hunter, here, I not only got in one wrap, but two! We got in all things Daddy and Mommy (antlers, Packers, and softball!). We got fingers and toes and pudge for days. We got some pretty special family moments in a way they couldn’t have been last year, and will be so changed by next year. Though this session is everything baby, it’s REALLY everything baby Hunter. Goal met.
Congratulations to my brother and sister-in-law on one pretty fabulous little man. <3
