Image via Complex Original
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F.E. Castleberry of Unabashedly Prep fame just put together a guide on "How To Photograph Your Kids...Fashionably," which is obviously the demographic over here at Four Pins. All I know about hanging out with kids is that it's either awesome or fucking terrible. Kids have no chill. They can be only amazing or horrible tiny people. This shit is an binary as, like, yes and no. So, photographing them probably does suck. But, fear not, Fred's got some pretty decent tips, like bribing them to pose. You already know F.E. got that abbreviated first name money, paying his kids $15 bucks in iTunes gift cards. DAMN, LET ME HOLD SOME CREDITS, FRED. I'M TRYNA GET A REALLY ACCURATE WEATHER APP. THIS ENTRY-LEVEL TIER STRUGGLE APPLE JOINT JUST ISN'T CUTTING IT. I'M OUT HERE GETTING RAINED ON AGAINST MY WILL.
My parents were strictly against the reward system. Like, all my friends got paid for good grades and my parents were like, "ALL YOU DO IS GO TO SCHOOL AND SLEEP. SCHOOL IS YOUR JOB. YOU GET PAID IN GOOD GRADES." So, whenever we had to get our photos taken, we just did what you always do when you get your photo taken with your siblings: stood in front of the family car. If you don't have a photo of you and/or your siblings standing in front of your mom's late model minivan, I'm pretty sure you didn't actually have a childhood. Like, I think you might have been cloned and emerged from a laboratory in your 20s. You may want to ask your parents about that.
F.E. da gawd also suggests Crewcuts and Ralph Lauren when it comes to your kids' wardrobe. Obviously, you have to style your own children. I know my parents picked my clothes out for a while and I was like a tiny, ethnically hard to place Carlton Banks. There's also a photo of me holding a pencil and a calculator straight cheesin' because Asian grandparents. Had you let me pick out my own clothing, every picture would have been the same pinrolled coke white cargos, weird Vision Street Wear tee and 1991 NCAA Tournament snapback. Fuck, that fit still sounds fire in 2k14.
Listen, I get it, snapping pics of your flesh and blood is a natural impulse. And, like, so is styling, posing, and carefully creating an image of them to present to your friends, family, co-workers and that one neighboring family you're secretly in competition with. Just remember that your kids are still the type of assholes to make honor roll only to write words like "alphet" in very public forums and pay their cable bill late almost every single month. And, let's be real, your kids won't remember their childhood through these photos. Instead of reflecting on how you nurtured and protected them for decades upon decades and how much fun they had standing next to each other in front of things on vacation, all your shitty kids will remember is that one Christmas where you fucked up the tags and gave the wrong present to the wrong kid and covered it up by saying that "Santa made a mistake."