Are you doing family pictures?

Yes?

Okay.

Here’s my advice — whoever you choose for your photographer — BOOK the SESSION NOW.  Seriously.  If you have ideas of fall photos, holiday cards, your family with great colors outside — yeah.  You know what i’m going to say, right?

Limited.  Openings.

So…that being said — this family booked and we had a huge amount of fun running all over their house and yard and just PLAYING (cuz I LOVE to play!) and George (I maintain that “GEORGE” is the best boy’s name ever — just say it to yourself.  Right?  If I had thought of it then — my son TOTALLY would have been a GEORGE) kept me on my toes running ALL OVER.  OMG!  ::laughing::

And one small observation — if you made it down to the bottom of this post and didn’t get caught up in — HOW CUTE THESE CHILDREN ARE ::grin:: — I want you to see that you don’t always have to go to crazy locations for photographs – sometimes just playing in the yard makes the best place.  Right?

A lot of times those ideas kind of fade away because they are impractical for whatever reason, or I notice that someone else has done something kind of along the same lines, or…I get bored with it…or it’s too hard to REALLY do.  Since I generate a LOT of ideas all the time (who knew this was unusual?) this happens quite often.

Once in a while though, I have a “BIG” one.  And this time, not only was it big — but it turned out to exceed my wildest imagination and expectations — and I could NOT have achieved it without the diligent work and dedication of my team, my friends, my clients and my colleagues.

It started with Vanity Fair.

You know how they have that issue with the actors on it?  I remember thinking…I’d love to do something like that.  How can I do something like that?

And then…in the middle of the night…I woke up with this idea perfectly formed in my head:  my clients.

I wonder if my clients would do something like that?  And so…an idea was born.  The most humbling thing for me, by FAR, is that every single one of my clients we talked to said yes.  No hesitation…no maybe’s — just…yep.  Tam.  That sounds sooo fun!  Let’s do it!  Tell me when and we’ll be there!

I think I might have cried I was so overwhelmed by that.

As an afterthought i said — hey.  let’s videotape it and see if we can’t put a little behind the scenes thingy (yes, I said thingy, it’s the technical term!  ::grin::) together.  Which turned into:  let’s interview each person and ASK (innovative concept, right?  ASK our clients to tell us about their experience) — and we maybe might have forgot to mention this to our clients — so when they came in to be photographed, they were surprised and a little nervous to sit in front of a camera.  I’m telling you this so you can see what follows was completely unscripted — even when I talk (and it’s SO HARD to hear yourself…ugh.  do I REALLY sound like that?  OMG) I had things I wanted to say, but I just talked unscripted.  I sounded a little strange and disconnected and sometimes I’d have to say it a couple of times — but I wanted it to be more gritty and real — then a perfect beautiful video.  Because we want to have fun and play and take photographs — we don’t want to be perfect.  It’s too much pressure, right?

Here’s the Vanity Fair cover that inspired me:

Cool ,right?  So…what I love about what our final image is that it’s a TOTAL Swales interpretation.  I wanted several things — I wanted to show how DIVERSE my clientele is…I wanted to show how COOL they are…and I wanted to be PLAYFUL.

Here’s mine (and clicking it will take you to an online version — that if you click it will make it REALLY BIG.  Try it — it’s totally cool!)

Can you BELIEVE this?!  I LOVE it sooo much!!!

Finally — we worked on the COOL VIDEO.

I don’t know what to say about it other than it’s the coolest thing I think we’ve done up until this point.  I love everything and everyone in it.  Thank you Thank you Thank you to everyone involved — my amazing clients, Rock Paper Scissors Salon who styled, Bruce Hahn for advising me on lighting, My amazing team, and my family for supporting me through all the madness.  I love you all.

So…watch it will ya?  And tell me if you like it.  really.  Cuz it was a LOT of work.  And I really wanted you to know how important it is to me that my clients take center stage…because, ultimately, that’s WHY I do what I do.  For you.  xoxo

I can tell you what I think — and my opinion is based not on the fact that taking these photographs are part of what I do for a living — but more of a life-long observation about how our society functions.

(yeah.  I’m about to go serious.  brace yourselves!  ::grin::)

So.  Many of us have had the experience of being thin and beautiful and then maybe not so much.  Have you noticed how differently you are treated simply based on appearances?  Or…what if you leave the house looking ratty vs. all amazing and cute.  Difference?

And yeah.  I can also see that looking good impacts your attitude and the way you carry yourself and all that inner beauty stuff.  But I am simply observing that appearances have impact.  On everyone.

So do I think headshots are important?  Yup.  With the economy being what it is, with people competing for jobs in ever greater numbers…with judgment about your business being made in an instant on the internet…have you looked at your bounce rate lately?  That tells you something.  Important.

Images are CRITICAL.  CRITICAL.

They tell someone a lot about you in a glance…things like…do you look approachable?  likeable?  happy?  intelligent?

Are the images professional (nods to self ::grin::)?  And within that word professional there are many many different levels.  If you are presenting yourself to the world…why in heaven’s name would you put up blah images?  What does that say to others about how you view yourself?

