I Need Guinea Pigs!

So as I briefly mentioned in the last post, I bought a full frame camera body last week and she arrived almost a week ago. I have been dreaming and saving for this camera body for a couple of years now and am so excited to put it to use!! One of the biggest advantages of this camera over my faithful little beast is that it is more sensitive to low light situations - finding focus more faster, creating an image with less noise at a higher ISO. I've been playing around with it a bit this week, inputing my settings and figuring out what buttons do what. I believe I'm ready to take this baby on the road, putting her through the real world test of indoor sessions. And that's where you come in.

One genre of photography that I have been wanting to try to delve into more is family documentary sessions. What is family documentary photography, you ask? Good question! And you'll receive varying answers if you google the question on the web, depending on the photographer. Some family documentary photographers are purists. Some lean more toward life-style photography in their approach. The purists believe that nothing should be changed in the environment that they shoot in, that everything is part of the story they are capturing through their lens and to remove an item of clothing in a shot because it is "cluttering" up an image or to photoshop acne off a face (just a couple examples of altering the scene) is creating a false story. Some photographers are more lax in their approach and will give direction to the family members, alter the scene a bit, and retouch/photoshop any unwanted elements in the photo. At the heart of family documentary photography is a story. Some photographers spend a couple of hours to a whole day at their client's house, capturing the everyday moments and personalities. Their clients understand that these daily rituals are sacred, that in a blink, their little ones will be walking across the stage to receive their high school diploma, leaving nightly bedtime stories long forgotten. They realize that while they capture these candid moments on their phone cameras, they themselves are missing from the photograph, from the story.

What are some documenting ideas? Birthday parties (I photographed a surprise 80yr old birthday party a couple of years ago - what a blast!), bedtime routines, baking cookies or supper together, playtime (like Zeek's one year session), bringing home a newborn from the hospital, an outing to get ice-cream (see Bryant's session). I took pictures of a a friend showing her boys their new home for the first time - what an honor to be a fly on the wall. I would say my dream gigs in this genre would be to document a family trip to Hershey Park or some other amusement park and a trip to the library for story time and book hunting. So if anyone needs a photographer to create printed memories of these adventures - I'm your gal (let me just get these guinea pig sessions under my belt first, lol)!

What can you do with these images? Print them! Put them up on your walls, create albums or books, ornaments, magnets, coasters ... there are so many options and I can help you out with those as well. But what would break my heart is if these images get lost on hard-drives, camera rolls on your phones, or flash drives (but by all means, back up those files) without having some kind of tangible photograph or product of some sort that can be treasured daily. One of my favorite photos is of my kids when they were little - Ethan teasing Noel and Noel not being very pleased with his attention. I ordered a magnet of this photo and placed it on my fridge for us all to see everyday! {{maybe this is why my kids don't want me taking pictures of them anymore??}}

So how does my guinea pig sessions work? Don't worry, I won't spend all day with you! Let me know what it is you'd like me to capture, if its a specific activity or event. If you don't have an idea, no worries! We'll either come up with something together, or I can come over and take pictures of your kiddos in their native environment, doing whatever it is they do. Give me an hour or so to hang out with you guys. I'll edit the images and post them on a personal online gallery, create a mobile app for you so that you have easy access to these images on your phone and tablet, and give you a promo code to download five full resolution digital images. Email me or call me if you or someone you know are interested!

Taking pictures of Tiny and Gracie is fun, but I would love to take pictures of humans!