Things your Family Portrait Photographer wishes you knew (but will never tell you)
I know you’re kids aren’t always like this.
Please give me the space to do my thing. The way I make images which show your kids personalities is when I actually make a real connection with your kids. When you stand over my shoulder and make funny faces at them, their smiles aren’t directed at me or my camera, and it shows.
I feel so invested in your family, I literally spend HOURS planning your shoot, working on your images and looking at your faces. I spend hours choosing the images you’ll get to see for your viewing appointment, sometimes painstaking trying to decide between this expression or that one. and then after you’ve made your selections, hours of retouching go into making you look like the best version of yourselves. I’ll get rid of your teenagers acne, and the bruises from the trampolining accident that of course had to happen the day before the shoot. By the time you pick up your order, I’ve spent more time than you know looking at your faces.
I still get nervous. You’re trusting me with your family photos, I know that it’s a big investment and these will be such cherished memories for the rest of your lives. I don’t want to stuff it up!
i get the warmest fuzzies when you come back to me regularly, it makes me feel like a distant relative “OUR photographer”
I’m particular about where my images are printed. PLEASE don’t take my images to Officeworks or Kmart. I print almost all my own work, and the images I don’t go to a specific lab who I would trust with my own life. Please respect all of the time and effort I’ve put into your images and come to me if you want other prints.
You don’t have to clean your house for me. I’ve most definitely seen worse, hell i probably live in worse! I’m not there to photograph your house, and we’ll just move the mess out of the background.
Your kids grow SO QUICK. And maybe you don’t see it because you’re with them every day, but before you know it, your teeny tiny baby will be leaving size 14 basketball boots in the bathroom and borrowing your car. Capture them now, capture them regularly.
