Today is perfect. I want to bite off a piece and save it for a rainy day.
Whether we capture you in a brash and fresh high key or a low key with gentle shadows… If you are only a party of 3 to a huge sprawling clan of 33, the one common thread throughout is everyone wants an image of themselves they like.
This is your family portrait! This blog is about what you can do to help it be the best one ever and what we can do to help ensure that.
When we are producing portraits for our clients we always imagine what it would feel like for the 33rd and the only person (let’s call him Uncle Fred) who hates their image out of that large family grouping. Since we consider our work most likely be part of your family legacy, we take it pretty seriously if we caught Uncle Fred at his worst. Don’t worry! We have a process that can almost promise we won’t do that to your ‘Uncle Fred’.
Read on and we’ll tell you our secret. But first, dear photographable one, no matter how good your photographer is, no matter how many gizmos with buttons they have and no matter how good they are at pressing those buttons, there are still things you can do to help yourself ensure a terrific image you’ll love for years. Some of these things seem so obvious, but post shoot editing experience tells us some things slip through once in a while and they’re so easy to fix before the shoot. It often costs nothing. Since we are making a record of your family at that time and we kind of want it to look pleasing I actually wrote a blog about preparing for a shoot. http://www.angelstudio.ca/things-to-know-before-your-shoot/ This applies to anytime you are being photographed by any photographer.
If you have chosen us to to capture your portrait, we’re in this together. When you look great, we win! We know some people turn to wood as soon as a camera is pointed at them. They can’t help it. We understand. We chat. We shoot a bit. We show you where your strengths are and how you can move to improve your display. We are working together. This always produces laughs! We are not beyond producing a puppet to make you smile. The trick is not to rush it. We like to take our time and keep it human. Portraits are rarely made on the first capture. The more choices we give to the post production end, the happier you’ll be.
The family photographer has changed from the one your parents used! We need to be as everyone is a photographer! We’ve had to ‘up’ our game. We have to be good enough to warrant our fee. This means we need to take time with our clients and open them up a bit. We are up against a sea of people who claim they hate their picture being taken. Why? Camera’s are quite easy to use on automatic, but their abilities can soar through manual settings. To do that your photographer has to read the light and respond accordingly. That’s what we do! We know what kind of pose looks best for anybody. After our shoot, we cull our captures only choosing the best. Getting 30 faces, some being baby faces to look at the camera at the same time is a matter of probabilities. The cards are stacked against it! Couple that with everyone presenting their best ‘movie star’ faces and expressions all at once – well, the odds have just gone to almost impossible! In this post shoot environment we want the best all on one picture so even Uncle Fred is pleased. At Angel Studio we use magic wizards and a bit of photoshop to ever-so-gently rip Uncle Fred’s head of here and stick it there. This action is called a head swap. We are very good at it too! The switch is seamless.
We told you we weren’t your parent’s photographer! We aren’t scared of cracking off extra frames to make sure everyone is captured favourably. Quite simply, we do all this because we care. Craft is important to us. When you think about it, you can’t make many purchases that will outlast the buyer or craftsman. A house and now a family portrait. Our prints use archival inks which, if framed correctly and displayed out of direct sunlight can last almost a century. At this rate, it could be your great, great grandchildren who wind up with this portrait. That’s a long time for Uncle Fred to hate us.
