Photo Sessions for Additional Needs Families

As your Clearwater Additional Needs Photographer, I am the person who will meet your child where they are most comfortable. I know you’re anxious, but I promise, we’ve got this! Your family session will involve keeping your differently-abled family member happy, content, and most of all engaged. Do they want to show me every single weed flower? Tell me 10,000 facts about storm clouds? Awesome! I love it. We’re never too old to stop learning.

Every family is different, unique, and extraordinary. For me, we have a five year old Autistic child. She is my ray of sunshine, and my personal hurricane, all in one. We have exceptional days and days of struggle, as most every other family on Earth does. So, how do you get those ‘picture perfect’ moments when your child is special needs and may have melt-downs or shuts-down for photo sessions? You hire a photographer with experience, patience, and understanding.

So, you’ve decided to book a session. Fantastic! As we both know, interruptions to routine can cause anxiety and the whole purpose of hiring me is to avoid that. So we will work together to follow these simple steps:

• Tell your child that we’ll be taking photos. Explain that it’s just like when you pull out your phone. This helps with familiarity.

• Have they been to the location before [if we are not doing an in-home session]? Do they have a favorite area there? If they have never been there before, pull up photos of the area on google.

• Allow them to participate in the decisions regarding certain aspects. Do they have a favorite outfit? Pair of shoes? Let them choose a comfort object to bring along to our session.

• Show them my photograph or have a zoom call with me! It’s important that they’ve “seen me” before. We’ll talk about how much fun it is to have pictures taken.

• Remind them that you will be there the whole time. It’s my job to catch them “alone” for their individual portraits while you are all interacting.

You know your child best. We’ve done all we could at this point to make sure they are ready. My sessions for families with differently abled members do not have a time-limit. It is more important that we take things slow and keep everyone happy to ensure we get the best images. If your child has a favorite treat, please let me know so that I can have a surprise for them after our time together.

No matter the type of different ability your family member has, we will create images that showcase them in their best light.