Taking photos of children

Two tips:  Give them something fun or interesting to do and don't ask them to smile.

With average parents, eager to show off every move of their offspring's lives for the first couple of years, equipped with point-and-shoot digital cameras, cell phones and occasional trips to the photo booths set up in K-Mart or whatever, a child may have been asked to smile literally hundreds of times by the time they reach the ripe old age of two.  And let's not forget that most have been besieged by the four grandparents and other relatives with cameras as well.  Some children are quite tolerant of this but others grow tired and weary of the request, and, forced to smile, will in fact produce a forced smile.  I've seen children by the age of four or five who refused to even look at the camera.

Catching a child off guard is simple enough if they have something to get involved in.  You may have to wait a short while until they get used to the fact that there is a camera present.  Sling it over your shoulder or set it aside and play with the child before making photos.  Short attention spans and fun distractions will soon make the camera's presence unimportant and of little interest to the child.

In this case, I had to jump in the leaves for a while as well and it became a game that had nothing to do with making pictures.