A Day with Elise

I got to spend a beautiful afternoon with Vanessa's baby girl, Elise and Rona's bouncing baby boy, Zaqi. I never really realized how challenging it is to take portraits of little children. There were three others (aside from me) who made sure these two babies didn't keep moving and crawling around the place. Her mom, Vanessa, also brought two other cute baby girl outfits which were just perfect. It's seems so much fun to dress up a little girl.

These photos might look spontaneous and easy but you have no idea how many funny faces we made just to make her look at the camera and smile. Elise is eleven months old as of the time I took these. She already knows how to crawl and that's what she kept doing each time we put her in place. Whew! Really exhausting but really fun nonetheless. And when you see some good moments captured, all that effort is worth it.

And despite all that, I think the great thing in photographing children is that almost all pictures you take are real. You can't make them pose or give you the facial expressions you want. The best you can do is do something that will bring out those expressions from them. Whether they're uncomfortable, or happy, or surprised or confused, you see it in their faces and that's something really priceless when you are able to capture it in the camera.

Elise was photographed at the Forest Camp, Valencia, Negros Oriental last September 2, 2012.