Running a small business is no easy task. It's messy and thrilling and terrifying all at the same time. But no matter what, it's definitely a journey worth taking. As a mom of two littles,
I know the daily struggles, and I'm here to walk this journey with you. If you're ready to feel empowered, encouraged and on fire for the things you truly love, and you're in the right place. I'm Rebecca Rice, a pizza loving hot chocolate drinking family photographer and educator. And this is the business Journey podcast. Hey, friends, welcome back to another episode of the business Journey podcast. I'm your host, Rebecca. And today we are talking about tips for posing kids. Posing is one of those topics that is kind of a hot topic in the industry, especially among my students. And so I can't wait to dive in. Now before we do, I wanted to share with you a free resource that I have that I know is going to be super helpful for you. This is a blueprint to help you hit your first $3,000 from a single set of mini sessions. And when I'm talking about a set of minis, I mean, like a single date, maybe two to three hours of shooting, not all day. And you bring in at least $3,000, if not more. So if that sounds attractive to you, maybe you've never had minis before, or maybe you have and you've never hit more than $3,000 on a single set of minis this blueprint is for you. Inside, I walk you through the step by step process for you to be able to make that first $3,000 on a set of minis I call it a blueprint because it's repeatable. It's the kind of thing that you can take and apply to your own business. And I know that it's going to be helpful for you. So we will link that in the shownotes for you. And if you want to check it out. It's Rebecca rice photo.com/ 3k Dash minis, that's the number three the letter K dash minis, so be sure and grab that resource. So let's talk about posing kids. Whenever I talk to photographers, and they find out that I'm a family photographer, and they're let's say a wedding photographer. One of the things that they say they're like, oh my gosh, how do you handle all the kids because it's naturally sounds overwhelming. And honestly, for me, I'm like, give me all the toddlers. I love photographing toddlers, I think they're amazing and so funny. And I just love photographing kids. And so I wanted to give you guys some very simple practical tips. When you're posing kids, I know we're like headed into spring mini sessions season. So hopefully you can apply these things to your minis, or whatever it is that you're shooting, you can take these things, write them down, keep them on a quick note in your phone or whatever. That way you can access them and kind of just refresh right before a session and apply them. So tip number one for posing kids, the first thing I would say is when you arrive, get them comfortable with you. And with your camera. You know, obviously you want to get them comfortable with you because that you're a stranger and stranger danger, right? Not all kids are super outgoing. A lot of times kids show up and they're shy. And you know, they're fearful of interacting with somebody that they don't know, you're big, you're scary and your face that they don't recognize. And so you want to take a little bit to get them comfortable. A lot of the times this means you know, interacting with their older siblings or mom and dad letting them know that you're a safe person. And you know, you can ask questions about the kid to see you know, what kinds of things they enjoy. I know for us, we send out a pre session questionnaire, which is available in our shop if you want to check it out. But in this questionnaire, you can ask questions like What is your child interested in just so that you can get to know them a little bit before the session, ask them questions, you can just kind of chat with them to get them comfortable. But another step that a lot of times is overlooked, especially with young kids is to get them comfortable with your camera because that is a big piece of equipment that they've probably never seen before. And it can be scary. And so one thing that I do especially for those babies and toddlers is I will snap a photo and then show them the back of my camera so
they can see how it works. Because they know what a picture is. Most of them have, you know seen photos on mommy or daddy's phones. They know how it works. They've just never seen a DSLR and so by snapping a couple pictures and showing them behind the camera to say look, I'm just taking your picture just like on mommy's phone. That really helps them get comfortable with your camera. And so usually I'll show them the picture I'll say who is that and they smile. That's me. That's mommy. Or you know they say their name my son. His name is Carson but he calls himself Parson so he would say best parson. So whatever but getting them comfortable with you and your camera is still Step one, it is so, so important. The next thing that I would keep in mind when posing kids is to keep things light and fun. Okay, this is not the time for mom and dad to be, you know, disciplining the child for them not listening and blah, blah, blah. One thing that I tell clients when we're preparing for this session, is I let them know that this is time for them to relax, that I will handle their child, their role is just to sit back and enjoy the session. And so, you know, if a kid's not listening, I'm going to pull out all the tricks in the book, but I can, but this is not the time to yell at a kid for not listening. We want to keep things light and fun, so that we can get smiles because there's nothing worse than a kid getting yelled at, or disciplined. And then you have them crying the rest of the session, right. So keep things light and fun. Play games make it seem super, super fun and not like a chore to sit and smile and take pictures. The next tip I have kind of piggybacks off of that, that is to use posing prompts. I'm a big fan of posing prompts, because they really help just have everybody relax and capture those real genuine smiles. None of those like fake forced smiles that a lot of kids have. And so using posing prompts really, really helps. If you want a list of 60 Posing prompts I have that