A Minor Challenge
Shooting children or children’s parties is way more challenging than shooting a wedding.
Yes, I’m not exaggerating. Children are not the most cooperative subjects on earth (for parents like me, they display this characteristic most in the middle of the night). We can direct (grown-up) couples to stand in a particular spot or execute a certain action to achieve the best effect. Can’t do that with kids. Couples will “obey” our instructions, will dig in when the going gets tough, and rarely complain.
For most birthday parties, parents rarely go to the extent of spending obscene amount of money to plan one (at least not in my circle), so there’s no tens of thousands of dollars worth of floral decor, stationery or jaw-dropping venues etc which are things that help make shooting a wedding far easier than it is. Most of the time, it’s a function room, or a simple restaurant, with a few balloons, some entertainment and some guests who’d show up in very “equatorial-friendly” attire. Things get messy, schedules go awry (if a baby wants to sleep, the baby sleeps) and because it is a children’s party, there’s an air of laissez faire to it.
Things can, of course, can be easier if I just take the standard shots (family pictures, shots of the cakes and birthday boy/girl). Predictably, we at Tinydot don’t do standard things. I want to shoot a birthday party like I shoot a wedding: to capture the precious candid moments that transpire as the family celebrates another milestone. It’s how I like my family album to look like.
I’ve been photographing Yu Heng’s family for several years already, and the fact that he has three other siblings mean that I can be kept busy throughout the year. 
Here, he’s celebrating his fourth birthday in his pre-school, where his elder sister Jiaxuan studies in also. Another familiar face is Captain Dazzle, an amazing magician who knows how to liven things up and keeps the children enthralled throughout the hour he was there. Fun for me too.
Sonia is the one-year-old first child of Sarah and Tommy. There are referrals from another long-time client of mine, Valerie, whose two sons have been the subjects of my camera a few times. Sonia, being the only girl and child of her age group in the family, naturally becomes the centre of attention and the undisputed Princess. But it was clear that even I came under the charm of Princess Sonia!
Years ago, I did a casual pre-wedding portrait session with Chris and Denise. They were decked out in Reds jerseys as they are die-hard Liverpool fans (so am I). Years later, the new addition, Ian (not sure if he’s named after Rush) is slowly being groomed to take over the family mantle. It’ll be a sight when the whole family sing “You’ll Never Walk Alone” the next time the Reds lift that elusive Premier League trophy.
