The stunning, perfectly beautiful Moss babies have grown so much for their Roswell Mill kids portraits this year!
This is probably one of the most rewarding things I do each year: check in with how all of my clients and their little people are, watching them grow. I guess probably me growing with them, too. My ideas for what makes a portrait meaningful changes over time.
One thing that has never changed is a part of my method that gives us all space to rest easy for our portrait session: I decide what is the most, most important image to get and I do that immediately when we meet. Before the kids can decide what kind of a mood they will be in today, before anyone can even think about what kids of adventures await us. Then, as soon as that is done, we are ready to really get started. Parents can rest assured, we already have a christmas card picture, and we already have that one kids portrait that they were really anticipating, the one they were daydreaming about, and we can be less focused on taking good pictures and more on just enjoying ourselves.
This year, for example, when I asked, Lindsay wanted a beautiful, classic portrait, close up of her big kids. So, we did that right away. A daydreamy, bright eyed, straight into the camera faces trio. I love that about working together with people: most often, my ideas are ok and a little redundant. My work becomes exciting because people tell me what they imagine NOW, what is most interesting for them at this moment, and I can respond to that: think about how that affects my perspective, let that change my path and follow them as inspiration. And, of course, this kind of follow based inspiration is what can bring us to my favorite images from a session. This time, its the tickle family picture at the very of this series. Its alive, is is moving with my camera, and these people are lost in this moment, too, this tickle war is palpable and I can feel the love.
