Category Archives: Washington There’s something that’s been on my mind for quite some time now and I need to give it a voice. It’s the direction I see family (and wedding) photography going. Recently I came across a photo session of a little girls second birthday. Out of 30+ photos, only three had people in them. The rest… Hi Y’all, I’m back from Ghana and back on the grid. I really missed writing to y’all. Thanks much to Sandy for covering Thursdays and for being so supportive about my unexpected departure due to a death in the family. My husband Alex is half Ghanian and grew up there. We’ll be married 10 years… I love these pictures of Africa. Very cool. Thanks for sharing. I am glad you had fun on your trip. Thanks much @Life with Kaishon! I’m glad you liked them love these so much Christina! And the architecture of the building in the last photo – so rad!  Sadly our friend and mobile photography editor Christina Mallet is in Africa attending the funeral of her father-in-law, so we will not be having our usual Thursday Instagram feature. I know that you will join with me in wishing Christina and her family all the best during this sad time. Luckily however, we have these… These are beautiful Thank you so much for your kind words and featuring my images, studio-mate! Oh this is so GOR-GEOUS i’m in love with this series ! Congratulations !!! <3  I have spent the last few days trying to write something about these beautiful photos by Seattle photographer Heather Perera, but her work literally leaves me speechless. It is just perfection. Thank you so much for sharing with us Heather! And all of you Seattle people should know that Heather is graciously offering a 20%… Heather’s work is beyond phenomenal. I am totally enamored with her double exposures! Beautiful! Thanks ladies for featuring my work and especially for the lovely words. They were humbling to read. xoxo Wow! Really beautiful! Wow! Heather… these are deep. really deep. moving. beautiful. these are so unique and special, they capture the magic life that kids experience like nothing I’ve seen before. pure beauty!  Squares can pose a tricky composition problem. What goes in that square? What stays in and how can I to balance it all out, so that my image is not as boring as the shape it will sit in? When shooting square, I find the need to tweak the balance of what’s in my frame,… Beautiful photos, Meredith! Gorgeous photos of a beautiful girl taken by a wonderful lady! Great feature! |
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Cheers, Christina
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Jan - Beautifully written. I think Pinterest is dangerous grounds. Although I enjoy using Pinterest, I limit how I use it because I don’t want to fall into the trap of “this is what ______ is supposed to look like. It can be a very influential place where you suddenly feel as if you’re not up to par with whatever skill; cooking, party planning, house decorating. Life is messy. Life is not Pinterest, nor should it be.
Melissa Gray - this is beautiful, and so utterly true. my favorite photos of my kids and family are usually ones where nobody is even looking at the camera, when they are truly being themselves. thanks for reminding us that a perfect photo (in the eyes of a mom) is usually the one that is not perfect by a mile.
Alissa Teveldal - Thank you so much for this post! I was just discussing the other day how Pinterest is causing a stir in the photography world. More so even, I think that we as photographers need to recognize this and turn it around. Even in newborn photography it is starting to become all about the blankets, the little pants, the layers the colors. Where are the photos of what that precious little life looks with when they yawn? How they cuddle up to their mommy or daddy? The joy the parents feel when they look at the new life they created? I do both posed and candid sessions, and my favorites are always the unplanned, “captured” moments. Not the tediously planned positioning of baby, blankets, etc. Time for us to remember to come back down to earth
Great read.
Summer - Well said, Heather!!! I LOVED this post. When my children are grown and gone, I want my photographs to reveal who they were as children, not just what they looked like at certain ages. Photographs are the gateway to nostalgia, and I think Pinterest, social media, and other websites have contributed to this growing trend of creating faux realities that don’t resemble family life. Seriously, this was a thoughtful, well-written post. Loved it.
alex - Beautifully stated. I also got into photographer because I wanted memories of my children growing up. Of *them*. Yes, I take pictures of the rocks, the sticks, their feet, their toes. But I also want to see their smiles, their tears, their fierce looks of concentration when they’re trying to do something. I can always look back at a toy. I want to capture that joy, and have them look back at the picture and remember that moment. I’m tired of looking at pictures of things. I went into photographer to be a portrait and lifestyle photographer to look at children and people. not things. There’s a place and a time for that, but it’s not for me.
Lillian Spibey - Great post, and I completely agree. As a family/wedding photography myself, I try to catch the emotion/relationship of the people in the photograph, as my clients seem to value those photographs so much more than the stayed, posed photographs. I think in the end it comes to being relaxed in the situation, which leads your subjects to relax as well. Thanks Heather!
Lillie
Lillian Spibey Photography
Heather Perera - Thank you so much ladies! I am so grateful and encouraged with the response I’ve gotten with my words. xoxoxo
Anastacia - Though I don’t agree with the idea that Pinterest encourages people to look for perfection or to judge their own lives according to that standard (if someone is doing that, I’ll warrant they were already prone to it before social media came along), I do so completely agree with and love your emphasis on moments.
For a family reunion a couple years we ago, we hired a professional photographer and got the posed shots. It was lovely to have photos with everyone together (that hasn’t happen in a decade). However, when I saw them, I couldn’t help but wish that we had hired a photographer to come take candid shots of all of us gathered around my grandparents’ bar for cocktail hour – we have all spent many hours there as a family laughing and loving. And those are the moments I wish we had on film.
Melissa Stottmann - Aha moment… things I have thought but never brought to words… Powerful and true. We spend so much time on “THE PARTY” and “THE PICTURES” and not enough on the moment. Thanks Heather, you have a new fan!
Abra Alani - I love this thought, and completely agree with you. I have seen photos of friends and family taken by professional photographers, and thought to myself “they would never sit like that in real life!” They are beautifully done, and great photos, but not the people I know and love.
I recently attended and photographed a 2-year-old’s birthday party. I found that I wanted to catch and share those silly moments, like when the birthday boy had red frosting smeared all over his face, making him look more like a little zombie than a 2-year-old! In looking through my photos from that day I worried that the birthday boy’s mom wouldn’t be as happy with them as if I had stopped the action and posed everyone. But, when I gave her the disc (complete with zombies and dirt smears) she was thrilled!
I understand people wanting to have frame-able family portraits that show everyone as perfect angels, but I completely agree with you, it’s those zombie moments that they’ll miss when he’s older!