Children make me feel alive when I get behind my camera. Every session is different from the next. Each child is unique, bringing such spontaneity, such joy and such intensity to every session. Children are intense, alive, and deep.Take a second to watch them play. Take a second to watch them process.  They know things adults have forgotten, and they express themselves so authentically to how they really, truly feel. Feeling tired or hangry? Yeah. Let’s express that. Children express endless truth.

What I Love About Photographing Kids

Kids are what I am most inspired to photograph. Not only for who they are, but because no session or child is ever alike. It keeps every job exciting, fresh and new! And for a creative who is easily bored, there is nothing more NOT boring than photographing children and their families. Children and their naturalness, their innate curiosity, their wonder, their joy, their love for Harry Potter and fantasy and Disney and animals and firetrucks – it’s what gives me a sense of deep love and fulfillment.

We have so much we can learn from them.

Before I picked up my first camera and became a family and children’s photographer, I always worked with children. I started babysitting at 12 years old. Through my years in high school, I transformed into princesses at children’s birthday parties. As an adult in my early twenties, I photographed day-old newborns and their families at N.Y.U.  hospital – even in the NICU. The sweet coos of babies, their soft cheeks, the drool (I love all of it!), their radiant love. Babies and children have been a central theme to my life since the very beginning. And I am so in love with observing them, documenting their love of the world. I come alive when I chat with them, always breaking out into a song-and-dance party mid-shoot. And I would choose spending my days with them everyday.

There is nothing more inspiring than children.

Here are a few behind-the-scenes shots from a recent session I had in Paris. Ibelise is a wedding photographer in Paris and she was so sweet to photograph a few shots of me while on the job!

Photos by Ibelise Paiva – her wedding photography website