Your child is your friend. Yes. Your friend.
Forget, for a moment, about all the sleepless nights, tantrums and constant demands over the years. Forget about the lack of authority you seem to have and the way in which your child can manipulate you at will. Forget also about the costs to your health and bank balance that your child has caused since birth.
Your child IS your friend.
Why?
Because children love having their photograph taken. They never tire of it. Daytime, night time. Indoors or out. They will always be ready and willing. Whether it be a few snapshots in the garden or a formal portrait session, they will be there to help you.
They will strike any pose. They will sit, stand, lay, jump. They will have a multitude of expressions to share smiling, laughing, sad, serious. Its all there waiting for you.
They love props something to hold, something to shake, water, material, sand. And dressing up is all in a days work for the average child.
And, when the images are taken, they wont criticise your efforts even if you, yourself, consider them to be substandard. But if the images you produce are lacking in that certain something, then your child will be there once more, to help out and pose again.
Yes, make friend with that child.
Eric Hartwell runs the photography resource site http://www.theshutter.co.uk and the associated discussion forums as well as the regular weblog at http://thephotographysite.blogspot.com.
