Lets face it, the majority of young men and adult men don't get real excited about getting their portraits taken. Snapshots are one thing, but going to a professional photographer, getting posed, having to smile, being told to look off into the distance looking forlorn just isn't their thing! But they do it, because their wife wants family portraits or they're going to be a Senior and their mom says they have to. So I try my hardest to make it painless, to make it kind of fun. I encourage them to have fun, be playful and I allow them to give me a hard time or roll their eyes at me.
I recently had Randy for his Senior Portraits. He plays baseball so his evenings are pretty busy and since mornings and evenings are best lighting a 7:45 am shoot was pretty early. After a few shots, Randy asked if he could take some with his sunglasses on. I don't usually like to take portraits with sunglasses because it hides the eyes and the eyes are one of the most important parts of a good portrait. I asked him "do you wear them a lot?" and he said "yes". I said "Is that you?" and he said "yes". So I said sure, as long as we do some with out because your mom wants to see your eyes. Mom joined us a little bit later and I told her what we had decided and said "You know, that really is him". So you will see below a little sunglasses action. I'm glad that Randy spoke up and I think that's important for clients to do, if something doesn't feel right then say something, if there's something you want, speak up! Be yourself!
I think Randy survived and we got some great shots. I did hear through the grapevine (mom) that the whole experience wasn't quite as painful as he was anticipating. So that's good! Thanks Randy for being such a great sport! ....and he had to do it again 2 weeks later for family portraits! You'll see those on the blog soon too!
