stress free family vaca photos.
POINT OF VIEW:
you’re on your annual family vacation with your littles. it’s after dinner and you’re waiting for the sun to start setting to catch that perfect beach glow for those family photos you scheduled, but it’s starting to get closer to bedtime and you can tell by the kids moods. you’re getting everyone ready in those cute outfits but fits are being thrown because we don’t want to wear those cute outfits mom worked so hard to coordinate. we’re getting tired after a long day at the beach in the sun. mom and dad start getting a little stressed and frustrated as the kids become more and more irritable. we finally make it out to the beach and now everyone look happy and smile!! we have such a short window to catch these perfect beach photos, but now we’re questioning whether it was all worth it or not.
I don’t know about you, but this is what it felt like when we tried to do family photos with multiple kids under the age of 4. The end of the day is never our best time of day and I always wondered why we did this to ourselves. so let me flip the script for you.
NEW POINT OF VIEW:
you’re on your annual family vacation with your littles. it’s morning time and everyone is waking just a little earlier because we’re at the beach and we’re excited because it’s a new environment and so much fun is to be had! mom and dad grab their morning coffee and give the kids a bite to eat while the rest of the family, grandparents, aunts and uncles, are all still sleeping. to keep the house quiet, you decide to go out to the beach. you throw on some cute clothes and head out to where the sand is cool, the sun is just starting to rise, it’s quiet and the water is calm. you let your little ones run free and play in their morning energy where they’re content, happy and more rested. you take your phone out and capture some photos of your babies playing. they end up turning out so cute and sweet. somehow you’re surprised at how easy it was to capture such cuteness without the heightened emotion.
I know an iPhone isn’t quality like a professional photographer and one day we will have kids who are older that stay up later, don’t have as many mood swings because they aren’t so little anymore, and then we’ll pay the professional photographer to come and take photos of us where we won’t all be as agitated. For now though, in these little years, do what you can with what you have to save the stress, to be with those littles of yours playing, and create a more relaxed + fun environment for everyone. as parents of littles, we know that forcing them to do something is unlikely without emotion on one of our parts.
I’ve been taking sunrise photos of my babies since 2020 and it truly makes such a difference. I want to have these photos to hold onto as they get older, a way to savor these memories, but I want it to be without the stress. I promise this way is much more lighthearted. Have you tried it? . bonus tip — bring a little tripod or another family member who might already be awake with you to take some videos of you playing with your kids or maybe a family video of you all together that you can screenshot still images on.