We just finished our first professional photo shoot. This is the first time we hired a photographer, Don Carrick, to photograph the kids. We found Don on Craigslist; we advertised for a photographer that would take pictures of our KidONEders for $200 and Don responded. He’s done two sets of product photographs for us but those were smaller less complicated jobs.

We’ve taken photos of kids in our KidONEders before. Kids whose mom responded to our craigslist ad, kids from Carla’s church, all with one of those small digital Nikons, and of course with our cell phones. We met in the church or at the kids houses. It was hit or miss, with most of the shots blurry and unusable. Not to mention those kids who wouldn’t take the pacifiers out of their mouths.

The difference with Don was astounding. Don had stand up lights and light shades. Light meters. A white backdrop that pulled down like butcher block. He scoped out the church, organized and orchestrated the shoot, coddled and played with the kids, pulled up their pants, “hey buddy, come here and let me fix your pants” he told them, without a bit of creepiness.

Don was down on the ground for most of the shoot. We had three boys, Lathan is 17 mos., August is 2 years, and Jack is 3 years. Lathan and August were shy at first. As Don confirmed, “models are always tough.” Jack, on the other hand, is a ham (to quote his mom). “Hello, I’m Jack,” he told us when we greeted him outside. Without a beat, there was a costume change into a white KidONEder and pop art ONEder tie, (“I like orange:,” Jack told us) and Jack proceeded to sit, stand, play with a rocket his mom bought ahead of time (with the $20 we promisedfor the shoot). Carla and the moms warmed up the two little ones with bribes and toys, and after their equally swift costume change in to the first of two kidONEders and ONEder ties, they tossed a football, looked at books, and played with Fisher Price villages.

Don’s photos are great: the kids are melt your heart gorgeous, so cute they could sell anything, and we’ll have plenty of visuals for the website and a booth at Children’s Club in NYC in August. We're finding out that it pays to hire a professional.