Since she could voice her opinion Maya has not been an easy to photograph child.  If she knows you want to take her picture she will not turn her head to the camera no matter how much begging, bribing and pleading you do.  Having her picture taken must be on her terms.

For the longest time, if she was willing to look at the camera and smile, this is the pose you would get.  I have about a thousand pictures of her with this same head/upper body tilt.  It was just her thing for the longest time.  If you asked her to smile and say cheese her whole upper body would immediately tilt to the side and she would flash a silly smile.

Lately there has been a bit of a shift when it comes to taking pictures of Maya.  She still will steadfastly refuse to have her picture taken if she knows you want to take her picture and she just isn’t in the mood.  However, if it is her idea, or she is in a rare mood where she is willing to let you snap her picture, she is all about posing in different, silly, funny, cute poses.  Each picture has to be different.  She often practices her pose before she’ll let you take her picture.  And, she always wants to see the picture right away to determine if the outcome is what she expected.  So, now I have a growing number of pictures showing the many faces of Maya, and boy are they cute.

I think we may have the makings of a little model on our hands.

Of course, all our pictures where would prefer she stand nicely and just smile also must contain a different “special” pose as well.  Oh well, at least she’ll look at the camera more often now instead of turning her back on us and showing her stubborn side. Beggars can’t be choosers.