The kid stays in the picture

Sometimes, the most memorable moments happen during the daily clatter of life. Especially when they involve children.

Those adorable half-asleep eyes in the early morning hours. A serious case of giggles at bath time. The excitement after scoring a soccer goal. Even a temper tantrum, in hindsight.

Many parents are preserving those candid minutes forever - not by grabbing the family point-and-click but by hiring a personal photographer to follow and shoot their children doing everyday activities.

"It's a great way to capture times that go so fast," said Vanessa Kreckel, 34, of Northern Liberties. Earlier this year, she hired pro Laura Novak of Wilmington to take pictures at a 90-minute playdate in honor of the Winter Solstice for her only child, 4-year-old Landon Smith, and his buddies. The session cost $400, not including prints.

Known as lifestyle or documentary portraiture, the snapshots look like the stuff of first families - often with price tags worthy of a head of state. Full-day sessions with kiddie paparazzi and the resulting coffee-table-quality books can run into tens of thousands of dollars.

Wedding and Portrait Photographers International, a trade association with more than 7,000 members, has seen lifestyle photography explode, an outgrowth of the popular, photojournalistic wedding pictures that brought spontaneity to the choreographed albums of yesteryear.

"The same photographer wants to do your engagement, your wedding, your newborn, the first birthday, the fifth birthday, everything," said Abigail Ronck, a staff member with the Los Angeles-based association and managing editor of two trade magazines. "They want to build these relationships. It's not a session over hours or even days. It's over years."

Frances Fiore of Jersey City, who works in film production and publicity, considers New York-based Rachel Hudgins "the official family photographer" of her children, Enzo, 6, and Giovanni, 2.

"You get this beautiful version of your life," she said. "It's like Vogue Living came to your house and did a spread on you."

Enzo, in fact, has a book that documents his entire day when he was a toddler, a Hudgins primo specialty that goes for $10,000 and was a gift to the Fiores from a relative. (A slimmed-down package is $5,000.) The "breakfast to bedtime" session, as Hudgins calls it, shows Enzo emerging from under his blanket, playing with his wooden Thomas the Tank Engine trains, getting a haircut, baking muffins, sharing a bedtime story with his mother - the daily routine of toddlerhood told in 250 photos.

"It's a great little time capsule," Fiore said. "There's something sweet and poignant about that snapshot in time."

The family also hired Hudgins to make a picture book of Enzo's fifth birthday party, complete with magician. Fiore loves the pictures that capture the boy playing tag with his best friend - and even the one of a little guest sneaking his head into the pretzel bowl.

"I get really connected to these kids," said Hudgins, 42, who has a dozen client families around the country, many in the film or oil industry. "I photograph them not only year after year, but multiple times each year." Besides the christenings and birthdays, she offers a year of portraits, checking in monthly for a one-hour session.

Of course, traditional portraiture - where children in their Sunday best are dragged to a studio and expected to smile - is still around, but more photographers are offering fun, relaxed experiences, whether it's a mall chain that shoots kids barefoot against a white backdrop or a studio play session where "say cheese!" is verboten.

For families with the means, including a Philadelphia sports star or two (though Novak won't name names) and other high-profile folks, hiring a family photographer to spend several hours on the kids' home turf is the next step beyond those relaxed portraits, the best way to imprint the memories.

"I think today's parents are looking for realism and tangible reminders of day-to-day life with kids," said Jennifer Breton, a Reading-based children's photographer who wants to expand her business into day-in-the-life sessions. "Dressing little girls in frilly dresses and patent-leather shoes and praying and hoping that they'll smile on cue is fantasy and definitely not part of a modern parent's daily existence with their children, like diapers and Superman T-shirts are."

Last summer, she spent a Sunday morning with the Barnes family of four at their Berwyn home. Breton caught Elle, 3, running around in her diaper; Harrison, then 4, playing baseball with a tennis racket and getting a ride in a wheelbarrow; and both children baking banana bread.

There is no looking at the camera with a big grin, even though the pictures are full of joy.

"That was such a moment of childhood, instead of being posed in a portrait center," said the children's mother, Erica Barnes, 38, who paid $225 for the session and $1,700 for a disk of photos. "I wanted Jen to capture just the casualness and everyday pleasures of life."

Parents, of course, could take their own snaps or ask Uncle Harry to shoot the birthday party, but besides the questionable quality - and lack of motivation to organize it all into a showcase album that tells a story - many view the shoot as a "high-end experience" in itself.

"It's become a tradition," said Kreckel, who every year hires Novak to create a 30-page, silk-covered album for the grandparents. It features Landon doing his thing.