Prepare Yourself for A Lot of Doot Doo

No, not Doo Doo… Doot Doo.  That is what we’ve called Gage since he was a baby.  And while Matt and I often now call him Doot or Gagers or Deuteronomy, Cooper ONLY calls him Doot Doo.  If he calls him anything else, Gage corrects him.  I can just picture them walking the halls in high school and as they pass by each other Cooper says to his big brother “Hey, Doot Doo, have you seen Tato?” (which is what we call Kaden).  As a biased mama, I’m thinking they can call each other what ever they want and it won’t matter a bit.  :) 

Anyway, I shared the outtakes from this session on Monday and am happy to finally be posting the rest today.  I took these almost a month ago now (where does the time go!)… the day after I took Gage shopping for lots of 6T clothes.  He had been beyond tired of tugging down the sleeves of his shirts and EVERY pair of pants he owned had holes in the left knee.  So, he was actually excited to ‘model’ for me, in thanks for his new digs.  

We traveled around our yard – me practicing with locations, posing, lighting, positioning my reflector…

… and probably most importantly, figuring out what it takes to get a 5-year-old to REALLY smile in a photo. 

For this kid, it took me yelling “Poop Poo” as loud as I possibly could. 

Regardless of the toilet talk I have to resort to using, it warms my heart to see photos of Gage’s REAL smile… because it is my hope that when I look at these images years from now I’ll be able to hear the laughter in them… that is the part of photography that I love and TRULY hope to be able to capture with my camera during sessions. 

Ooh, what to do about sensitive eyes?  Sweet little guy tried so hard as I tried and tried to find the light in his bright blue eyes.  But that’s hard, when he can barely open them!  :) 

Whoa… this one kind of catches you off guard…  haha…

… “Be happy, Doot… we’re almost done…”

Let me just tell you how amazed I was at this little man’s cooperation.  I’m not sure if he thought he was going to get a prize at the end of the session or what, but he powered through with me for a good 2-hours!  Actually, I shouldn’t be surprised.  He has ALWAYS been a Mama’s Boy and constantly aims to please me… plus, he wasn’t dealing with this little brother AND he was getting out of ‘school’. 

Whatever the reason, I appreciated his time and love the results.  :)