Environmental Family Portraits at Christmas

Patty and I and our family had a lovely time with Pam and Andy and their family Christmas day. In the morning we opened presents at home with our kids here in the Dayton area, then we drove to the Cleveland area first to visit my wife’s parents who are currently both in the hospital. After our visit, we went to Pam and Andy’s (Pam is my wife Patty’s older sister) for a beautiful visit and dinner. But, before dinner they had asked if I would bring my camera and take some family portraits for them.

I think the hint of Christmas is a wonderful way to be in the mood for Christmas year round. Since the portraits were taken in their own home, they will also have a more special meaning. I also took some in their formal family room without Christmas decorations showing.

I showed them a stretched canvas print that I had made for one of my senior high school student portraits so they could see what it might look like as a canvas print. It can make portraits like these into wonderful works of art. I also like to show samples so that people can understand size a little better. The canvas print that I showed them was 16×24 which is a nice starter size for framed display on a wall. It is very common for people to think that an 8×10 or 11×14 is a large wall portrait, but those are considered more for desk and bookcase display and usually look very small once held up to a wall. I even lend various sized print samples to people to allow them to hold them up where they intend of making their display so that they can see how various sizes appear. It is not something that you can do from memory. It’s kind of like bringing paint samples back from the store to hold up against various pieces of furniture to make sure they compliment what you already have.

This is Pam and Andy.

This is their lovely family.

The other images from the session can be seen here: Pam & Andy Family Portraits

Touch and whisper for great looking natural smiles

At our annual PPSO (Professional Photographers of SW Ohio) picnic we were encouraged to come with our cameras to take some portraits of each other’s families. Toni Forgue was asking me about getting natural expressions from people. Two tricks that I had just learned from a photographers seminar came in handy. I told Toni I wanted to take some portraits of her with her husband. He sat down and crossed his arms. He looked comfortable and relaxed. I told her to put her arms around his neck in a comfortable way. Now, what was my trick to get Toni to relax? Her husband was already smiling because he was feeling connected to his wife. I walked up to Toni and said, “tell your husband a secret…whisper it in his ear, something private.” Click, click, click, click I captured the moment just right.

Tell me what you think. As a professional photographer sometimes you have to bring a bag of little tricks that help people become more relaxed and natural. How did this little trick work?