I have done project 365 for over 100 days, and one thing I know for sure I love in photography is photographing children. Strangely, I only posted a very few children photos to date. Not that I did not take a lot of them, I consciously wanted to try to shoot other things, and posted them instead of the children photos. I feel there is a danger of specialising too much too soon if I only limit myself of photographing little children. As a newbie photographer my approach is to try to imitate the learning process of a management trainee in a corporation. A management trainee has to go from one department to another in order to learn as much as knowledge as possible that at the end of the program they can choose which area suits them best based on skills and interest. I may not be as systematic in my learning, but you get the idea.

Children are both a joy and a nightmare to shoot. Their expression is so pure and raw, which is a joy. But their sudden mood swift can be quite a nightmare. They are not as self-conscious as us adults. When they are happy then their whole being just brighten up buzzing happiness and joy; twinkling eyes, ear to ear grin, probably even a jump. But to get them that happy is a different ball game all together. Even when they cry some kids can still look cute. I think their energy is what draws me to them. To capture the energy and innocent emotions of children in photographs is one of the things I want to master.

Today was the last Friday of the kids’ school holiday, we were just mucking around at home, then I suddenly had the idea of taking photos of my kids together because we haven’t done it for a while of them together. After we agreed on acceptable bribery, I told them just to sit together and ready for my instructions. I did not want them to pose too much, not that they would be willing to listen to me anyway, but I asked them to sit together. I wanted a nice brother&sister photo of them together that hopefully will show each kid’s personality.

It was a simple plan, wasn’t it? Noooo. I caught myself yelling out things to them it was so far away from a nice peaceful photo session that I envisioned in my head.

“foot out of your brother’s face, please”
“no, I said take her shoulder, not strangling her”
“Toys OFF your mouth, please!!!”
“Look at me! Look at me with eyes OPEN”
“No, thank you, but we are not shooting your bellybutton”
“Can you just let her breath?!”
“Don’t squash your brother’s eye!”
“Hair. Off. Your. Mouth”

Despite the “colourful” session, we had a good time and had a lot of laughs. It’s a good thing the room was beautifully lit and I have a great fast lens that I did not have to spent too much time changing the set up. A lot of images turned out really great. This one is my favourite of the bunch. Hope you like it.