Portrait Photography is Personal
A portrait is a personal experience. It is one of the things I understand as a photographer and as a daughter. It breaks my heart to hear from friends that they don’t have a nice portrait of a parent. When I ask about what pictures they do have, most will acknowledge the pictures are from high school, a wedding or when they were sick. They tell me they regret not getting a professional portrait of a loved one.
Portrait Photography Showcases our Personality
What better time to capture one’s essence is in mid-career and raising a family. To document your life in your home, workplace or any environment you cherish through a professional portrait. It is something I tried with my family ten-years ago and I am so thankful I did.
Portraits are Our Legacies
My mom with her NYT crossword puzzle and clipboard that double as a grocery list. She was picking up ingredients to make sandwiches for the homeless. It is captures just about everything about her including the recyclable grocery bag.
Seven years before my mother passed, I spent a few days with my parents and their closest friends. I documented their day-to-day life. It was the first time my parents saw me working as a professional photographer. And I experienced their retirement life. I am glad that we shared this experience together. During the holidays, I mostly put the camera down. It was important for me to be present as a family member, and not be an outside observer with a camera.
However, it would be a shame as a photographer that I didn’t at some point document my family professionally through pictures and portraits. After much convincing, my mother allowed me to document their lives during a one-week assignment: traveling, entertaining and volunteering with their friends of 50-plus years. There was one moment I captured which everyone says, “that’s her! that is how I remember her!”
Mom with her best friends JoAnn, Pat and Ruth. It was the last time they were all together as a group.
So when the cancer diagnosis came seven years later, it was important for me to be present as a daughter. I no longer needed the camera. I had all the pictures I needed from that one-week assignment. It was time for a daughter to care for her mother.
Portraits are Places to Remember
It has been two-years since my mother died. I revisit these pictures once or twice a year to remember her legacy as she lived. Isn’t this how we all want to be remembered? How we lived, not how we died? That is one of the reasons why portraits are important. They continue your legacy for years to come.
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