I recently had the opportunity to see and feel firsthand what I tell my clients all the time. I am the second of my parent’s five children and we arranged for all of our families to drive up to Sacramento in late October for my grandmother’s 90th birthday (we call her “Nana”). This was lightning in a bottle! We were going to have my parents and five families together (with all six of Nana’s great grandchildren) in the same place with Nana. Everyone lives in California, but we are all spread out between just north of Sacramento, Orange County and the Riverside/San Diego areas.
Naturally, I wanted to get a portrait of everyone on her birthday and I wanted it to be as good as it could be. My wife and kids and I decided that a large part of our gift to Nana would be a large framed print of the portrait and we would give it to her that same day.
We had a great time on the trip, and truly spent some great time as a family. Late Sunday morning we went to celebrate Nana’s birthday at the care facility she lives in. We were in a large dining room and quickly transformed it into a makeshift portrait studio. I got into my portrait photographer mode while still maintaining the balance of enjoying my kids, nieces and nephew. Nana was in great spirits, cutting jokes as usual and keeping us all entertained. We took three different four-generation portraits.
Once the portrait and a few party images were done, everyone was off to a late lunch at Chuck E Cheese and I was off to the local Starbucks to produce the images, retouch and prepare the big portrait, then find a local place to get the best print I could. I’m looking at the images critically, getting caught up in all of the things I’d do differently in a better setting, too bad we didn’t have time to coordinate clothing, more time for better posing, etc. Don’t get me wrong, the portrait was good, especially given the speed with which we threw everything together and the amount of time we had, but I’m always critical of my work (as any photographer should be).
I finished my work as the family was finishing the pizza party, then we packed up the gang to go and get the print, frame it and deliver it. My wife and kids loved the print, but by then I was a little tired and still kind of caught up in the process of a self-imposed deadline. When we arrived to deliver the print, Nana’s face lit up in a way that I hadn’t seen in a while. She absolutely loved the print and showed that more clearly than she could say it.
That moment brought me back to a clear understanding of why I love family photography. I didn’t become a portrait photographer because I love the stresses of the workflow, and love to get caught up in the nit picking of my work. I’m a family photographer because of what portraits do for people.
