Undone Workshops

Often, an unwanted outcome of learning all the technical skills needed to be a photographer is becoming bound by the very rules you’ve struggled to learn. The creativity and joy in shooting that drew you to photography slips away.

Let Meg Bitton and Stacie Turner help you undo the rules for a weekend. Revel in a workshop/retreat designed to help you rediscover who you are and what your style is underneath all those rules.

The rules are a foundation. Now let yourself jump off that foundation and fly.

Click HERE for more information and to register…

2011 Digital Baby Portrait Plan

In keeping with my digital packages for 2011 the baby plan comes with digital files too.

What is a baby plan, you ask. A baby plan is when you get a package deal that includes multiple sessions across the year to mark the baby’s milestones. Mine is pretty simple:

The 2011 Baby Plan – $1,950

• 3 Sessions during your child’s first 18 months of life. (I recommend newborn, 6 months and 1 year but you can space them out however you like.)
• 10 full resolution digital files from each session as well as 5X7 reference prints of each of those images.
• 50% of package fee due before first session, balance due before second session.

AND if you book (and pay for) this before the end of March, 2011 you will get 1 16X20 canvas – a $575 value – of any image from any of the three sessions at the end of your plan.

Book Your Mini Portrait Session!

Winter is leaving Connecticut behind and now is the time to book your mini session for this spring! Mini Sessions are a great way to indulge in a portrait session without investing in a regular session. Mini sessions are shorter than regular sessions and require a bit more scheduling flexibility on your part but they are a fantastic way to get beautiful portraits here in Connecticut.

How does it work, you ask? We meet for a 20-25 minute session in one of a handful of locations including West Hartford Center, Blue Back Square, Westmoor Park and Elizabeth Park. March Mini Sessions are only available on weekdays and May Mini Sessions are all on one Saturday so whether you need a weekday or a weekend date, one will work within your schedule. 2-3 weeks after your session I’ll send you a link to your online gallery. You can expect about 10 pictures in your gallery and 5 full resolution images as well as 5X7 reference prints of those 5 images are included in your mini session; once you see your gallery you get the delicious task of choosing which 5 you want. And, yes, you can always get all of them if you just can’t choose.

These are a great way to get Snow Portraits (while it lasts!) Easter Portraits, Mother’s Day presents or even just an updated “what we look like NOW” session.

March Mini Sessions are available on select weekdays throughout the month and can be done during the day or in the magical light right before sunset. Please email to confirm date and time availability for the date you want before booking.

May Mini Sessions are scheduled at regular time slots on May 21, setting aside a weekend date for these shorter, more economical sessions. You can choose your time slot when you book your session.

2011 Pricing

So, I’m going to all digital packages in 2011.

This may be confusing. Shooting film, going digital. This is not quite as confusing as it sounds. The medium of creation is film, the medium of delivery is digital.

Why?

Why create in film or why deliver in digital?

Well, I’m creating in film because I like the way it looks. I like the way it makes me work. I like my pictures better when they started their life on film rather than in bits. I don’t really care so much how they end up – bits are fine – but the process of creating on film is a totally different final look.

I’m delivering in digital because people want pictures, not to have to get a separate usage license to make cards or share on Facebook*. Clients – my clients (hi guys!) – want to put pictures in digital frames, email them to Grandma and make one of them a screen-saver at work. And, frankly, consumer labs are really good now for regular prints. I include printing recommendations and reference prints with each digital order so if you print at some cheap place, well, you at least know what the final regular prints SHOULD look like.

I’ll still offer regular prints in case you know you want the quality control of a professional lab or the ease of having me take care of it. I’ll offer the gorgeous fine art prints because I swoon over gicleés and silver gelatin and you should too and you aren’t going to get those at Costco and you must have one or more or lots in your home if you love photography. I’ll offer albums because putting together a book is a service I like offering and I know perfectly well you’ll MEAN to do it but never actually get around to it because that’s what life is like.

I am expecting to get some “photographer hate mail” over this change telling me I am a fool and a blackguard and that I should be strung up from the nearest tree. In custom photographer circles this business model is heresy and only an itty bitty step removed from shoot and burn photographers who hand you an unedited disk of 300 underexposed, slightly out of focus pictures after 45 minutes in the park for $50.

