Family Portraits and the Art of Manipulating Children

Kids are funny. They are miniature adults in a lot of ways. They don't like to be told what to do anymore than adults do. Just like adults, they may do as they are told because they feel like they have to, or they will punished in some way if they don't (anyone have a job to know what I mean?). That doesn't make them happy about it. However, kids are much easier to manipulate than adults. You might want to say "convince to do what you want" if you don't like the idea of manipulating children. It all comes from the level of excitement and the possibility something may be fun. For this image, I convinced this young man into thinking that pointing at the birds and trees outside would be fun thing to do. I love the photograph of him doing something totally normal for kids that adults don't do - being excited to look out the window into his own yard. :)

This photograph was taken with natural light in his Kirkland home with a Canon 5D Mark III and Sigma 50mm f1.4 lens set to f1.8.