You have to be like a scout – always prepared

Olga, 35, Moscow, Russia:
“My husband has a real professional camera. It must have cost as much as three of my salaries. He has everything: the lighting, the backdrops, the multiple lenses. But you have to carry a big special bag for all of this equipment. It is not convenient you know.”
“So when I was expecting a baby I told him: “I don’t understand your complicated camera, I need a small point-and-shoot camera with just enough megapixels and one button.” I realized that every day and every moment in my child’s life will be unique and will happen only once. And I need to be able to document it on camera at any given moment.”
“So when my baby was born the content of my lady’s bag changed completely. It used to be I would always wear a notepad, and my laptop and stuff for work. Now I would always wear these four things in my bag: a rattle for the child, a diaper, wet tissues, and a camera. When I returned to work after the maternity leave I still had those in my bag for a while.”
“Because you have to be like a scout – always ready to take a picture of some memorable moment in your child’s life.”
“When my son was a little bit older – about 18 months old – it was impossible to have him model and sit still for the picture. All the pictures with him are unplanned, unexpected, un-modeled. So the camera should be always at hand, and it should be really point and shoot. And still you would never know how the shot would come out: his nose only, or his leg only, or his back…”
“We tried to have a session with Easter eggs once. My husband set up the backdrop, adjusted his expensive camera… But all of a sudden, and all within 15 minutes he went from desperate tears, to anger, to laughter. He would not sit still, would attempt to throw the eggs in the air. Then suddenly he would say: “I want to hide behind the chair and you take a picture of the eggs on the chair!” And you can’t argue, you just hope he would peek out eventually. So he ended up looking out behind the chair with the eggs on it.”
“Or this one time I was visiting my mother-in-law and it was a beautiful Indian summer. I had little time and I offered to go take pictures of her with her grandchild in the park. If we had an hour or so we would wait for the son to calm down and we would be able to catch a good shot. But we didn’t have that opportunity so in the end we got pictures of him running away, grabbing the grandma’s hair, crawling away.”
“So you cannot hope to set up and plan a shot with him, you have to be always ready to grab the camera and shoot him the way it goes. And you take a lot of things as they come. You prepare him for shooting and he would soil his t-shirt, or soil my clothes, or spill juice on the white carpet. And you do not get upset you just tell him it is not the way to behave and go change. You take it as it comes.”
“Now he is three and I tell him that I want to take a photo. He agrees, and poses, but runs up to you to look at the picture before I even push the release button. So I have to wait for him to get involved and busy with something. Then he wouldn’t even notice the camera while he is playing with something. But you still have to lay down on the floor or assume some other weird position to be able to take a picture of his face.”


Insights:

- When you want to make pictures of your children, you have to be ready to snap your camera at any moment.
- You have to take it as it comes. Planning and setting up is impossible with little kids.