Family Portraits

Why Family Portraits Are So Important

I know I’d gladly give up everything I have if it was necessary to keep my family safe and healthy. They mean everything in the world to me.

And one of life’s greatest lessons, I learned from Chelsie, my youngest daughter. She never leaves any of us, without saying “I love you” accompanied with a hug and a kiss. . She never ends a phone conversation without expressing the same thing. Of all of us, she most understands and appreciates the true importance, and she understands that life has it’s unpredictabilities.

Of all the types of portraiture we create, family portraits are the most important, yet the least likely to be scheduled.

Why?

Because, unlike a high school senior, or a new baby, or a wedding, there’s no particular compelling time in which is has to be scheduled.

So it’s so easy to put off until later.

But too often later never comes, or it comes too late. I can’t tell you how many people have expressed to me the regrets of having just not gotten around to it, only to have something happen that makes it impossible to ever capture the family as it existed.

I’ve come to the conclusion that the key word here is SEPARATION…

Separation by time, separation by distance and separation by the natural ebb and flow of life.

Separation by Time

We all have times in our life that we look back on and think “I wish”. Think about how fast children grow up. We ask every high school senior we photograph if they’ve ever been professionally photographed, and the answer is usually “no”.

How sad that these families don’t have wonderful, storytelling, memory evoking family portraits at different times in their lives as their children grew. Portraits to tell the story of what they liked to do together. Portraits that tell the story of their relationships – from the total dependence of an infant to the pushing back of the teenage years. Portraits that told where they liked to go and what they liked to do as a family.

Separation by Distance

A century ago, it wasn’t unusual for families to live their entire lives within a few miles of each other. Not any more! In today’s world families are far flung. My oldest daughter, Hollie, lives in Italy, and we’re lucky to see her once a year.

The same children we talked about above have a habit of growing up, and leaving the nest. Once they’ve done that it’s frequently very hard to get everyone together so you even COULD create a family portrait. When our youngest daughter gets married this fall, Hollie’s husband Tony won’t be able to be there (he’s an Air Force officer, and can’t get away”, so we won’t have everyone in the wedding photographs.

Who knows when our next opportunity will be to capture everyone together. It could be three or four years, and by that time, we’ll have some grandchildren, so it won’t even be the same group. I’d really love to have a wall portrait of our family as it exists right after both daughters are married.

Separation by the Ebb and Flow of Life

As much as we humans hate to admit it, life has a natural beginning and ending. It’s natural to emotionally assume that those we love will always be there with us. But it’s simply not he case.

We all know families who unexpectedly lost someone important to them. That’s when the “I wish I had” regrets are so strong if they’ve “never got around to it”.

And if they had, then those portraits become TREASURES.

One of my favorite kind of family portraits is “Grandma’s Arms and Grandpa’s Hands” – portraits showing grandparents and grandchildren together, because there’s such a special relationship between these generations.

The kids will treasure these when they grow up.

We’re the CURE for the problems associated with this Separation

No, we cant change the circumstances, but we certainly can freeze for all time the wonderful memories of each of these times in your life. We can provide a constant presence of each of those you love even if you’re separated by thousands of miles.

But for us to do this, you have to decide that the time is NOW, not in an “I wish” moment when it’s no longer possible. You have to make the call and schedule the consultation. Yes it involves some effort in putting the whole thing together…