18 Dec Christmas Kinders
I got to spend a few hours with a batch of 80 kinders in the Yelm School District. Talk about amusing as all heck. It’s an amazing age for kids as they are still anxious to please the adults in their lives. Translation – they’ll not question a single thing I ask them to do in front of the camera. This is essentially the ideal subject, an instant trust bond, which can be hard to reel-in with even adults to get them to perform for the camera. If you don’t believe in the process the process can’t happen, you don’t get the desired photos. With the kinders, it’s the metaphorical home run every time. Stand like this, look that way, put your hands in the air, looked surprised… you name it, it was like a game of Simon says. There was never a look of question when I requested a certain gesture, it was just done, so awesome. It took me a little bit to warm up to this full realization. My sister, Chelan, is actually one of the teachers at the school and was there to help the photos along, shuffle groups of kids back and forth from rooms, etc. She started the kids with posing and literally molded these kids into goofy, over-the-top cliche poses, and it just happened. It meshed really well with the awesomely bad photo backdrops created. I kept quiet at first because I figured Chelan’s relationship with the kids and her coaching them would move it along faster, and having myself, a complete stranger with a big camera, would create a traffic jam of unwillingness from the kids. Nope. We were 20 kids in and I realized my intervention wasn’t going to slow the shoot down. Let’s do this. Silly faces, jumping, and snowball fights were on the menu, complete with even some wide angle shots for added goofiness.
With the last group of 5 kinders being boys, I had them tear up our all white backdrop paper and make snowballs so we could have a snowball fight. I’m fairly positive they enjoyed tearing the paper up more than the actual throwing of paper. Boys.
Checkout this short BTS video. It’ll give ya a little peek into my world that day. Kids are so funny.