All Smiles for Mom
Can't you tell she was glad I was taking her picture?!
Teens these days love pictures of themselves. The evidence is all around us. I think just about every teen with a facebook page has at least ten self-portraits. You have seen them… those shots where you only see one arm because the other arm is stretched to its limit holding the camera pointing toward the teen’s face. And you’ve no-doubt seen the self-portraits taken in the bathroom mirror.
So, why is it that these same teens are so annoyed when their parents point the camera at them? This phenomenon is just as common as the teen self-portrait. The teen in question sees a parent trying to take a few pictures to capture a special moment in their teen’s life and suddenly the smiling, happy teen becomes sullen or annoyed and the happy face is replaced with a frown or a snarl.
I was recently taking some pictures of a friend’s teen and her pals before they headed to the homecoming dance. I was trying to get the pictures done quickly so they could head out, and also trying to be sure to get shots of each of the kids and each of the couples as well as a few groupings. And I might have been a little bossy in the process, I’ll admit it. So as I called out some instructions to the teens and they quickly did what I asked, I overheard one of their parents saying something to the effect of, “If I were telling her to do that she wouldn’t be so cooperative.”
That's more like it!
It’s something I’ve seen with my teens asI have a hard time getting them to pose cooperatively sometimes too. They get pretty irritated with me but when my good friend Elise Beall, who has a photography business and who has taken beautiful portraits of my girls since they were tiny, tells them what to do, or how to pose, or even to do something completely out of their comfort zones, they comply immediately and cheerfully. So it was no surprise when I started taking some pictures of Katie cheering at the football game last weekend and I started getting some flack. At least she was pretty good-natured about it and made some funny faces that I actually kind of liked once I sat down at the computer and looked at them. I think I may have captured the real spirit of Katie… pure silliness.
I persevered and backed up a few rows in the bleachers, and eventually Katie forgot I was there and I got some fun shots of her just being herself and doing what she does. I’m glad to have the moment captured and I think someday she’ll be glad to have the pictures to look back at. Funny thing… some of those pictures our teens are so irritated at us for taking end up on their Facebook pages along with all the self-portraits. I interpret that as a request for me to bring my camera with me and take more. I’m sure that’s what the teens are trying to tell me, right?!
How much does your teen love when you take pictures of them?
