What matters is what they turn into. Something on your wall. Something your daughter can hold in her hands. Something still in the family long after all of us.
That part we do together. It is not an extra. It is simply how I work.
One. We talk.
Before anything is booked, we talk on Zoom. Not on the phone. I would rather see you.
It is an easy conversation. I want to understand what you are hoping for, and you should know how I work and what it costs before you decide anything. If it feels right, we put two dates in the diary: your session, and the appointment afterwards where we look at your photographs together.
Take as long as you like.
Two. We decide how it should look.
Closer to the day, we talk again. This one is about how you want it to feel.
What you love to wear, and what you would never put on. Light that is soft and pale, or deep and painted. Calm, or dramatic, or something closer to a painting.
You never have to figure it out alone. You will have a shortlist chosen around you, from my collection or from your own closet, so nothing is decided in a rush that morning.
Three. The session.
Two hours of shooting, in a studio in Hartford or at your home, whichever we chose. Hair and makeup, if you would like it, happens beforehand and takes its own time.
Nobody arrives knowing what to do with their hands, and it is not your job to. I tell you where to stand, where to look and what to do, the whole way through. The people who are sure they are bad at this usually end up in the best frames.
Four. We choose together.
About ten days later we sit down and look at your photographs properly for the first time.
This is my favourite part, and it is where I am most useful. We talk about where they should live. Which one belongs on the wall you walk past every morning. Which ones your children should be able to pick up and hold. Which belong in a book, so the whole story stays in one place.
I show you each one at its real size on a photograph of your own wall, so you never have to guess.
We are not really choosing prints. We are choosing what your family keeps.
Bring whoever is deciding with you. If you have children, leave them with someone if you can, so you can really look.
Five. They arrive.
Everything is made to order and comes to your door two or three weeks later.
Made properly, on paper that does not fade, so it outlasts every phone and every laptop you will ever own. These are the things your grandchildren will find one day, and be glad of.
WHAT YOU TAKE HOME
A collection. Your photographs, matted and boxed with your name on the lid, or bound into an album. Every photograph you choose comes with its digital file.
Wall portraits. Framed and ready to hang, on the wall your children will walk past every day for twenty years.
A film. Sixty to ninety seconds with the real sound of the day in it. Chosen before the session, because it adds a little filming time.
Do I get the digital files?
Yes, with every photograph you choose.
Why not just send me everything?
Because I have watched where that goes. The gallery gets downloaded, looked at a few times, and then it sits on a hard drive. Nothing is printed, and in ten years the phone has been replaced and nobody remembers the password.
It matters most with children. Your son will not go looking for himself in your cloud storage one day. He will find himself in the album you gave him, or on the wall he grew up walking past. That is where photographs actually survive.
Prices are on the investment page, and I go through all of it on the call before you book.