01 Child Safety - First and foremost is child safety, weather in the studio or on location (beach photos, beach weddings, boardwalk photos, etc.) the safety of the child or children is always of the utmost importance. In the more than two and a half decades Richard has had the photography studio (the Perfect Exposure) located in downtown Ocean City, NJ he has never had an injured child. Although taking an exciting and different photograph is essentially why clients hire a professional child photographer, a real professional can achieve this goal safely.

02 Parents as a Prop - Just like a beauty pageant the perfect children's photograph or family portrait has 3 crucial elements in which it can be judged, These three key elements are Emotion, Technicality, and Artistic Appearance. Both the technical and artistic aspects are relatively easy for an seasoned professional photographer. The third element, emotion, well this is usually easier to achieve using something your child or adolescent subject is both familiar and comfortable with, usually their family such as parents or older sibling etc. Sure a photographer can make a little girl smile, but a daddy can put a sparkle in his little girl's eye like know one else on earth. A truly professional photographer will utilize all the tools available to him when taking a child portrait.

03 Question? - Ask and answer lots of them. Asking questions and answering questions with both the subjects parent's and the child him or herself will not only break the ice between us and the child being photographed but in our years of photographing children we have realized that the more comfortable the child's parents are with us the more comfortable the child is. This makes for a terrific family photo or children's picture that will create the lasting memory we are all trying to capture during the photo shoot. Asking questions and engaging in conversation with the child being photographed also lets us discover their vision of the perfect picture too. In today's world with technology being the way it is we usually shoot many more pictures for our clients to choose from then we did 20 years ago. the reason being that in today's world we are digital so that cuts down on some of the costs that used to be a consideration when cameras used to use film.

04 Explain Yourself - During the child's photography session we have found that explaining what is going on, weather during setup or changing something because of background or lighting, keeping the child clued in helps them not only feel involved with their portrait session but also breaks the ice between us. Again, the child being comfortable with us is an important part of the photo session. Their parents are obviously comfortable with our professionalism and experience as well as the quality of our work or they wouldn't have chosen us over another photography studio.

05 Details - We all know the old saying about details, well in portrait photography, details are a major part of what we are all there to capture. It is the careful attention to detail that a professional photographer brings to the photo session that makes the difference between a beautiful child portrait and a snapshot. Photographing children is truly an acquired art that you get better at the longer you do it. Some things can be planned and some just can't. I mean lets face it children, whether they are yours or mine are unpredictable by nature. As professional photographers we understand this and focus on the details we can control and let nature take its course for the rest.