Could I answer one email, show up and photograph you beautifully, and hand you digitals? Yes. So why do I have an entire process that takes weeks leading up to our session together? Why does it feel like I’m complicating something that could be so quick and easy?
Because quick and easy isn’t what you really want.
I don’t want to focus on why I don’t do “quick” sessions and just hand over a bunch of digitals.
I want to focus on why creating tangible, legacy art for my clients is completely engrained in me.
So much of our world is quick gratification. We wake up and immediately reach for our phones. We scroll mindlessly through social media and have become accustomed to that famous double-tap.
“When is the last time you posted a meaningful photograph to your social media and immediately thought about the next photo you would post?” No, really? Sit with this. Sit with how you felt after you posted in and the “likes” started rolling in. How did it feel the next day? Did you feel a little empty when people had stopped giving you that instant gratification?
“Would that photograph still be meaningful to you if no one else saw it?” Would it? If no one else was going to see, would you still take it? If you wouldn’t, what would happen to that memory 20 years from now? Would you remember?
“Do you have photographs of your parents, or you from childhood, that no one has ever seen, but they would be the first thing you grabbed in a fire?” Why are those the first thing you would grab? Why do those photographs hold so much meaning to you?
Folks, these are the questions I want people to ask themselves when we begin working together. I’m finished with the surface. I don’t want the surface. Yes, you will look amazing when I photograph you, but who the hell cares if that’s all you take from this? If that photograph were to live in an Instagram post on Tuesday and be forgotten about by Wednesday, who cares?
Why does any of this matter? Why do photographs of your children matter? Why do you want that family session where you involve your aging parents? Why do you care if your children have those photographs after you’re gone? Why do you, as a woman, want to stand in front of my camera stripped naked and vulnerable? Why? Why does any of it matter?
I ask on my inquiry form, “Please select your intention for your session.”
Why do you think I ask that? Because everything in life worth having starts with an intention.
I have two options to select from:
”I want to create art together” OR “I just want a quick session and a few prints”
You aren’t a bad person if you select the latter, it just means that we aren’t a good fit.
I strive to create art that makes my clients FEEL and LONG to live in those moments forever. I don’t want anything less because anything less would be a disservice to the people I photograph.
Could I answer one email, show up and photograph you beautifully, and hand you digitals? Yes.
But it’s not what you really want.
