Teen no longer let's me take a photograph

[theblackradiator]

For the past year or so my 15 year old has not let me take her photo. scrolling through my photos i noticed I have almost none of her not even on her birthday other than the odd sneaky one from a distance (which are usually blurry and not very good.) I know She's not self conscious as I know she's more than happy to take lots of photos and selfies with her friends it's just me that she doesn't want taking pictures of her. if I get my phone out and ask if I can take one she'll start complaining and pull her hood over her face or put her hands infront of her face so it's impossible to get one and now her younger sibling has started to copy her behaviour. All I want is the odd photo and she is so beautiful, I'm sure she'd appreciate looking back on old photos of herself in many years to come when shes much older.
Anyone else have a photo reluctant teen, if so did the phase pass or did you manage to convince them to let you take the odd photo?
I also do not do any social media so I do not post pictures of her online anywhere so that is not an issue.

Stop asking and stop taking sneaky pictures.

Respect her.

This. It's unacceptable.

Ok I hear you all about no more sneaky pics.
I just hope dd never goes missing as il have no picture to use for the missing poster! 🤣

This isn't funny.

why? it's not meant to cause any offence just a light hearted joke and a comment heard before and said in humour from People who dont have a lot of pictures of themselves. my apologies to anyone with a missing relative or friend this may have offended it really wasn't meant too.

I think there are ways of doing it that are respectful of her boundaries but also mean you have some photos.

When I was a child and teenager my Dad was a really keen amateur photographer (he had a dark room for a while). He took loads of photos, or loads for the days of film cameras anyway!

We were all a bit fed up of it, holiday photos weren't a problem as he was happy to take scenery shots or animated ones from a distance, but if he'd got almost to the end of a roll of film and wanted to take some portraits to use the end of the film there would be loads of eye rolling.

However looking back now I am so glad he did this. I look back and love to see some of those photos of when I was young, slim and lovely! My Mum says similar of the ones she hated having taken when they were first married.

I even like seeing the one that I can vividly remember hating him taking, because I was 15 and had a massive zit and a shiny forehead (or so I thought). I'm actually in the act of rolling my eyes!

Perhaps you could explain that you would like some photos and she might like them in future. Many of my friends have no photos of them as teenagers and now wish they did.

Tell her that you won't show anyone or display them without agreement and ask her what would make her feel comfortable about it. Perhaps she would like the chance to get ready and pose or even to do a selfie with you or maybe she'd prefer not to know you are taking the photo. Perhaps there is something specific she doesn't like about your photos and you could agree to do something different. Maybe she would feel more comfortable if someone else took a photo of the two of you together.

There are pretty much no photos of me from about 13 to 17 and I regret that

There are hardly any photos of me as a child and I think it's a bit sad that I can't look back on pictures of those times. My sons (late teens now) went through a good few years of being camera shy. They are slightly more inclined to say yes to photos these days, so I make sure I don't ask too often!

I hated having my photo taken as a teen. This was during the times when you bought a roll of film for the camera for a holiday and that was about it.

It doesn't bother me that there are few photos of me from my teen years. I'm still not fussed about having photos taken now. I rarely ask my children to pose for a photo and often just take the odd one of them doing something. I think photo taking has gotten over the top. I watched a parent, shouting multiple times to get her child's attention the other day, when the child was happily engrossed in what they were doing. They kid then posed and and what theb were doing was over. This generation are trained to pose and I think that'd why there's even more push back from teens.

I hated my mum taking my photo as a kid (and now, tbh), she always manages to take such unflattering ones! I only tolerate it now I’m 30 because I’m a mum myself. I don’t really care to look back on the few she did convince me to take age 12-17 and I have enough from times with friends to remember what I looked like

I had this phase in my teens and I regret it. I remember there were photos of me that I hated and hence got rid of, but now I wish I wouldn't. Well, teen years are rough and there is only so much you can do about that.
Maybe try to explain you are worried she will regret it later and you're not pushing the photos on her, but would be more than happy to take a picture or two whenever she feels like that.
There are also other ways to engage teens into taking photos, maybe she would enjoy doing a digital scrapbook with pictures of everything nice she sees around, her friends and herself, or maybe she would like to have a photo collage about her summer, for example, etc? It's way more creative and if she enjoys projects like that, she'll get into it and she'll have something more than a bonch of photos to look at later.