What age is best for Children’s Portraits?

If you’re wondering about the best age for children’s portraits, the slightly frustrating answer is: there isn’t one. But there may be a best age for what you want to remember. A six-month-old is all round cheeks and gummy smiles. A two-year-old has opinions about absolutely everything. A five-year-old has an imagination big enough to fill the room. By eight or nine, you can begin to see glimpses of the person they’re becoming. They’re all wonderful ages to photograph. They’re just wonderful for very different reasons.

And that’s really the better question to ask: What about your child right now do you never want to forget?

6–9 Months: The Squishy, Happy Sitter Stage

This is one of my favorite baby stages. By around six to nine months, many babies are sitting independently, interacting with the people around them, grabbing their toes, laughing, babbling, and generally being extremely pleased with themselves. They still have that unmistakable baby softness, but their personality has started showing up in a much bigger way. If you had newborn portraits made, this can also be an astonishing comparison. That tiny sleeping newborn is suddenly sitting up and looking right back at you.

For parents who missed newborn portraits, or simply want to remember more than those first few weeks, this is a beautiful age for a milestone session.

Around One Year: Everything Is Changing

One-year portraits tend to get associated with birthdays and cake smashes, but the age itself is far more interesting than the birthday theme. Some one-year-olds are walking. Some are crawling at approximately 47 miles per hour. Some are standing while hanging onto anything that doesn’t move. They have favorite toys, favorite people, favorite songs and very definite ideas about what they would like to be doing. That makes one year a wonderful time for portraits that are about the child rather than simply documenting the birthday. The wobbly standing, the tiny teeth, the curls that have finally appeared, the way they clap when they’re delighted—those are the things worth remembering.

Ages 2–3: Peak Toddler

This is the age parents sometimes think they should avoid. I disagree. Toddlers aren’t particularly interested in sitting nicely and smiling because a grown-up asked them to. That’s not a problem. It’s actually one of the reasons I love photographing them.

Two- and three-year-olds are curious, busy, funny, suspicious, dramatic, affectionate and occasionally all of those things within about thirty seconds. A toddler portrait session shouldn’t depend upon getting them to behave like a much older child. Let them investigate. Let them play. Let them tell me about dinosaurs for fifteen minutes.

This is the age when their personality starts arriving at full volume. That’s what I want to photograph.

Ages 4–5: The Imagination Years

Preschoolers live in extraordinary little worlds. They have elaborate stories. Best friends. Favorite characters. Completely serious theories about how things work. They can turn a cardboard box into a castle and a stick into practically anything. They’re also old enough that I can talk with them rather than simply entertain them. That makes four and five wonderful ages for portraits built around who a child actually is. Maybe that’s a little girl putting her beloved baby doll to bed. Maybe it’s a boy who wants to tell me everything he knows about bugs. Maybe it’s a child who would happily wear a princess dress every Tuesday for the rest of her life.

Those details may seem ordinary because you’re living with them every day. They won’t always be ordinary. One day they will be some of your favorite memories.

Ages 6–8: When They Become Very Much Themselves

Something interesting happens in the early elementary years. Children are still wonderfully willing to play, imagine and be silly, but they’re also developing stronger interests and a much clearer sense of themselves. This is an age I wish more parents photographed professionally. We tend to be very good about documenting babies. First birthdays get photographed. School pictures happen every year. Then somehow, professional portraits can disappear until senior pictures. But there is an enormous stretch of childhood in between.

Six, seven and eight are wonderful ages for creating portraits that aren’t simply about how your child looks. They’re old enough to collaborate with me a little. We can make something about what they love, what they’re interested in and who they are right now.

Ages 9–12: The Overlooked Years

These years are easy to miss. They’re no longer little kids, but they’re not teenagers yet. Their faces are changing. Their interests are becoming more specific. They’re beginning to decide what they like rather than simply adopting whatever the grown-ups around them chose. And they’re still kids. That combination doesn’t last very long.

Portraits at this age can be less about childhood milestones and more about identity. What are they obsessed with? What makes them laugh? What are they proud of? What do they want to show me? This is where letting a child have some ownership in the process can create something particularly good.

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So, What Is the Best Age for Children’s Portraits?

If you’re looking for traditional milestones, six months and one year are wonderful choices.

If you want completely unfiltered personality, give me a two- or three-year-old.

If you want imagination and childhood magic, four through six is hard to beat.

If you want to preserve the person your child is becoming, don’t overlook the elementary years.

But I don’t think a child needs to reach a particular milestone before they’re worthy of being photographed.

Sometimes the reason really can be: This is who they are right now, and I don’t want to forget.

That’s enough.

Brown Bunny Photography creates fine art portraits of babies and children in Nashville, Murfreesboro, Franklin, Brentwood and throughout Middle Tennessee. Sessions are built around the child in front of me—not around expecting children to perform for the camera.