Here’s a question that I posed to my Facebook audience a while back:
”What are some beliefs that you have about photo sessions that might stop you from considering booking one?”
And here is one of the answers I got: “I look like a twit in photos!”
Do you know what? You are right!
There will be photos where you look like a total twit. BUT it’s not going to be every photo. There will be ones you’ll look at and say “omg look at my chin in that one!!”. There will be some expressions that I won’t capture because they don’t do you any favors (like when I make a squirrel face). Some I will just delete without sending them to you, others I will keep in a special folder to blackmail you with at a future point in time (that was a JOKE). And there will be the ones that you look at and gasp “is that really me?!” (in a good way!!)
In some photos, we will totally be channeling our inner Julia Roberts, in others, maybe more like Nora Batty. Who cares how many Nora Battys we chuck out? Honestly, we delete them and move on. (And there won’t be that many as I don’t tend to over-shoot.)
These are all just a range of our expressions though; little snippets of time captured. Do you know how many ridiculous facial expressions you make on a daily basis & never pay attention to them?! Hundreds! But you’d never notice it until you were being photographed because you don’t walk around with a mirror at your face all day.
I don’t like photos of me when I’m making my ‘Princess Diana Shy Face’ or ones that show too much of the top of my head where my hair is so dark, or where I’m looking far off to the side because it makes my nose look really big, but I didn’t know that about me until I saw it in a photo. Does that make sense?
No one looks smiley & gorgeous & intelligent all day every day, that’s a completely unrealistic expectation. But once again, why do we actually care? If we can capture the expressions that we love & ditch all the rest, we are totally winning at life. And we stop at various points during the session to take a look at what we’ve captured, weigh in with your opinions and tweaks and add more suggestions for the next part of the session if you feel we need to change direction a little.
As a photographer, that is my job! To tune in to you, connect with you enough that I can start to get a feel for the expressions that I want to capture in you. I’ll observe you in action, listen to you talk, get a ‘baseline reading’ of you. And because we are working as a team, you will feel empowered and at ease to tell me what you like & don’t like, to feel like you can be in control and speak your mind.
You won’t be looking at a photo session as something that you just have to tolerate & endure. As my client, you are right next to me at the driver’s seat (we have one of those double ones so we don’t have to feel squashed at all..)
What are some beliefs that YOU have about photo sessions that might stop you from considering booking one?!!