Recently in Madonna and Child Category
Earlier this week I had the opportunity to bring my wife and kids into my studio. A dream come true. I can’t tell you how nervous I was! For me, a good amount was riding on this shoot, so I made sure to block off the entire morning. Toni has been urging me to do this shoot for some time (five months), and I have been thinking about it myself…. all the time.
People have been constantly asking to see pictures of my kids and I had none to show them. Bad daddy; bad. But being the photographer that I am, I can’t just show people a snap shot. The fact of the matter is, I have been reluctant to just sit my wife and kids down in the studio and start shooting away without a plan. I feel obligated to shoot what I would consider the pinnacle of photography. The best I can do, nothing less. That takes some thinking. Some planning. A vision of what I want the final image to look like before even taking the first shot. This meant that backgrounds needed to be purchased, a silk flower arangement had to be made for something interesting in the background. I had custom furniture made for the shot as well. I waited for a few weeks for the furniture to come in, and during that time I studied the work of other photographers.
I also knew going into this shoot that the final results would be on my site for the world to see by the end of the same day. And, by putting the portraits on my site I would be announcing a new product line. I knew that I wanted one shot with Toni and each of our kids, and then the three of them together. And I wanted to keep everything consistent by making them all in my Sepia style.
During my research, I found a wide range of examples, some good and some not so good, and some were almost just funny. But, the one thing that I found in common with most of them was that the primary mission of the photographer was just to get a good expression out of the baby. The most basic example of this was the shot that you could find over and over again on multiple web sites of the baby just sitting on a white background looking at the camera, with the photographer undoubtedly in the background doing his best to make the baby smile. Some of these were better than others, but I knew right off that I did not want to have my work categorized in the same light.
If you know my work, I just can’t allow myself to do the same thing that others are doing. How can you get recognition if you don’t develop your own style? Truly, I am not about portraits with big huge smiles. I think they can tend to look fake. I would much rather see a subtle, pleasant expression in a finished portrait.
Additional inspiration came from three of my favorite photographers. I have one other favorite, but a combination of these three styles seemed to get me closest to the vision I had in my head, and at the very least I knew it would give me a good starting point. But the final examples that I found, the ones that sang to me the most, did not come from a website at all. They came from my art history books.
What I wanted to create was a very classic looking Madonna and Child portrait. Iconic looking. Now I am not sure if I got there on my first attempt, but I am sure that over time I will refine the style to what I have in my head. You be the judge. Over 400 exposures were taken during this one hour portrait session, and I liked these three the best. They seem authentic. They are my favoirtes because they do not feel contrived or staged when I look at them, even though they were taken in my studio. These images can also be found at Solaris Studios under the section PORTRAIT PORTFOLIO.
Aric
Houston Wedding Photographer
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P.S. Are you a mother with a baby? Call me today and allow me to create a Mother and Child portrait for you... before your baby isn't a baby anymore. Come into my studio, and let me create a portrait that you will brighten your daily life and make your heart sing.