And I am not by any stretch giving you a Tammy Swales “hire me” plug.  All I’m doing is expressing what I think about the importance of images.  We are a visual society.  We’re impatient.  We don’t wait or ponder or get wishy washy much anymore.  We’re decisive and make snap decisions.

Trust me.  If an interviewer or recruiter or Broadway show director is faced with a pile of 500 resumes with images attached…do you think they’re going to read every single one?  Nope.  Betcha that they flip through the images first.  Is it right?  Nope.  Is it real?  Yup.

A good photographer, an experienced photographer both understands this dynamic — but works with the client to make sure they are being presented in the best possible … um if you’ll pardon the pun… light.  Your personality and self are what’s important.  Getting that into a photograph is a major MAJOR skill.  It’s not the camera people.  Trust me.

So I ask you…how do you want the world to see yourself?!

An absolute riot!!!

The Darlings were such an inspiring, close-knit family and a hands-down hilarious group. They along with their four furry friends had me laughing so hard I was almost crying the entire time I was shooting.

4 humans + 4 dogs officially = an incredibly fun family shoot!

And….and a great deal of teamwork to get everyone looking at the camera at once.

Thing is – I’ve learned this from Lulu – when you’re a dog the simplest things are sometimes the most thrilling things in the world…

GRASS!!!! OMG!!!! EVERYONE’S SITTING ON THE GRASS!!!!! OMG!!!!!

It’s so exciting.

But after much running around, calling, cooing, cajoling and otherwise convincing we finally got everyone to look…

Well…

…almost.

But this one began with a photograph. Not my photograph, and not just any photograph…THIS photograph:

The Stolkas celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary this year. FIFTY YEARS!!! HOW COOL IS THAT!?!? And their daughter contacted us for some family portraits of them with her and her sister while everyone was in town for the anniversary. And she knew she wanted to bring this photograph which of them on their wedding day. And I loved this idea!

When I shoot families, I think it is really important to make the shoot more than just images of people in a place. Family is history, it is love, it is the nitty-gritty and the laughter of every day, and I think that every family should incorporate something that is all about THEM into their shoot to really capture WHO they are. So I loved the wedding photo plan. Then we got talking and Helena said that one thing that her parents love to do together is bike…so we brought that into the shoot…

It was incredible to see the closeness between the Stolkas and their daughters…and the laughter!!!! This was more than a celebration of FIFTY (did I mention 50?) years of marriage, it was a celebration of family, of love and of those moments together that we can often take for granted in our busy lives. And we laughed SO much!

Happy Anniversary Stolkas! Here’s to many more years of family and fun!!!

So…back to work, but first, here’s a snippet of some of that fantastic-ness for you, and a taste of what we’ve been up to lately. August, here we come!!!!  And frankly, how can it be August already?!

Aww, heck…why not two snippets?!?!

All that said, I’ve had a MAD number of engagement shoots lately. What an amazing way to start off the summer!!! I am PSYCHED beyond belief to shoot every one of these weddings.  I am overwhelmed by how each of my couples “get” me and how I work..which is the MOST important thing in getting great photographs.

Sometimes crazy fun engagement shoots take a little extra maneuvering, and my couples really step up to the plate. Literally! Valerie had to do some serious pre-planning to get us into Frontier Field so she and Keith could incorporate their love of baseball into their engagement images. But what a great experience that was!!! And Jessica and Clark impressively managed to get their ENORMOUS (and gorgeous!) dog all the way up to my forth floor studio without event! Talk about hard core…

And Stephanie and Micah were right there when I started yelling  “AH! There! Light! Underpass! Run! Now! Go!”

And we NAILED it!!!!  We make a great team. ::grin::

I love my couples and I am SO excited for this summer.

The great thing is, it just so happens that this year I have A LOT of couples from New York. Some are getting married in the NYC/Long Island area. Some who live down there now are getting married in Rochester. And one couple is holding their wedding in an AWESOME old bank in downtown Albany!

Lots of NY couples means…lots of NY engagement shoots! WOOT WOOT!!!  It also means some very strategic planning and a good deal of heated negotiation with the weather man.  All of that has paid off, though, ’cause this last trip down was SUCH a success!  Allison and Gregg and Leslie and Brad were totally fantastic and, let me tell you, between the lot of us we have some ROCKIN’ scheduling skills. What better way to spend a gorgeous spring day than marathon-shooting two adorable, fabulous couples in Manhattan?!?!

There really isn’t any. I mean seriously. SO much fun!!!! Allison and Gregg, Leslie and Brad, you made my day.

OBviously I’ve figured that out!  I have a bunch of stuff to share — so I’m blogging this morning — so forgive me for the blog dump today (that sounds funny and somehow…wrong…doesn’t it?  ::laughing::)

I had the opportunity to work with the AMAZING team over at the American Heart Association in Rochester.  They contacted me to do a series of images of survivors with the concept being “The Face of Heart Disease”.

I have never been so moved and touched by a project.  I LOVED meeting each and every one of these incredibly resilient and awesome people.  Truly.  I am a better person because of it.  I took on the project because my family has a MAJOR history with heart disease — and as my mom tells me — my grandfather is very proud of me right now.  ::sniff::

The posters will be on display at the Heart Walk on April 10th – if you are participating or cheering your loved ones on — see you there!