Maggie, Kevin and their adorable and curious son Finn met with me for their September Family Session at Laurelwood Arboretum. Late Summer through the Fall is the BEST time for sessions at Laurelwood. As a family, you get to explore all of the overgrown variety of plants in the gardens. Children have so much fun playing and looking around at everything here. The sun was shining and everything in the gardens is green and blooming.

Family sessions should 100% be all about play and exploration. If you feel a meltdown coming on, it’s best to just allow your child to continue to explore. We’d rather have happy candids than tears and forced posing!

Some Tips:

1. Bring your child(ren)’s favorite toys, books, snacks and have some of their favorite songs queued up on your phone!

2. Allow for play time. DO not force a child to sit and pose, it never ends well. Let them be. Usually the first 10 minutes or so they are alert and taking in their surroundings. This is the best time for posed photos. After that, let them run around and play! We’ll snap candids. When they come back to you on their own, that’s when we’ll try the next round of posed smiling-at-the-camera portraits.

3. When it comes to snacks, think of little food like rice puffs, Cheerios or even mini marshmallows. Something that will really make an impact with an instant gratification reward, but isn’t too messy or sticky. We want your child to be able to gobble it quickly without getting crumbs or liquid all over the hands or face. We also don’t want your child to be mid-chew in the photos!

4. Bring a change of clothes! Family sessions are an hour long and anything can happen in 60 minutes! Especially outdoors. Bring back up clothes for your children, but also for yourselves!

5. Have fun! This shouldn’t be a chore. We just want to naturally document your family as if you’re out doing an activity together, which you are!

 

We had so much fun with the Norton family at Laurelwood Arboretum. Finn is inquisitive and just wants to see and touch everything. He was such a good sport the entire time and didn’t shed one tear! 🙂