After much thought and ideas written on more paper than Hammermill paper can produce, I have finally locked in on a family rate that makes it so easy to have unique, high quality family pictures!
Why are family pictures so important? I know this sounds like an obvious question and I’m sure that absolutely no one was thinking this, at least not out loud, but there is a reason as a photographer I hear SO many people say something along the lines of, “We haven’t had family pictures since our daughter was 5 years old and now she’s getting ready to go to college.” That’s nearly 13 years without professional family pictures. Why? Many times setting the camera on the mantle at Christmas is the only form of family pictures a family will have, sure these provide updated family pictures, but that’s not really your family. Let’s be real, how many times does your family dress up and sit around the fire smiling all cheesy like? I’m going to say it’s probably one time a year at Christmas? 🙂 The point of family pictures is to capture your family and who you all really are? Pictures of the parents, pictures of the kids, each kid individually, maybe even the pet, maybe even the grandparents as well, and of course the family unit. But this is only the beginning, family pictures have changed, it’s not longer some boring session standing in front of a cheesy backdrop and everyone looking their best, it’s about capturing the personality, the character your family has, because individually and as a unit your family is unique from any other family. Maybe you’re a farming family, a musical family, an artsy family, etc… let’s capture that side of you.
The problem, I feel, people have with family pictures is they see so many photographers doing the pictures of the indoor cheesy smile type pictures and they see no value in it because they can do that themselves, and hey, I’m with you. Get your camera out and set the timer, because there is no reason to pay anyone for those pictures. Many photographers today are still producing the work they were 20, even 10 years ago when cameras and even digital cameras were harder to come by for the typical household, and because cameras are more affordable today, doing work that was done 10-20 years ago needs to change. As I mentioned above, I do not do this style of photography. I like to bring something different to the table. Why? Because it’s this that will be worth the money spent on pictures. Anything you buy, you buy it because it’s something different, edgy, ground breaking, or simply something that you cannot produce yourself. Chances are if you know plumbing, you aren’t going to pay a plumber to fix your sink. In the same aspect, if you want pictures if the family all dressed up and smiling at the camera, you aren’t going to pay a photographer to do this because you can do it yourself.
But what if this photographer can produce something more? What if they incorporate your family’s uniqueness into to the pictures? What if your photographer captures your children’s personalities of how they are at this moment in time so you can look back and remember your babies like they were? What if your photographer was able to get out of the studio to produce pictures with a unique backdrop that not many others will have? It would be these pictures that would be worth paying a photographer, and these are the questions that I ask myself at every shoot (although changed up a little to direct to myself) so that I can be certain I’m providing a unique service to each family.
Aside from all this, the absolute most important thing of family pictures is to have that memory printed on paper of your loved ones. Having those printed memories to remember a moment in time bring a smile to your face, whether it’s special location you went to, or the laughter of your kids, or the joke that was told, this is such a fun part of having pictures to remember those times, and this is the reason I feel a sense of sadness when I hear statements like the one above where the family hadn’t taken family pictures in over 10 years. Family pictures are so important, however like I mentioned above, I wanted to created a pricing model that made it super easy to receive your family pictures and make it affordable as well. Because pricing is subject to change, be sure to follow our facebook page, or head over the website to keep up with our pricing and any updates!
http://www.facebook.com/studio26photo
http://www.steffenharris.com
