It’s been a while since I’ve written a Tips post so I figure there’s no time like the present. Let’s face it, parents get really stressed about have family portraits done. There’s so much to think about! You have to coordinate clothing and make sure the kids have haircuts. I won’t even mention getting to the location on time. Well, I did mention it, but I could go on. Seriously.

The point is that for parents, it can be a daunting task to even get the kids out of the house to a family portrait session. Then, when you get everyone there, you’ve spent so much time and energy planning the session, the least your kids could do is cooperate, right? This is where I come in. I want you to RELAX. My job is to take over once you’ve gotten everyone there. And here’s how you can make it even easier on yourself. Make it a game and make it fun.

What I mean by making it a game is that you can go two ways when telling the kids about the big family portrait. The first is to say, in a very stern voice, “We are having our pictures taken this Saturday morning and I expect you all to be on your best behavior!” Geez, no pressure there, Mom.

Or, you can use what I call “The Suzanne Family Fun Method”. This is when you mention, in a totally causal way, that you’re really looking forward to hanging out with the family on Saturday. This works best for parents with tweens and teens. If they’re interested in hearing more, they will ask. Now, if you have little ones, let’s say under the age of 10, you would say something like, “Saturday is supposed to be nice. Let’s go to the park and have a picnic and then maybe go for ice cream!” Oh, and by the way, some lady is going to be there with us and take a few photos.

You may get my not-so-subtle hint here that making it into a fun experience will get you far better results. Some people think that not mentioning it at all is the way to go. The thought here is that if you don’t mention it, no one will complain. Personally, I don’t like surprises and I’ve noticed that my kids do much better when I set the expectation ahead of time. Put yourself in their shoes for a minute. Imagine, for a moment, that you’re thinking about spending a relaxing Saturday morning drinking coffee and reading the paper, but then your spouse springs on you that he or she has decided to take a trip to Ikea or head to your mother-in-law’s. You wouldn’t be too happy. Our kids are not different.

Once they know that a family outing is planned, they have plenty of time to prepare mentally. The key here is telling them how FUN it’s going to be. And giving them a reward, like ice cream, for all their good behavior is just an added bonus. Make it into a game and an opportunity to have fun, semi-structured time with them. You will be so happy with the results!

I met with Bill and we spoke for about an hour. He gave me some very concrete suggestions on how to approach mealtimes as well as spelling out what was expected from the children, specifically, my son. That evening I explained the process to my husband that Bill had laid out – I felt it was important to provide a unified front. The next day, we implemented his suggestions and had some success. Over the next few weeks we enjoyed much more peaceful mealtimes. Since then, we have sometimes fallen back into old behaviors, but I remind myself about some of things Bill taught me and we usually get right back on track.

There are certain strengths each of us has, as people and as parents. I personally know there are areas of my parenting skills that are stronger than others. When faced with an ongoing issue, I ask friends, family, and sometimes professionals to see if there is something I can try differently. This is how Bill Corbett helps families.

I will be posting some articles from Bill over the next few months on our Articles/News page. Here is a great article he’s written about how to turn little everyday moments into not only a learning opportunity, but also a time to share something together as a family.

Enjoy!

Thanks to everyone who submitted their ideas. It was great and I might actually have to follow some of the advice!

Kris’ suggestions were: (1) Lake Wyola, Butterfly Museum, & Yankee Candle  (2) Norman Rockwell Museum, Red Lion Inn  (3) Mystic Aquarium, Mystic Pizza & shops.

Chances are, if you are like most adults, you really do not like having your photograph taken. When you do have the guts to actually put yourself in front of a camera, you feel self-conscious and not at all comfortable.

Well, it really doesn’t need to be that way. I take pride in being able to make people feel comfortable. In fact, I’m not afraid to act goofy if it makes you feel better and helps to lighten the mood. After all, if you are relaxed and are having fun, your photographs will reflect that.

Here are a few examples of some business portraits I’ve created with people who are just like you.

Smiles  -Suzanne

Back in the day, (geez, I sound like my grandfather) we all had film cameras. We would bring our roll of film to the local drugstore and have prints made. It was kind of exciting. After all, it had been about six months since we took some of those photos and we had completely forgotten what was even on that roll of film. So, then we would get back a set of prints and the negatives. If we were really organized, we might even keep all those negatives in a place that was easy to find. But, most likely, they were tossed here and there and were destined to a life of anonymity.

So here we are in the digital age with all these digital files floating around in our computers. We all have different ways of organizing information, but I’ll share with you what I do.

First, I like to download my photos from my camera as often as possible, especially after a family event like a birthday.
Second, I label the folder as the date, such as “032109- xxx birthday”. This stands for March 21, 2009, along with the type of event.
Third, I rename all the files that were created on that date to this general number, then add a dash and image number. It would look like this:

032109-01
032109-02
032109-03, etc.

This way, I know exactly when the image was created, since the filename is typically printed on the back of photographs when printed from any of the major photo processing stores. And, since the filename will always be unique using this method, I don’t need to worry about duplicate names like, “christmas”, or “jimmy’s birthday”.

As for the storage, I personally recommend getting an external hard-drive to store digital photos and videos. Having an external hard-drive frees up space on your computer’s hard-drive, and, if you’re really into backing up, you could store the images in both places to ensure that you will have the files if something bad should happen to one or the other.