Posing
Children are not posed; they are positioned and then given something to do. The adult's job is light and timing.
In short: Children are not posed; they are positioned and then given something to do. The adult's job is light and timing.
Stable, natural, and the camera can move around them.
Classic, comfortable and holds for a long time.
A step, a wall, a log. It gives them a job — staying on it.
Parent as tripod, child looking back at the lens.
Holding hands, swinging, moving away from camera.
Ask a question rather than requesting a smile.
Start with seated on the floor, playing — the first two minutes are warm-up and the first pose should be the one that asks least of anyone. Move to lying on their front, feet up and standing on something once the shoulders have dropped, and keep close portrait, mid-conversation for the end, when self-consciousness has gone. Shoot each one in bursts through the movement rather than holding it: the usable frames sit between the instructions, not on them.
Two metres back with the lens zoomed rather than close and wide — distance is what keeps facial proportions natural. Camera at or slightly above eye level for portraits, at chest height for full length. Below eye level enlarges whatever is nearest the lens, which is rarely what you want in frame.
Saying 'smile' and 'look at the camera' in the same sentence, which produces the clenched face every parent recognises. And bribing with a phone, which puts a screen glow on the face and a screen in the frame.
Shooting at nap time. Standing at adult height for the whole session. Using a shutter speed under 1/250, which blurs everything a child does. And running the session for an hour when twenty-five minutes was the real window.