As Children Grow
I have photographed these sisters since they were very young, which tells me that this family believes in my theory of celebrating different times in the lives of children.
Typically, the older the child, the less he or she is photographed. Part of this is because older children become involved with many activities. Also, as children get older, they learn to express their opinions—and so a major reason they are not photographed is because they do not want to be. They will say they can do it another time, believing that they will not change much in six months or a year. This procrastination causes the parents to miss this special time in their child’s life—and every moment in a child’s life is special.
The portraits from this session are a milestone in these sisters’ lives and in their family’s life as well. These little girls have become young women.
Additional images from the same session.
Which to Purchase?
Mom was unsure which image to purchase. I suggested the pose above because the simple turn of the head and the softening of the eyes represented their different personalities. I explained that some things are purchased with your head and others with your heart. Portraiture at this level is an investment that you buy with your heart. You can record their faces with your cell phone, but that was not why I was hired. My job was to tell their stories and show their personalities—with a simple little whisper of a closed eye, a turn of a head, an expression change, or the touch of a hand.
Posing
When I have one subject posed behind another, I imagine the person in front leaning against a piece of glass with their nose touching the glass. My goal is for the person in back to come forward enough so that their nose also touches that same piece of glass. If you do not lean them forward enough, the perspective will be distorted.
Here, the girl in back has her knee on a bench and is leaning far forward to compress herself into the same plane as her older sister. If she did not lean forward, I would have had perspective and lighting problems. Having her lean forward prevented these issues and created movement through their necks and bodies.