I just wanted to take a minute to talk about the importance of the pre-session warm-up.
How to get your child to warm up for a session! What is this, you might ask? This is the photographer-child interaction time that occurs before we begin the session. I always suggest that you show up a little bit early, maybe 10-15 minutes, to your session, so we have this time to get to know each other. Especially with young children, it’s going to be a little bit scary interacting with someone they’ve never met before. We want to ensure we can show off your child’s personality, so we want them to be comfortable with me and the environment.
If we were to throw them into the middle of the session and there’s this stranger with a camera jumping around trying to get them to look and smile, your child is going to tense up, and there may even be confusing. So we want everything to run smoothly.
If you can arrive early, this will allow me time to introduce myself to your child and try to get a vibe on how the session will go. Some children warm up right away, while others need the entire warm-up time to start to feel comfortable and come out of their shells. And that’s OK!
After I introduce myself, I will try to get to know your child. Then, I’ll ask him questions about what he likes, what he doesn’t like, sing songs, maybe play a game, etc. To break the ice a little, so by the time the session starts, your child is happy and more familiar with me.
*Making sure you’re there early enough to have this time is probably one of the most important tips I can give you for your child’s session.
Once we’ve done a session, and your child realizes that I’m not scary and we have fun together, the next session shouldn’t need much warm-up time at all if any. But for the very first session together, it is a must.
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