Written by Many photographers joke around that their kids suffer from PKS–Photographer’s Kid Syndrome. Sure, all kids go through phases when they hate standing still for the camera, but I have to say, I do believe that photographers’ kids often taken their camera loathing to a whole new level. For the longest time, trying to get a decent picture of Cadence was one part comedy routine, two parts acrobatics. I’d chase after her, sing songs, repeat lines from her favorite movies, make fart noises, climb park benches and playground equipment, dive in front of her in the grass–anything I could think of to make her stop and look at me long enough to fire off a couple of shots. Sometimes they were blurry. Sometimes her eyes were half-closed, or half of her face was out of frame. But sometimes, it was magic.
These days, I’m happy to say, that things have taken a turn to my advantage. Suddenly, instead of constantly running and trying to hide from my camera, Cadence seems to have taken a keen interest in Mommy’s work. She likes playing with her toy camera, and sometimes even picks up a random object (like my old voice recorder) and pretends it’s a camera and walks around the house taking pictures of things. Even better, she loves, LOVES, having her picture taken. Anytime I pull my camera out, she immediately starts chirping, “Take Cadence picture? Mommy? You take a picture of Cadence?”
Who can say no to that?
It’s funny though, as a lifestyle photographer, I never tell my clients to “Say cheese.” Instead, I do what I can to capture natural expressions in my work. And Cadence seems to have picked up on this the few times she’s been with me when I’m on a job, because she never pulls out the cheesy smile in front of the camera. In fact, I’m not sure she even knows what a cheesy smile is. I love it because I get to snap photos of my favorite girl exactly as she is, and exactly how I’ll always remember her. The poor folks from Lifetouch who took her pictures at preschool though, they didn’t quite know what to do with my sweet girl who won’t smile on command.
Here are a few of my girl I snapped back in August when we were in Colorado taking my sister Whitney’s senior pictures…
Lori Romano 