Easter - a dual holiday with an emphasis on children.  If you are a photographer or just a parent who wants to have better images!  Put all the focus on your children!  Because like any other dual holiday, it's all about them...  Spring is in the air.  You can smell it, see it, and hear it as mother nature lushly shares itself with beautiful backdrops and sweet sounds of wild birds.  Flowers are blooming and the greenery is showing once again!  

For all of us, this is the time to take advantage of mother natures bountiful backdrops.  Use the parks, open fields like that above Perris Lake, and backyards it properly groomed.   All these can bring great patterns, colors, textures, and shapes making your portrait pop like bottle rocket.  Ask anyone from Lake Elsinore who visited the Lake Elsinore Poppy Super Bloom.  It seemed there was minimum 10,000 per day visiting.  I would know I was one of them!

Yes you can pose people....  But I have always found the best images are candid.  They smile their most natural smiles when they don't notice your 10 inch Nikon 70-200 mm VRII lens pointed in their direction.  With a slight notice they are on camera, the pressure is on and the smiles are not.    So if you have the opportunity to take candid shots, I highly recommend it.  Other ways to make scenes look candid is to have your model act out a part and take the images while they are acting out the part.

As like anyone in life, you, should plan ahead.  If you are scheduled to meet a photographer or family arrive on time.  Nobody is going to smile if you are rushing.  So plan for the travel period, the time included in the session.  Pack your clothing, gear, food, and water ahead of time and place it in your vehicle to avoid forgetting it.  There is lots of things to accomplish while getting your family portraits taken.