What to expect when you book a family photo session with me
Let’s talk about family portraits! I believe in taking the time to create a space that feels comfortable and fun. That means I don’t schedule sessions less than 30 minutes with my clients. Some people ask for mini sessions, but my mini session is 30 minutes. Here’s why:
30 minutes gives you time to ease into the session. I prefer one hour for more variety of spots to move around to photograph at, but I offer 30 minute sessions because that’s just the right amount of time for some families- that’s why I let you decide what works best for you and you can always ask me for guidance. Sometimes parking is hard, traffic is even harder, and getting out the door with kiddos is a whole process in itself! Rushing out of the car and being picture ready on demand can be stressful. I want to minimize any feelings of stress coming into the shoot.
Some children need a little warm up time (so do adults, and teens too). I find it easier to create a rapport when we get to chat a little bit beforehand and I get to know all the names of your family members, and just take a few moments to get a feeling of if I should be more high energy to keep the kids entertained, or if they need more of a calming presence if they might be more on the shy side or a little apprehensive about the session.
As a photographer- more time means more variety of shots and locations which means I have more time to let my creativity be my guide.
When I deliver your gallery, it’s not just a few photos of the “best” picture perfect shots. I want to tell the story of our time together and how your family interacts with each other. I include some silly photos, kids running around, hair wild blowing in the wind, candid moments, and photographs that showcase the personalities of your family as well as the beautiful scenery of the location you, or you and I pick out.
I guarantee at least 50 edited photos, but it’s usually a lot more than that! Not all 400-900 photos since from a client standpoint, that would be a lot of duplicates and harder to view your gallery, but I hand pick the ones I feel best represent and document our time together.
Let’s go over my editing process. First I backup all the images to an external hard drive and also to my computer. From there I cull/sort the photos. After that, I bring them into Adobe Lightroom and adjust the white balance, exposure, contrast, highlights, shadows, whites, blacks, texture, clarity, luminance, sharpness, vibrance, sometimes saturation, sometimes dehaze, and if there is something very distracting in the background I use AI to remove those elements. Sometimes I adjust the colors as well to highlight the blues of the ocean or the greens of the trees for example but I don’t like it to appear unnatural at all just enhanced. At times I will also use adjustment brushes to fine tune certain areas of the photo to make it pop.
I don’t typically change anything on someone’s face or body unless you specifically request that kind of retouching which is an additional fee depending on the request.
I’m here for you if you have any questions about any of my process! I am a one woman show, so you can rest assured that I will be the one who is taking your photos, editing them, delivering them, and handling all client interactions.
Looking forward to working with you!
