Photographs of Children to Document Growth

Photographs of Children to Document Growth

by William Lulow

I have always liked to make photographs of children that document their growth from year to year. I started back before I opened a commercial studio in 1980. I had many friends who wanted me to take pictures of their kids, usually for holiday greeting cards. I did the same for my own child, but I have been more insistent about doing so with my grandchildren. The best way to see a change in a person or even an object for that matter, is to photograph them with the same background or in the same place every year. With images of children, you can then really begin to see some differences as well as similarities because you are documenting the same person.

Here is my  granddaughter Dylan’s portraits for the last three years:

You can begin to see how much more grown up she looks in her six-year-old photograph than in her four-year-old one. One of the real exciting emotions I feel doing this each year is because I can really see the changes. Even though I spend a lot of time with each of them, both girls have been a pleasure to watch.

Here is Haylie’s growth document:

What I love about these images is that in the latest one, she looks so much more confident of who she is as an eight-year-old. (Actually, here she is really 8 and a half.) I really wanted to limit the images to the last three years of both children because I am much more amazed by their growth.

In addition, their reaction to the process of sitting for my camera has grown as well. They have matured and are much more able to take instruction as to poses. The expressions are great as well because they are reacting to me not just as a photographer but as their “Poppy” as well. I have also photographed the girls together for the last several years. Here is the latest one:

And here is the year before:

As I mentioned and as they get older, I can talk to them about posing and they get it. When they were much younger, I had to be ready to capture a moment when they were paying attention and not just playing. Photographing children at any age is all about having a particular set up and being ready to take pictures at the very beginning of the session all the way to the end, which is usually when they get tired of posing or just sitting for the camera. It’s also about cajoling them into participating in the process. I often will play a game with them to get them to forget that it’s a “formal” portrait sitting. Sometimes I will have them make faces or joke around. Other times I will have them jumping. My mentor in this process, the world famous portrait photographer Philippe Halsman, used to do jumping pictures of his famous subjects. He thought it was a way of getting them to relax while in front of the camera. He even made up a “science” of it and called it “jumpology.” Here is one of Dylan sort of jumping:

For me, it is just a way of playing with the children in order to get them involved. That is the mark of a good portrait photographer anyway. Once your subjects are distracted enough and not thinking about the actual act of posing for pictures, they become willing participants in the entire process and you can see it in their eyes. That’s part of the success of any photographer photographing any animate subject.