Candid Studio Portraits

Sometimes, formal training can be a detriment. Especially when it “locks” you into a certain way of thinking or doing things. Not to say training and education are unimportant— it’s just that, in some cases, training is substituted for talent and creative thought.

The result: Sameness, over and over again.

If you’re like most families, photographs of your children & pets are among your most valuable possessions. Ask 10 people what they would grab in a fire (after the living things, of course) and many, if not most, will say “my family photographs.”

This is not an unexpected response. After all, photographs are a powerful keeper of what we are like. That is, if the photographs are natural looking, and have captured the “essence of the moment.”

“Natural looking” and “essence of the moment” are the key factors, and here’s where “detrimental training” comes in. You see, most photographers are trained to take portraits according to a formula No talent is required, just good equipment and THE FORMULA. This works out great for the mass marketer, or the small business person wanting to cash in on the huge family photography market, but it does little for the families being photographed.

I’m sure you’ve seen the results from this kind of factory “line ‘em up and shoot ‘em” photography — stiff poses, forced smiles, ugly back drops. I don’t know about you, but I find it awfully hard to “connect” with the people in this type of photograph. They don’t look real.

Not surprisingly, most people actually hate this type of photography, but think that’s all that’s available to them. Or they think it’s “just the way it’s supposed to be done.” Or they do it because they think it’s quick and cheap (then get trapped into buying expensive reprints).

This is a shame because families who are trying to preserve precious moments — family history — end up having them robbed from them.