Why I Don’t Ask Children to Smile at the Camera
By ANDREA WHELAN – a London Family Photographer Who Knows Exactly One Joke
I’m going to say something that might sound counterintuitive from someone who photographs families for a living…
I don’t ask children to smile.
Not once. Not at any point during a session. Not even when the light is perfect and everyone’s finally in the right spot and it would be so easy to just say “cheese” and get the shot.
I don’t do it. And here’s why that matters.
What happens when you ask a child to smile at the camera
You know that face. Every parent knows it. The one where they pull their lips back over their teeth and sort of freeze, eyes slightly wide, neck as long as giraffe, whole body suddenly stiff. It’s not a smile. It’s a child performing the idea of a smile because an adult has asked them to.
It lasts about two seconds. Then they’re done, they’ve given you what you wanted, and whatever was actually happening between them and the people around them has been interrupted.
I’ve photographed hundreds of families across London since 2011, and I can tell you with absolute certainty: the photographs parents love most are never the ones where everyone is looking at the camera with a coordinated grin. They’re the ones where something real is happening. That could be as simple as walking from one point to the next, a child leaning into a parent because they want to, not because I’ve positioned them there. A look passing between two people who are genuinely absorbed in each other. The belly laugh that belongs only to this family, the one that erupted because of an in-joke I’ll never fully understand.
Those moments can’t be directed into existence. But they can be created. And the difference between those two things is basically my entire approach.
Creating the conditions vs capturing the moment
There’s a phrase I come back to a lot when I think about how I work: I create the conditions for real moments to happen, and then I get out of the way.
That probably sounds vague, so let me make it specific.
When I arrive at a session, after the initial hello but before I’ve taken a single photograph, I’m doing something that looks a lot like nothing. I’m watching. I’m noticing who’s relaxed and who’s performing. I’m paying attention to the temperature of the group, not literally, but emotionally. Which child is hiding behind a parent’s leg or under a sofa. Which parent is slightly over-directing because they want everything to go well. Where the anxiety is sitting.
My job, before it’s anything else, is to dismantle that anxiety.
With children, that usually means following their lead. If a toddler wants to show me their favourite toy before we start, we’re looking at the toy. If a four-year-old wants to climb something, we’re climbing something. If a teenager is pretending they’d rather be anywhere else, I’m not going to force a connection that isn’t ready to happen yet, I’ll give them space, and nine times out of ten they come round on their own when they realise nobody is going to make them do anything they don’t want to do.
With parents, it usually means saying some version of: your only job today is to be with your kids. Not to manage them. Not to make sure they’re behaving. Just to be with them.
When that happens, when the performing stops and the being starts, that’s when I see the thing I’m actually photographing. The invisible thread between people. The way a child turns towards a parent with genuine curiosity. The reaching, the pulling close, the quiet tenderness that exists in every family but only surfaces when people feel safe enough to stop thinking about how they look.
What about the older kids?
Teenagers are a harder and more interesting version of the same thing. Having two of them myself I say that with confidence!
A toddler forgets the camera because they’re two. That’s just how they work. A teenager forgets the camera because the adults around them are relaxed enough that the whole thing stops mattering. That’s a different kind of achievement, and it’s one I’m quietly proud of when it happens.
I never force it with teenagers. I don’t do the “put your arm around your mum” thing unless it’s clearly something they’d do anyway. What I do instead is make the whole experience feel low-stakes enough that their guard comes down. Sometimes that means having a conversation with them about something completely unrelated to the shoot. Sometimes it means letting them be on their phone for ten minutes and then noticing the moment they naturally drift back towards the family.
The photographs I get from those moments, the ones where a teenage boy is actually laughing with his parents instead of tolerating them, those are the ones that make parents cry when they see the gallery.
The trying-hard of family life
There’s something else I notice during sessions that I find genuinely moving, and it’s this: the effort people make with each other.
The patient correction. The parent who crouches down and tries a different approach when the first one didn’t work. The gentle negotiation over something that could easily become a battle but doesn’t, because someone chose to slow down. The way a mum smooths her child’s hair without even thinking about it while she’s talking to me about something else entirely. These are the moments I want you to be bale to keep forever.
That effort isn’t always comfortable or photogenic in the traditional sense. But it’s true. And when I photograph it well, which means quietly, without drawing attention to it, it becomes one of the most powerful things in a gallery. Because it’s the thing that will matter most in twenty years. Not the perfectly composed group shot. The evidence that you were trying, every day, to give your children what they needed.
Real and beautiful
I should say this clearly, because I think some people assume that “real’ or “unposed” means “unflattering.” It doesn’t. Not the way I do it.
I want both for you. I want images that are real, genuinely, specifically, unmistakably your family, and I want them to be beautiful. Composed, flattering, worth framing. The tension between those two things is the whole point of my work. Plenty of photographers sacrifice one for the other. The ones who pose everything get the polish but lose the feeling. The ones who shoot everything documentary-style get the truth but sometimes miss the beauty worthy of the frame.
I don’t want to choose. I want the image where your child is mid-laugh and the light is falling perfectly and your hand is resting on their shoulder in a way that tells the entire story of your relationship, and it also happens to look stunning on your wall.
That’s what I’m working towards every single time. And it starts with not asking anyone to smile.
If this sounds like your kind of photography
I work with families across London – in Greenwich, Blackheath, Dulwich, Marylebone, Mayfair, Kensington, and plenty of places in between.
Sessions last around 90 minutes to two hours, which is enough time for everyone to settle, and for the real stuff to come through.
If you’ve been looking for a family photographer who won’t line you up and make you say cheese, I’d love to hear from you.
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