available on my shop. It's called my complete family posing system. I have like my step by step workflow of the different poses that I do and then are like the different groupings. And then I have a list of 60 Posing prompts that I use to capture some real sweet genuine moments. So you can check that out if you want in my shop. We'll link it in the show notes for you using those posing prompts. They just really help keep things light and fun. And keep kids interested because you're giving them something to do for example, one of our posing prompts may be run as fast as you can around mommy and daddy or hold hands and you know, bump each other on the hips or whatever the prompts may be. Look at your favorite sibling or who's the funniest I want you to tickle the funniest or something like that, that it gives them something to do that doesn't seem like Hey, sit there and smile and say cheese, right? Because we want to keep things fun. So posing prompts usually go super, super well. Now the next tip is in case these things are not going as planned and the kid is not as interested in, you know, sitting and doing the prompts and stuff always follow their lead, especially with those younger toddlers. I know my son is like a wanderer he wants to explore and see what's around. And so he's a lot less likely to sit and smile. My daughter on the other hand, she'll sit and smile all day, Carson's a wanderer. And so for him, this is something that we have to do is follow his lead, what is he in the mood for does he want to just walk around and you know, bend down and look at some rocks, that's fine, I'm gonna allow him to do that and follow his lead. And then, you know, I'll pull brother and sister next to him. And we can all you know, smile or whatnot. But if it means that we're going to be off the path a little bit, that's fine, we're going to follow the kids lead, because it's so much better to allow them to explore a little bit and then get them to cooperate, then if you just, you know, shut it down, and they're upset because they just want to touch this one rock that they see, right. So you have to have some flexibility in there and follow their leads. That's a really great opportunity to get some sweet candidates I know for me, so my favorite photos of my son are pictures of him like kneeling down holding pebbles, like his little tiny toddler hands like he's three years old. But the last time we got photos he was to, and his little tiny toddler hands and his little face, he's just so cute. And so I'm like love all of those candids of him,
you know, pointing at the sky in an airplane or, you know, running down the road or whatever it is. There's just really sweet moments that I want captured that we wouldn't have any other way. So follow their lead. Then the last tip that I have for you is that when all else fails, use bribes. I am not above a good bribe, especially for photos. And one thing to keep in mind is you want to educate your clients. I always have my clients bring the bribe, so I'm not providing bribes. You just don't know it with allergies and things like that. So I have my clients provide them but I let them know beforehand one to bring them in to to make sure that they are not messy. So we want to avoid chocolate. We want to avoid anything with like a colored coating think m&ms, Skittles, stuff like that. Usually I suggest you know fruit snacks or marshmallows. Marshmallows are great. My kids are obsessed with marshmallows. I don't know about y'all, but because they're white. And so you can't really like sometimes there's a little bit of powder but really for the most part, they're really clean. And so marshmallows are a really great option. But I tell my clients beforehand to bring bribes so that they're ready and to not pull them out until I say so. So if we can go the whole session without a bribe, awesome, because if parents pull the bribes out, right when we start and we wouldn't have needed them until the very end, it eats into our time. It's, you know, wasteful all the things. So I tell them don't bring about until we absolutely have to. And so as you're doing this session, if I can tell that the kids are getting off track that they really need, you know, a boost of motivation, then I'll say, Mommy, do we have something special that we can give? Or do we have any kind of, you know, snack, and I usually check beforehand where the kids can't hear to ask if they brought bribes because you don't want to ask that in front of the kid if there are not bribes. But if there are bribes, then that's when I'll have them pulled out. Hey, now's a great time. Let's pull out our free snacks. If you smile for a gummy, you know, smile for me do a good picture. And then you can have a gummy and kind of do it like that. It's like a reward system, right? If they give a smile, they get a gummy, or they get a marshmallow or whatever. So yeah, we definitely use bribes. And with older kids, a lot of times their bribe is like hey, after this, we'll go get ice cream or after this, we'll eat pizza or whatever. But for the younger kids, usually it's food. Because that's what they respond to is there food in their tummies? Those are some quick tips for posing kids, I may or may not have amazing, massive posing resource coming out at the end of this month. So keep your eyes out. Keep your ears peeled. If you want to be the first to know about it, you can join my email list. If you go to my website or my Instagram, whatever you will find ways join my email list. If you're like, I can't find it, Rebecca, just shoot me an email or shoot me a DM with your email in it. And I'll get you added to our list so that you can know when this amazing new posing resource becomes available. And that's all I'm gonna say for now. We're like kind of keeping it under wraps. But if you follow me on Instagram, you'll start to hear some things. So I'm really really excited about it. It's gonna be awesome. But I hope these easy quick tips were really helpful for you. So with that, we'll go ahead and close out like I said, Follow me on Instagram at Rebecca rice photography. I'm always open in my DMs if you have any questions or just want to chat, and we will see you this time next week. Bye guys.
