Go with the flow

So, “Shichi Go San” is the name of the Japanese custom of celebrating the healthy growth of children of 7, 5 and 3 years old.

Dressing them in the layers of Kimono and Hakama is already challenging enough, I have learned how they are being photographed or what kind of images their parents will receive is mostly dependent on their age and personality over the last 10 years of my experience.

No matter how old they are and how they are feeling, I team up with their parents and do my best to capture their precious expressions and personalities.

I had this young couple who bright their adorable 5 year old and 3 year old boys, and I would love to share some of their images with you!

Yes! You are a proud 5 year old! I was impressed how well you could understand and follow my direction of how to pose. He was so sweet and gentle.

Then it would be his little brother’s turn who was just dressed in the kimono by Mrs.Mikko at Kimono no Kobeya. He got so excited to grab the Japanese sword from his big brother, and posed for me! Alas, the sword was upside down! too late to correct the pose because he was in the mood of fighting with the sword! It happens very often when photographing three year olds. OK! lets’ keep taking pictures of you!

Then, I get the image like below which looks like posed but it was the second (actually it was 1/800 of a second) of his movement.

and, how old are you? I asked him. Five fingers? you are confusing me!

The big brother kept impressing me by this perfect posing which made my job easy and breezy!

Again, I strongly recommend for parents to be there especially when having three year old. Cheer them and photograph with them. You will be so glad that you did it with all these pictures.

The personalities of each boys really show up on the pictures. The spontaneous three years old’s action actually brought out more of big brother’s personalities.