AT ANY RATE every session now includes a disk and a set of reference prints. To wit:

Mini Sessions – $350
* 20 – 25 minute session. These are available on selected dates only and those dates tend to book up quickly.
* 5 5X7 regular reference prints
* 5 full resolution session images (Negatives) on CD
* Online viewing gallery for 2 weeks to share with friends and family

Regular Sessions – $1,050
* 1-2 hour session (please allow up to 4 hours for a newborn session)
* 10 5X7 regular reference prints presented in a storage box
* 10 full resolution session images (Negatives) on CD with a Custom Photo Cover
* Online viewing gallery for 2 weeks to share with friends and family

Platinum Sessions – $1,950
* 1-2 hour session (please allow up to 4 hours for a newborn session)
* At least 25 5X7 regular reference prints presented in a Custom Photo Box
* At least 25 full resolution session images (Negatives) on CD with a Custom Photo Cover
* Online viewing gallery for 2 weeks to share with friends and family

(What does “at least” mean? It means they’ll be at least 25 images but really there will be all the ones I put in your gallery. My average is probably about 35 but I’ve had galleries with over 60 images. Some kids are very cooperative. Don’t count on 60. Count on 25 and be pleasantly surprised by extras.)

A non-refundable deposit of $200 is required to reserve your date and time for all the sessions. The balance will be due at the time of the session.

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* This only counts for personal usage, by the way. People who want to use my images on their non-profit or business web site have to pay going commercial rates. Making 2,835 copies for all your cousins or sharing on your personal blog is a whole different animal than using an image to promote your business.

Last Minute Mini Sessions

OK, so it isn’t last minute YET. But November 13th, believe it or not, is last minute from the custom photography standpoint what with that whole editing each image individually thing. November 15th is the last day for sessions with guaranteed holiday delivery (and PLEASE tell me if your holiday is Hanukkah so I can bump you to the top of the editing queue) and this day of mini sessions is a good way to get prints and cards. It isn’t a full session. You can’t do a simply babies style newborn shoot. You can, however, get a nice, small selection of gorgeous pictures to pick out some images for the holidays.

Each session is $50, 20-30 minutes long and you can expect 5-10 proofs from which to choose. (Thus, “mini” – shorter sessions, fewer proofs, lower cost.) The session fee includes the session itself; all prints, cards, products and files are seperate. You can, however, opt to pre-order a session disk at a reduced cost. All sessions will be at the Trout Brook Greenway in West Hartford.

There are limited spots as, well, the day is only so long and I have yet to find a way to stick extra hours into one. So I would recommend reserving a time slot now, even if this is hardly last minute, since if you wait until the last minute you may be stuck with an 8AM time slot!

Click HERE to book!

This little dancer had a session at Trout Brook last year. I’ll be in knee high boots in case I need to go into the stream for good lighting but I won’t ask you to get wet in November!

What to Wear for your Portrait Session (and a few things to avoid!)

People always want to know what to wear for a portrait session and I’d tell you “wear whatever you normally wear” but, well, I’ve been known to wear some fairly bizarre concoctions if I think I’m not leaving the house and then decide I need to go to the grocery store and there I am in a linen skirt, ratty old t-shirt and crocs and I’d really rather not have myself preserved on film in one of those get-ups. I know I’m a walking “before” picture for a fashion make-over but with small kids and a computer full of backlogged proofing I can’t always quite be bothered and if I do there’s some odd risks involved in clothing when you have preschoolers. Today I’ve stepped in chocolate milk and sat in honey. So I’m going to pretend that you are like me and in your daily life wear things that are, perhaps, not QUITE as lovely as you’d like to present yourself and your family to the world.

So…

Newborns: Newborns should be naked. If you have a special, heirloom outfit or a sweet little sweater someone made for you, have it ready. If you have a quilt someone made for you that is important to you, have it ready. Solid colored, lightweight swaddling fabric is good to have around as are cute hats, simple headbands but don’t feel the need to invest in anything you don’t already have because, well, naked is good.

There, wasn’t that easy? Not even any shopping required.

Girl Children: You should allow her to dress herself and then subtract from the outfit anything you really hate and cannot bear to see on your wall. This IS a portrait of her and her clothing should reflect who she is, not who Gap or Tea Collection want her to be and my goal is to get a portrait of the actual child, not a heavily stylized advertisement for childhood. Be aware that she’ll probably be dirty by the time I’m done with her (I do tend to encourage children to play and that messes them up) so avoid anything so precious you couldn’t bear it if it got stained. Does she have a stuffed bear she won’t put down? Bring it. Does she insist on wearing a tutu over everything, including her snow suit? Leave it. When she’s grown up you’ll want to remember her as she was, tutu, snowsuit, stuffed bear and all.

