To end by far my most busy stretch as a professional photographer, I had a very casual "Day in the Life" type session with some friends. It featured their young toddler and dog (pets are family as far as I'm concerned). It was particularly nice, because it was about as low stress as it can get for a shoot and I felt only the minimal amount of pressure to get off some good shots. Hopefully, one day, I will feel this way about every session.
This shoot was a mixture of documentary and lifestyle, in which there were times where I was just capturing the family doing their thing and other times when I directed them to a particular place and captured them doing their thing. It went fairly smoothly considering their toddler was being a typical toddler, tantrums and all, and I inadvertently had them sit around a nest of yellow jackets (my business is insured for such a thing), but nothing serious came of it. Their dog, Dakota, was also a good sport, even though I kept sticking my camera in his face.
It went basically exactly how I would want a "Day in the Life" session to go (minus the yellow jackets). The parents of the toddler did what they typically do in that they were trying to keep the smiles to a maximum and the crying to a minimum, except this time it was in front of a camera and the results were great. Not only that, my own wife and kids showed up later and we were treated to some beer and a good meal! Below are some of the images from the shoot:
