BOSTON CHILDREN'S PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON FAMILY PHOTOGRAPHER, BOSTON NEWBORN PHOTOGRAPHER

[quote]The past and the present and the future. Faith and Hope and Charity, the heart and the brain and the body Give you three as a magic number. [/quote]

Jen and Billy and Romar and Chloe and Leah came by for a visit. Alright, I hounded them to come by for a visit. The other day I was joking on Facebook about giving free sessions to people who wiped my kids bums and cared for them… so I wanted to clarify, Jen actually RAISED my kids for a while. So needless to say, that gets her soup-to-nuts everything in the photog world. And I love seeing how their family has grown, and is now one, and a happy forever home and family for Romar, and the twins are all sorts of crazy goodness. Awesome sauce [right girls? was that proper use?]. Church.

So here are some from their sesh. Delish.

[The rad diaper covers are from my friend Rena, who makes the Earth a better place by creating amazing cloth diapers. She is the process of changing her name to Sproutling Love... and building great things!]

[Repost from Summer Facebook Note]

Today I stumbled across a website of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend who just decided to go “into business” as a photographer.  It’s no use trying to figure out who it is, I think there are about 2,385 sites that my friends of friends could collectively find and pool together in this category.  And that’s a lowball number.

Without getting into specifics about the drastic issues with this portfolio, I thought I’d point out just how helpful  — no, IMPERATIVE — it is to GET FEEDBACK from industry peers (fellow photographers) before you “go into business.”  And I am only providing this advice because lately I’ve had a number of requests from people to tell me some initial steps they should take to go into business.  And this is only MY opinion, others might not share it.

But get advice…

• Not from your MOM.
• Not from your BFF whose daughter’s 6 month photos you took.
• Not from your Facebook friends.

Get advice from other photographers who are in business as established professionals.  Why?  If my clients are happy, who cares what other photographers think?

Because other photographers can give you an honest assessment of your strengths and your weaknesses in an unbiased, non-mommy-google, fashion.  They can point out compositional issues, focus issues, exposure issues, and post processing issues.  They can help you identify what is a definitive style (which may include breaking some rules) and what is a skill issue.

They can help you grow.  They can suggest some checkpoints to use as “readiness” before jumping into business.  They can help you learn about the myriad of challenges you will face and help you tackle common issues of going into business so that you are prepared to meet them when they arise.

Join an industry forum.  There are plenty of them. Some are big, some are small, some are focused on niche markets, some are positive places to be, some are not.  Explore them, find one that is right for you.

Once you do that, post your work for critique. Ask for HHCC (hard hat constructive criticism).

Understand that even your worst critic will provide a perspective that you did not previously think of. Learn from feedback. If your feelings are hurt, walk away for a little bit, digest it, but don’t ever discount it. Ideally find a forum where you can submit a portfolio review, especially if you think you are ready to be in business.

If enough people say “you aren’t ready,” you probably are not.  It’s easy to say “but my clients love my work” or “everyone tells me I am awesome.”  It is not easy to listen, realize, take a step back and re-assess.  It is painful, but it is worth it.  Getting feedback from professionals who have been in your shoes is invaluable. THANK any one that offers to help you even if you respectfully decline to follow their ideas or listen to their feedback.  Then thank them again because they took time out of their day to help you.

Once you have found a forum of peers, rely on them for checking of your work. Very few photographers ever reach a point where they require zero input from peers or mentors. It may not mean a review of every session on a broad forum, but it is immensely helpful to develop a network of peers and supporters that can listen to your ideas and eyeball your work before you take it mainstream.  Even the most brilliant photographers occasionally have an image in their portfolio that just doesn’t fit or just isn’t them.

And if once this is done, if you aren’t ready, don’t be afraid to temporarily pull down your website.  Take some time, then fill it up with strong and beautiful images that are definitive of your style.  We have all been there, we all have early work that makes us cringe, we’ve all jumped the gun a little too soon.  Six months or so might feel like an eternity, but it’s shorter than the time it would take you to get a degree or certificate in school or to complete an apprenticeship… so certainly that’s not too long to learn and start over.

And if you are ready, go forth and conquer.  Continue to grow.  Network with local peers.  Give back to the community and help new photographers find their way — it doesn’t mean sharing your list of vendors or your secrets, but it means providing positive direction and education where and when you can (and you won’t always have the bandwidth to do so).  By doing this, you will help better the industry by stressing the importance of knowledge and skill.

If you took the time to read this, thank you.  If you have questions, please feel free to message me or leave a comment.

And to put it into perspective: an image from when I THOUGHT I was ready compared to where I am today.  Five years later.

Be warned.  Like Biggest Blog Post Ever.

I shot this back in November.  But if you’ll recall, back in November I wasn’t blogging.  I was re-capping from shooting a wedding.  And I was packing for St. Martin. And I was generally losing my ever-loving mind [along with countless emails, phone calls, and whatever else that is important].  But I was SO psyched for Melissa’s session.  I drove down there and I still had all my delicious rental gear from Corey’s wedding, and went down and arrived at their home and Melissa HAD IT GOING ON.  Like everyone was prepped, ready, dressed.  We had 45 minutes with John there, and we planned to walk to the park.

Which was awesome.  Until I realized that I brought my gripped body with TWO DEAD BATTERIES.  How unprofessional.  But I remember standing at the table and checking the other body and saying “well, I’ll bring the gripped on and play it safe.”  I think drove 30 minutes with my extra battery charger plugged into my console (yes, for emergencies) and never thought to check and charge.  So in a panic, but still smiling, I had Melissa call valet, retrieve my battery adapter from the car, and I charged one battery.  I charged it 13 minutes.  While heading to the park, I charged the second.

Without turning on my gear, I figured out what each setup would be (I have shot in the Commons a lot).  I studied the light, silently the entire way over, and I mentally calculated exactly what my settings would need to be for the compositions I had in my head.  You’d have thought I was re-working the Fibonacci Golden Ratio in my head.   When I turned on my gear, battery was blinking and I figured I had 15 shots.  So I’d set up each shot, shoot, chimp for 1.5 seconds and turn off my camera.  Literally.  Camera off in between EVERY SINGLE SHOT.  I ended up with probably about 50 shots, 33 of which were keepers in the gallery, thus really reminded me that if you shoot TOTALLY INTENTIONAL, there is no need to overshoot AT ALL.

When we got home, we relaxed, said by to John, and with a full battery [and a full glass of wine], we were able to change up outfits and rock out a Part 2 with some killer outdoor natural light on their gorgeous patio.

Melissa being Melissa hosted some good eats, delicious wines, fed my kids, and entertained me to no end.  It was truly a very awesome afternoon.  I was so excited to get her images, but am even MORE excited because we are adding to her gorgeous album library, and have pulled together a stunning frame arrangement with her beautiful images.  I can’t wait to share when they are hung!

So thanks Melissa for sharing your beautiful home and family!

This is a fabulous age if you miss the 2 week “newborn” window and still want to capture your little when they are little. Any time between 12 – 16 weeks in the infant stage is wonderful, you get engaged eye contact, tummy time, smiles, baby acne is gone and they are really oh-so-lovin’ their mammas.

This fabulous and delicious little number was an at-home mini session — at a home with wonderful light, at 9:30-10:30AM time frame (when babies are happiest!) and a very accommodating little man. He quite possibly might be one of the cutest babies I have photographed in a LONG time. It was my pleasure!

[P.S. A great follow up time to this is when your baby can happily sit on their own!]

Somehow my crazy season crept up and began in July. Last year it was August, maybe September. But it starts out with me thinking that I am not that busy, and that I have life and work under control. And then I take vacation (for me it was vacation, staycation with family, staycation with friends) and I woke up in a cold sweat with orders to deliver and galleries to proof and everything else that keeps me up until all hours both worrying and working.

So with a few power hours in front of me, and nothing planned personally for quite a while, I am charging forward and catching up. Hopefully I can say that by the end of this week, everyone who has ordered from me will either have their goods, or will their goods will be ordered… and hopefully I will also be able to say that I only have my current week galleries outstanding. Dare to dream, dare to dream.

It’s also the time of year when I am HORRIBLE about blogging. There just aren’t enough hours in the day. And so look for more single images on Facebook... and sadly, look for blog posts with no words (for some, that might be a welcome relief to not have to read all my verbal diarrhea — wait, did I just put that word on my blog?).

So here’s a few from a session that goes out tomorrow, late, but still under three weeks, so in my overall timeline, not late, but for 2011 work, it’s late. My sincerest apologies. I loved this session, I loved this family, I loved this neighborhood, I loved this little boy, I loved the people that referred them to me… I loved the city that night and then going home refreshed and happy to see my own family. I love it when sessions do that for me. Get it, I loved it.

Enough said. And to just change it up, yo, and all BW post. Because every once in a while I wake up and say “I should just do this all in BW because I love it that much more.” No worries, the gallery and slideshow have both. This is just me being crazy at midnight.