I have endless problems getting my sons to pose for me.  It’s probably mostly due to the sheer volume of photos that I take. As a result, I’ve been known to bribe my kids for a smile.

At the moment, however, the easiest way to get my oldest son to pose is to let him use my camera for a short while.  Yes, he’s only 5, and I have a DSLR; but with the strap around his neck and me following close behind, there’s only so much damage he can do to it (and he’s quite good at it now too!).

It only takes about 5 minutes before he’s bored with taking photos of arbitrary items, and then I steer him towards the area that I’ve found for the portrait shots that I want.

Last weekend, I actually asked him to take some photos of me first.  Partly because I wanted to see whether the background worked, or whether it was too busy; but mostly because I knew he’d eventually ask for “his turn” (especially because I was pulling funny faces for most of the shots that he took).

Hee hee, at least I got my shots in the end

Jeanette is a South African working mother of 2 very busy boys. She’s been taking a photograph every day since June 2007 and you can watch her skills improve at Photography by Jeanette.