What is a portrait photographer? Sounds kind of basic doesn’t it. But something happened that made me think it was time to address this.
More than forty years ago I developed a few descriptions of our role that I used in training programs for new photographers and helping more experienced photographers grow. What exactly was it that we were doing? Then a few decades back I ran across a description from a photographer from more than a century ago. It was more succinct and to the point than anything I had come up with over the years. I have used it ever since.
The task of a portrait photographer is to engage the subject, elicit an expression and capture it. That’s it. I wish I could remember the photographer who said that. Perhaps someone will help me out in the comments.
If you understand fully each of those three steps you know what it takes to become a portrait photographer. I understood this very well before I was allowed to photograph my first subject unsupervised. Over my first three weeks of training and many hundreds of sittings (perhaps a thousand) I realized the difficulty of doing this well, every time.
I thank a grandmother from California for motivating me to finally address this issue that is becoming an increasing problem in our industry. The problem is that she had no idea what I do for a living, what my role is, why others had encouraged her son to come to me for family pictures. Neither did her son who had come to me for family pictures. This is not because they were unsophisticated. It is because we, as an industry, have done such a poor job of communicating what we do and why people should pay us for our skills.
This may be partly because for many of us it is too much work, especially if the subject is a child or children. The other reason is with the level of training that has existed for the last few decades (really) many children’s photographers have a very different perception of their role than I or the classic portrait photographers of old.
This California grandmother and her son thought that the parents were supposed to work with their children and get their expressions. This was based on their experience of what a children’s photographer does.
I did the family sitting first, the parents and three children together. It went well. Then when I pulled the parents out of the sitting to photograph the children as a separate group, Dad immediately started to “work” with the children as other photographers had taught him. It degenerated into an argument between him and the kids. I got a couple of poor shots and we were done. Dad was mad and the kids were bawling.
I discussed things with Dad afterward. I think he understands how I work and I understand why he and many other parents do what they do. He bought the family pictures and I gave him a refund of the deposit on the children’s group. I think things will go better next time.
The message for photographers is learn how to work with children directly, not through the parents. You are not doing the parents or the industry any favors. Incompetence on the part of people presenting themselves as children’s photographers is part of the reason that our potential clients go to a friend with a camera for their senior or wedding pictures.
If you are a parent, pay attention to the photographer. Are they engaging the child or children? Are you expected to elicit the expression? There are photographers that will treat your children like real people. Seek them out.
For both parents and photographers: Check out my YouTube channel, type Children’s Portraiture into the YouTube search window or click this link http://youtube.com/channel/UCuTaSun1drjo5JBsh989TYg.
The accompanying images were done is a child care center. She was probably part of a group of several children that took about three to five minutes per subject.