OK, you want specific instructions. A solid colored dress made out of woven fabric like linen, not a knit or t-shirt type fabric, with some swing to the cut and some texture. Going a size up often helps with the flow. If you keep it simple the final picture will remain about the child, not the styling.

Boy Children Again, the goal is to make a portrait of the child, not a magazine spread, so don’t make yourself nuts with the styling. Let him wear what he likes and take away anything you hate. Jeans, a plain shirt and some kind of layering are perfect. Feel free to invest in a new t-shirt – they often tend to get subtly “pilly” after a while.

Families Unless you tend to wear matching reindeer sweaters in real life, you shouldn’t wear them for your portraits. Instead of trying to match everyone lay out all the things you are thinking of wearing and ask yourself if this would work if it were one outfit. Do the patterns go nicely together? Is there some variety? Then you are good to go!

Things to Avoid
I once, when watching the summer Olympics, observed a man who had just medaled in butterfly, a physically demanding stroke, stand, poolside, in a speedo. This was before swimmers wore full body suits and he was in tight, underwear like spandex. There was a bit of what looked like a spare tire around his waist and I thought if THIS MAN, who is about as physically fit as it is humanly possible to be, looks less than perfect in a speedo there is simply no hope for any other man anywhere.

There are some items of clothing that look bad on you no matter how good you look. Some specific things to avoid:

• Speedos. 1) You’ll freak me out if you show up to your photo session in a speedo and 2) see the anecdote above about the world class swimmer.
• Yoga pants, sweat pants, or any variation thereof. These only look passable on the pretzel chick from your yoga class. If you are a professional dancer, go for it. For the rest of us mere mortals, no.
• Polo shirts. They drape in unflattering ways. I know they are comfortable. I know you wear them every day. Don’t wear them for your photo shoot. Please.
• Khakis. Ubiquitous these days, most of these are designed by the same sadists who make high school band uniforms to look bad on everyone. At least, unlike those marching band uniforms, khakis are rarely 100% polyester but you should still avoid them.
• Athletic shoes and Crocs. Big bulky shoes just look lousy in pictures. If it’s summer, go barefoot or wear sandals. In winter go for flattering boots.
• Giant headbands for the baby with silk flowers as large as the baby’s head and an elastic band that looks eerily like a cheap garter. There are beautiful, simple headbands available on Etsy if you have a headband yen.

Make sure YOU are in the pictures

Everyone wants pictures of their kids. Good pictures, bad pictures, doesn’t matter. We adore our children and want to capture every last moment as we feel that clock inexorably moving forward. Yesterday they were babies, then they sat up. Can that be MY child riding a scooter? We document their lives with professional portraits and iPhone snaps and home movies and tend to forget one thing.

We are part of their lives.

Women always say to me “Oh, I don’t want to be in any. I didn’t do my hair. I’m not wearing any makeup. I need to lose 10 pounds. Or 20.” No, you probably don’t need to lose 20 pounds and I’m sure you look gorgeous without makeup and, more to the point, you are in your kids lives looking just the way you look, right now. You need to be in the pictures. You are creating the photographic story of your child’s life, from the snapshots to the portraits, and when you look back you will see a narrative connecting them that you didn’t even realize was there at the time.

I know the odds are good that you are the family photographer and can claim “well, I’m not in them because no one else can take a picture.” I know this because this is my excuse. Or maybe you duck behind a tree when the family photographer comes out waving his or her camera claiming those 20 pounds or lack of lipstick as the excuse. I know that you feel uncomfortable in front of a camera. It’s hard to have your picture taken. But if you don’t get in front of that camera that photographic narrative won’t include you. There will be no photo you can show your adult children of you loving on them at 5 days old. No photo of you laughing with your 2-year-old. No photo of you with all of your children smiling at you because they adore you. Hand your partner the camera and get some snapshots with you in them. Next time you have a portrait session tell the photographer to make sure you are in some of the images. Because you ARE part of the story of your children’s lives. You need to be in the pictures.