(These kids posed for my GX200 without me telling them to hold on. Read on to know why)
Have you ever heard a frenzy photographer shouting this "tall order" to the permanently evasive kids? Okay, it may at first be spoken as softly as can be. But either way, by the next minute, the order will get the photographer ridiculed by the fact that the kids are oblivious to him and still running away from his camera.
As evidenced in my experience, there is a very good trick to save the photographer the day, especially where there are many around like the drunken barflies around a bar.
There is an old game for children in Hong Kong having been passed down from generations to generations; well, at least starting from the generations when the traffic light saw, so to speak, the light of the day.
The game is called, Yet Yee Sam Hung Luk Deng, or literally, One Two Three Traffic Light. By playing this game with the kids, the photographer can leisurely stand on the same spot and have the kids voluntarily posed for the camera, for as long as the photographer wishes.
This is how:
1) Find a spacious area. An outdoor place is ideal.
2) Find a wall or some structure safe for the kids to push.
3) The photographer stands turning to the wall (tweak the camera right for the scene before turning, of course)
4) Ask the kids to go as far back as possible from the photographer.
5) Then, the photographer, facing the wall, should chant, “One two three, traffic light. Four five six, cross it right.” Make it in a melodic way. The chant can be paused or repeated at will. Whenever it is paused, the photographer turns to face the kids.
6) For the kids, while the chant is going on, they should run as fast as they could towards the wall which the photographer is facing. But when the chant pauses and the photographer turns his face around, the kids must freeze actions. Otherwise, they lose. Those who finally make it to the wall are winners.
7) Surely, the photographer must let all the kids win in the end so that they are willing to play for some more rounds. But before that, the photographer will have lots of chances to take photos of the kids frozen in various forms of gestures, with great smiles of excitement on their faces too. Just make sure that when playing the game, you chant the last word differently as a signal for the turnabout. You will want all of them in a ready pose for the shots, won’t you?
It can’t be any easier for a photographer in dealing with a flock of restless kids.
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